Lipstate's ability to evoke surprising antecedents strengthens her music's universality. [Jan 2015, p.67]

They actually have something fresh to express. [Apr 2012, p.62]

Sol Invictus is a looser, more relaxed record than its predecessors, occasionally dropping into a lounge ballad mode that suits Patton's vocals. [Jun 2015, p.52]

They [Born On A Gangster Star and Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines] can be appreciated either together or apart from each other. [Aug 2017, p.58]

Marks a return to the kind of intricately interleaved rhythms, seamless progressions and aching harmonies that characterise their earlier sound. [#245, p.69]

Despite the dubious company he keeps, McMahon's ambient folk pop remains beguiling. [May 2014, p.70]

Sonic Citadel is a showcase for titanic, incisive riffs, gnarly yet immediate, accessible. [Oct 2019, p.56]

Uniquely for Martin’s music, In Blue isn’t dominated by its low end – it’s the precise absence of warmth, the way Chen’s heavily echoed vocals swim in among the grainy textures and hypnotically simple melodies (so much of this recalls the dankest 1990s hiphop in vibe and directness), that makes the set so compelling, a perfect soundtrack to derailment and decay. [Jan 2021, p.70]

Moving between diverse musical contexts, with self-assurance yet also unflagging inquisitiveness, open to the unexpected even within the familiar contours of Ruby My Dear or ’Round Midnight, Smith continues to renew and transcend his legacy. [Dec 2017, p.58]

It’s an impressive whole, even if a few of the individual parts don’t hold up to scrutiny. [Jul 2021, p.70]

It evokes so many emotions in a single track, and wrestling with its bittersweetness affects you in the gut. [Apr 2012, p.67]

They [Born On A Gangster Star and Quazarz Vs The Jealous Machines] can be appreciated either together or apart from each other. [Aug 2017, p.58]

Volume X [is] their best album since 200's The Red Line. [May 2014, p.70]

His bringing the audience in to the creative process only intensifies its authenticity and demonstrates his desire to emulate the endeavours of his family, his own version of working in a team that shares the labour of shifting piles of dirt and stone, or raising the foundations of a new building. [Dec 2021, p.58]

Lamentations is a gently devastating and cathartic listening experience. [Nov 20, p.54]

This miscellanea contains premonitions of Pylon’s future greatness and fills in the gaps of a catalogue overdue for reassessment. [Jan 2021, p.94]

A set of songs syruped in late 1960s and early 70s pop and rock nostalgia, yet still manage to sound unique. [Sep 2023, p.64]

The highlights are many, making the hour of its running time pass effortlessly. [Jul 2021, p.70]

Demilitarize was created in the wake of near-fatal illness – latent tuberculosis triggered by a brush with Covid – and is deeply reflective and personal. [Jul 2025, p.53]

An air of devotion does indeed hover over this music, filtering through the stately intonation of Anima Brass and the a cappella singing of The Macadam Ensemble, as well as the quiet concentration of Malone’s own playing. Yet it emanates not from the rarefied air of religious sentiment, but from the composer’s passionate dedication to sound itself, and her respect for its potential capacity to realise, as the title of the concluding piece puts it, “The Unification Of Inner & Outer Life”. [Mar 2024, p.50]

Perpetual Now has tangential relationships to house, techno, dub, ambient and psychedelic minimalism, but manages to plot a coherent and personal path between them all, with each of its four long tracks given space to breathe and expand. [Dec 2022, p.66]

An album whose sustained brilliance reveals both an artist liberated from the need to try too hard, and finally armed with more to express than sarcastic teenage angst. [Jun 2015, p.55]

The Kadanes have created a collection of songs of which they can be proud. [#246, p.62]

Pussycat is as excoriating and pitiless as anything Jenny Hval has produced to date and just as unflinching in its analysis of gender politics (the Wire-ish “Sex Machine” manages to be funny, poignant and upsetting) plus Hatfield cranks out some cathartic Ragged Glory solos (which could easily go on for twice as long as they do) and proves herself a fearlessly uninhibited vocal stylist to boot. Good work. [Aug 2017, p.61]

