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]

This new set sees them nailing their sound to tighter structures a little, but there’s still that delicious ill-discipline at work throughout. [Apr 2020, p.56]

Musically, it’s a perfect mix. It didn’t seem possible to top Roberts’s association with Amble Skuse and the great David McGuinness, but Völvur’s use of saxophone and fiddle, paired with Roberts’s deceptively relaxed picking, makes for a perfect, unpredictable setting. Nothing synthetic here. The word, if you want it, is syncretistic. [Sep 2021, p.57]

Orchestras must be the greatest album from a jazz composer since the glory days of Gil Evans. [Jun 2024, p.64]

Every Open Mike Eagle solo album reliably unfolds like a tear-stained indie comedydrama. Neighborhood Gods Unlimited is no exception. .... “I dropped the cellphone, and it got ran over”, he says on “OK But I’m The Phone Screen”, just one of several nice twee bops. [Aug 2025, p.62]

Their second album Vesper Sparrow explores the arrhythmic and atonal multilayered textures that underpin Ellis's soaring contemporary jazz saxophone. .... The closing "Evensong Part 4" is a celebration of disconnected, cycling, melodic instrumental chants, layered into a richly joyous texture, with a Sowetan jazz feel.

It's spiritual chamber music, mythopoetically encrusted, captivating and terrifying at the same time. [Sep 2014, p.55]

The synthetic sounds are more liquid and alive, the rhythms more nonchalantly funky, the unfolding narratives more gripping than previous work. [Dec 2012, p.64]

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]

It can feel as though one must push through multiple layers of cultural detritus – Linda Blair, David Cassidy, Kiss, The Brady Bunch, etc – to get to the music itself. In truth, these resonances add flavour and colour to Jeff and Steve McDonald’s exuberant power pop, assisted on this self-titled double album by drummer and producer Josh Klinghoffer.

At some point in the future Tyler, The Creator may define his ideology and grow tedious with it; for now he remains on top form revelling in ambiguity. [Sep 2017, p.62]

The result is often similar in sound to the classic Malian groups, but much gnarlier. ... The drumming is a pummelling, clattering hailstorm of toms and snares, thrashed out at heart attack tempos. It’s all-consuming, exhilarating and fearfully hard playing, and as a truly disorienting backdrop to a virtuoso band, it pushes Tal National’s music into the realm of the unique.[Mar 2018, p.51]

The album feels both of the original vintage in its occasional psychedelic trappings and, masterfully, altogether new. But, perhaps most importantly, it richly rewards repeat listens. It’s a dense record, but not an overly busy one, and different instruments bubble to the top with each run through. [Apr 2023, p.59]

The Pyramids may not be breaking new ground here, but Afro Futuristic Dreams is arguably the best thing the reunited group have created. [Nov 2023, p.46]

The result is a predictable major label mixed bag, overburdened with string arrangements and backing vocals. Even so, it’s an enjoyable album, with standout tracks like “Outubro”, a melancholic Nascimento original with vocals by the leaders; the plaintive “Morro Velho” featuring Orquestra Ouro Preto; and “Get It By Now”, a composition with a wonderful unexpected harmonic reversal. [Nov 2024, p.65]

We get the sense that everything has changed; life goes on despite this. Her lyrics carry the same sort of dull, resigned honesty, recognised all too well by those who have experienced profound loss. [Oct 2024, p.48]

Possibly the most daring record she's ever made... [but] Medulla is not a complete success. [#247, p.53]

Spalding has always been a prodigious talent, but it's by adopting the uninhibited persona of Emily that the 31 year old singer and bassist has found a truly distinctive voice. [Jun 2016, p.56]

Shygirl represents the very best of avant leaning contemporary UK pop on this generous seven track EP without a single dull moment. [Jan 2021, p.85]

The energy is impressive and it's hard to find technical fault but the stagnation is undeniable. [May 2012, p.73]

It was recorded the same year and it is a fierce final epistle. [Aug 2017, p.52]

Eton Alive is but another visceral and impetuous take on a grim political reality. [Mar 2019, p.58]

Cabral’s vocals, typically hushed, make Mazy Fly feel like a shared secret, its own world, and it’s thrilling to enter. [Apr 2019, p.62]

Thanks to Muldrow, these compositions now bump and swing to the blues of the day. [Sep 2020, p.47]

If takes on his own catalogue feel lazy on paper, it’d need a heart of stone to resist something like 1977’s “Materialist” which in this version is probably the dubbiest and most typically Sherwood moment on here. Most importantly, perhaps, that voice has lost none of its storied opulence. [Apr 2022, p.42]

Archangel Hill is a great album. As dearly as I love her early work, there’s something about Collins’s sound here that feels just right. [Jul 2023, p.50]

There is a sense of overwhelming resignation perhaps best summed up by “Shame” with its line “and god remained silent”. On “Tape” they proclaim, “Earth keeps the most vile things displayed” , their fight redirected towards gluttonous voyeurs. The previous track “Camcorder” ends with “Let’s watch it again”. [oct 2024, p.48]

Mikael Åkerfeldt’s death growls are back, as are the intricate sextuplet grooves familiar from Ghost Reveries – but the style is also restlessly omnivorous, deftly changeable between moments of brutal death metal, bucolic folk, orchestral segues, power balladry and the head-spinning melodic complexity of 1970s progressive rock. Recently recruited drummer Waltteri Väyrynen shines throughout. [Nov 2024, p.55]