The pleasures of Reachy Prints are deceptively complicated, and it's another masterclass in how lightness needn't be thin or naive. [May 2014, p.72]

Each listen evokes a different feeling. At times there is a feeling of contentedness. [Oct 2019, p.55]

As its title implies, Dark Times is a total bummer, but it’s a sumptuous bummer – warm, bluesy, funky. [Aug 2024, p.58]

He introduces a dirty P-funk bassline to an endless whorl of hi-hats and swelling chords on “Ocean 1”, sounding tougher and sexier than ever, and the album’s middle section lays out long, uninterrupted trails of conga drums and Latin jazz piano, reaching a radiant crescendo on the title track. [Sep 2020, p.62]

Although this record is Rhys’s most polished to date, he does squeeze in moments of strangeness – subtle and paired down, bubbling beneath lush production and melodic arrangements. [Mar 2024, p.52]

There's an appealing openness and lack of guile to much of Sign. [#215, p.66]

Bringing further gravitas and grace to mundanity, he continues in the business of poetically detailing everyman strife and significant moments. [Oct 2019, p.50]

A hushed treasure. [Jan 2015, p.71]

The guitar duels still give plenty of heat and smoke, but they're more smouldering and linear than Comets' intemperate explosions. [Mar 2016, p.46]

The eight pieces here function as a drummer’s showcase, certainly, but Contact’s wilful limitations conceal an eclectic approach. ... Time spent immersed in Contact will reap reward. [May 2020, p.52]

He cites Frank Sinatra and Disney soundtracks as influences, and creates gorgeous music that paired with the vibrant visuals, disguises the horror within the film itself. [Sep 2019, p.56]

Balancing the 31 minute title song is “Heart And Soul” – another surprise, in that it’s contemplative and piano based, written by former bassist Derek Spaldo, who, for geographical reasons, has largely taken his leave of the band to make way for Andy Cush. It’s the epic title track that carries the whole thing though, making One Step Behind another step beyond for these Peoples. [Oct 2019, p.52]

All the ingredients required are present: sonic invention, surprise, risk taking, fun and adventure. [Mar 2024, p.56]

Almost overpowering in its anthemic positivity, Constant Future is unfashionably fearless, and all the better for it. [Apr 2011, p.58]

Earth may no longer startle, but against the odds Carlson survives, and this engaging dignified music is both testament and soundtrack to that survival. [Feb 2011, p.50]

Glover’s voice is intimate and unguarded, as if every song were being run down for friends, but it’s hard to imagine them sung in any other way, without losing the burr of nostalgia suffusing them. [Dec 2021, p.58]

Nothing here sounds forced, and Bailiff's continued use of effects doesn't so much obscure as communicate the heartfelt content of her songs more effectively. [Nov 2012, p.70]

Channeling her raw, unflinching energy with the help of a host of collaborators, the album incorporates rap, live instrumentation and a range of bpms, murmurs and screams, forming an aural documentary of sorts. [Jul 2025, p.53]

Thankfully, Underneath The Pine burns brightly at both ends. [Feb 2011, p.51]

This album is not about re-using their old sounds. Most of the tracks offer something different and work well to complement the story being told. [Sep 2019, p.54]

A total blast from start to finish. [Dec 2021, p.59]

Effervescent retro fun with a core of righteousness. [Nov 2013, p.66]

Their second album offers something new and exciting. Their music is intricate and complex but also intense and fierce with bold, contrasting sections. [Aug 2021, p.55]

It is an utterly twisted delight. [Feb 2012, p.68]

The resulting blast of raw energy successfully sucks the air out of the room to leave a hard rock sound that has been stripped to the bone – in a studio performance that deserves to be lauded as the UK equivalent of The Stooges’ Metallic KO aftershock. [Jul 2025, p.61]

A terrifically engaging collage of incompletion and one of the most blazing returns of 2021. [Dec 2021, p.59]

Will To Be Well has a vivid inner life. [Aug 2014, p.49]

The sound sources themselves are not of intrinsic importance – it’s what the musicians do with them that matters – but in opening up these questions, these wonderings, Under~Between does much to create its imaginative worlds. [Apr 2021, p.51]

With mute on, Smith can project a tender fragility through a single lingering note, reminiscent of Miles at his most thoughtful and noirish circa Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud. Smith's more strident statements convey an emotional rawness. [Apr 2016, p.65]

Banned is brimming with great ideas and fascinating sound – moments of gorgeous melodicism and soulful playing, all dressed in vivid sonic poetry. Lightman and Jarvis’s voices blend, stack and play off each other beautifully. [Aug 2021, p.58]

Propelled along by Berthling’s beefy basslines and Werliin’s clockwork precise percussive taps and beats, the fine details of the group’s sound emerge from Ambarchi’s dextrous and chameleonic guitar flourishes. [Jul 2024, p.46]

Whatever your take on Tibetan Buddhism, this is done with powerful sincerity and musical sensibility. The Albanian born Kodheli in particular does a remarkable job, and I defy anyone to listen to Anderson’s voice for an hour and not become a better person. [Oct 2019, p.48]

Diggin’ In The Carts is the most inventive video game music compilation in living memory. [Dec 2017, p.67]

This may be a mini-album, but it's so well turned, so successful in completing what it sets out to achieve that, far from marking time in his discography, it could end up being one of his key releases. [May 2008, p.55]

A poised and playful opus of 11 tracks dominated byt the sound of maxed-out 1980s 8-bit videogame soundtracks zapped 300 years into the future. [Mar 2016, p.47]

By no means a vintage JJ Cale record, but one with much to enjoy and a fresh chance to hear his songs as he originally heard them. [May 2019, p.48]

The reason it all works is because with repetition and familiarity comes discipline and rigour--and Wire still have a lively and open relationship with both of them. [Feb 2011, p.57]

Strange and seductive. [Oct 2024, p.48]

Fans will find things to love here, I’m sure. But Savage Young Dü won’t be making any converts. [Dec 2017, p.69]

Transcending its function as a score, this music works as a collection of instrumental vignettes, individual yet circular in structure. [Nov 2011, p.64]

Despite the unorthodox weaving of disparate threads of material in evidence, there is harmony and majesty here, commensurate with the awe-inspiring scale of Inarritu's film. [Mar 2016, p.48]

The End Of Radio’s cache of 1994 and 2004 John Peel sessions admirably bucks expectations even as it serves up multiple reminders that Shellac are a crack live unit equipped with airtight panic room ragers. And while singer/guitarist Albini takes care to toast BBC DJ Peel, who died weeks prior to the 2004 sessions, the charge here lies in hearing Albini, drummer Todd Trainer and bassist Bob Weston improve upon and deviate from the studio recordings. [Sep 2019, p.62]

This is music for pleasure now. [Mar 2016, p.49]

Pioulard's work is a remarkably effortless cohabitation between bedroom electronics and wistful songwriting. [Dec 2008, p.64]

Finland's anti-band continue their primal journey along intergalactic motorik highways, shifting toward more popular dimensions but without losing any intensity, energy or theatrics. [Mar 2016, p.55]

Confident and resourceful, All Time Present feels more open than its predecessor. [May 2019, p.54

Founding Melvins members Buzz Osborne and Mike Dillard join forces with electronic musicians Void Maines and Ni Maîtres (aka Gareth Turner) for a lively and experimental session. Both guests are let loose on “Vomit Of Clarity” where, by way of introduction, they squeeze out an involved synthesized sound collage – an effectively intriguing interval to herald in the main event. [Jul 2025, p.61]

“Working The Ditch” and “Smiler” sound like they could come from the same sessions as Melvins’ 1993 major label debut Houdini. But there are atypical twists in “She’s Got Weird Arms”, whose new wave-ish verses are broken up by cascades of bug-eyed dissonance and “Allergic To Food”, which reminds this listener of “Forkboy” by Al Jourgensen and Jello Biafra’s side-project Lard with the tempo lowered to mid. [May 2024, p.50]

A slice of otherworldly frolics that does both of its inspirations credit. [Dec 2021, p.61]

The sheer density of stylistic markers here is perhaps most representative of the nature of Iglooghost’s production, the album being immersed in the chaos of skittering beats and cut-ups with vivid synth lines that twist, crack and inflate in dazzling clusters. [Oct 2017, p.55]

With his propensity for collaboration across disciplines, Coates blends classical training with an ear for invention. [Nov 2020, p.55]

Undoubtedly Revelator will be lapped up by Elucid aficionados, but equally this may be the album that compels the wider world to pay attention. [Oct 2024, p.52]

Post Self is an extreme, and extremely good, record, as moving as it is troubling. [Jan 2018, p.69]

Funky Nothingness is, in any case, an enjoyable addition to his extensive discography. It may not disclose some previously hidden dimension, or even pursue the experimentation with overdubbing that gave Hot Rats its particular character, but Zappa’s sheer love for music and the playing of it, the insatiable essence of his artistic libido, oozes from the grooves. [Aug 2023, p.74]

The music works on its own--laser-sharp, energetic and gloriously fun. [Mar 2016, p.55]

While unconventional, the pairing is astute. [May 2019, p.55]

Callaghan has served up an album that, interestingly for his fractured vocals and streaming lyrics, is unusually coherent. [#230, p.61]

Hobo Sapiens is a confident and consistently rewarding record, and some of its songs rank alongside Cale's best. [#236, p.56]

Zola Jesus is back to her dark roots, but enriched by intense layers of experience. [Oct 2017, p.55]

As hinted at by the title of its opening piece “Cliffwalk” the album’s forays into new sound worlds suggest Williams is poised on the edge of a fresh chapter, testing newfound powers. [Nov 2024, p.

This playfulness – which tends to be overshadowed by Hendricks’s LOUD persona – continues to be one of the most rewarding aspects of listening to a JPEGMAFIA album. [Oct 2024, p.53]

It's a beguilingly well-delivered statement in a dialect that was sidelined in favor of the cult of bass or the florescent synths. [Dec 2011, p.53]

Empath is extreme in ways that extend beyond aggression or distortion. It’s melodic to the point of overload, layered to the point of obsessiveness. Conventions are disrupted in unexpected ways. ... Which is ugly to you? Which is beautiful? Townsend’s music urges both a thoughtful re-examination of these criteria and a long overdue redefinition of sonic extremity. [May 2019, p.56]

In isolation, no individual song is particularly memorable but together they add up to a musical vision you just can't ignore. [#215, p.52]

There's an ineffable quality to No Joy's music that truly works. [Dec 2010, p.51]

While The Daisy Age won’t hold many surprises for diehard hiphop fans, the collection is well curated. [Dec 2019, p.64]

To say the album is all over the place musically is both understatement and compliment. .... No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin is revolutionary fire music – but it’s also a celebration, a party held in honour of a man who did so much, expecting nothing in return. [Oct 2024, p.57]

Season Of Earth is music rooted deep in the black, black earth and whose only limit is the blue, blue sky. [Oct 2011, p.50]

With co-producer Andrew Lappin and an army of 20 musicians who contributed to various tracks in tow, she has produced a record that flexes its knowing complexity and retains a sense of experimental pop curiosity throughout. [Aug 2021, p.59]

It’s rich fare and authentically live-sounding. [Sep 2021, p.50]

Banhart mixes a relaxed bearing and a tense vocal delivery in a fascinating manner. [#245, p.51]

The detail and artistry of Take Me Apart more than justify the wait. [Oct 2017, p.56]

Female defiance and desire in a glossy, dystopic package. [Jan 2018, p.77]

Th art here is ensuring that too much is in fact just enough, and Rustie is a master of it. [Oct 2011, p.51]