She’s not one to let ideology or commercial realities kill her sense of uninhibited playfulness. So the scorching “Balloons” with her withering take on white fans buying Black trauma is followed by the flirtatious “Boomboom”, buoyed by the same hunger, the whole even more than the sum of its individually magnificent parts.

Afrikan Alien consolidates renewed supremacy with casual swagger, epic statements like “Afrikan Di Alien” and “YGF” sandwich more routine slices of virtuosity from the flex of “Big Smile” to the earnest romance of “Round & Round”, normality victorious against a hostile world. Strutting victorious on “Ya Zee”, he’s aspirational, iconic. .... He’s still in a league of his own. [Jan/Feb 2025, p.97]

The material from Antibes and Paris is similar – standards, plus modal compositions such as “So What” and “All Blues” that first appeared on Kind Of Blue. The difference – and it’s huge – lies in the freedom with which these are explored. This excellent set brings out that difference in all its aspects. [Jan/Feb 2025, p.102]

If you value surehandedness, richness, immaculate timing and the occasional tilted eyebrow then there's a lot to enjoy on Tortoise's most assured set to date. [#204, p.65]

Timeless and considered, Lives Outgrown is a complete, but still complicated, portrait of the intersection of grief and life. [Jun 2024, p.50]

A conceptually intriguing and emotionally powerful masterpiece based around the antihero of the title. [Feb 2016, p.59]

This album is a stunning, multivalent piece of artistry that hits an anxious and weary world like a light-bearing gift. Remain In Light is one of the most fascinating albums in rock history, and Angélique Kidjo may have just released the definitive version. [Aug 2018, p.56]

Riveting. .... The lucidity behind every message on My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross is arresting, as it is drawing from a well of pure emotion that can be comprehended in full. [Jul 2023, p.48]

Possibly their best.... Brave, bleak yet compassionate. [#225, p.77]

EBM equals R Plus Seven. [Sep 2013, p.49]

It feels distasteful to rate so powerful, so raw an album in any aesthetic terms and yet it brilliantly, blackly, radiates life. Skeleton Tree is a work of mourning, yes; a work of reverie, yes; and also an immensely moving attempt to reach out of blackness towards life. [Nov 2016, p.65]

At this moment, Bad As Me might be his best ever. [Nov 2011, p.68]

Throw in an evocative, anthemically chanted lyrical snapshot, some cryptic tales and a blues rock cover and almost every successful Fall trick familiar from the last two decades is also deployed. All of which amounts to a vital late period masterpice. [June 2008, p.47]

After four decades, the album's concentrated blend of brutalism and intricacy, fluidity and fracture, sound as uncompromising as ever. [Nov 2011, p.69]

Stands as a monument to punk rock action at its most intelligent. [#236, p.60]

This is his second essential album of 2012. [Sep 2012, p.70]

A less deranged response to celebrity than Kanye West’s Yeezus, more imaginative than Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP or Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, it shares with the former an economy of form, and with the latter two the giddy energy of an artist coming into perfect sync with their audience. It’s also a sumptuous sounding pop record, polite streamlined mass market psychedelia. [Jun 2017, p.64]

The laser focus evenly applied to songs from the upcoming album (Grant Hart's heart-wrenching "Don't Want To Know If You're Lonely" and "Sorry Somehow") and older material makes it apparent why Hüsker Dü were the first US punk band to make that historic leap into the mainstream. To catch an earful of them in a live setting after that dicey dive is truly an illuminating experience. [Dec 2025, p.68]

This is an archive of surprises. And one of the surprises of the year. [#220, p.50]

There may only be nine tracks here, but it’s like there are worlds upon worlds to explore; Strom had a knack for making every note feel special. [Feb 2021, p.55]

Given her capacity to align reinvention with a developing maturity, the 13 lucky songs of Stories deliver a complex text. It is certainly less frenetic, as if Harvey is finding new ways to exert her presence. In addition, its thoughtful spaces and pauses suggest room for doubt and manoeuvre. [#202, p.49]

The trio crowbar open new fissures in metal’s ever-shifting tectonic plates with five astonishingly powerful songs, each imbued with its own magic and mystery. [Jun 2021, p.54]

async is an exceptionally beautiful record, in the way that maths is beautiful, quite free of rhetoric or ‘effects’. Its coherence of tonality and timbre gives it the feel of an imaginary soundtrack and yet each track has its own internal logic and direction which means that it never sounds like a grab-bag of musical supervisor’s cues but like a proper album of songs. [Jun 2017, p.70]

The songwriting and lyricism are strong, but her storied voice elevates the album and invests it with a depth and serenity that few can match. [Jan 2019, p.64]

While Steinski's work with DeFranco aka Double Dee, is the most dazzling--precisely because it avoids the pitfalls of run of the mill culture jamming and guerrilla media tactics--Steinski's solo tracks certainly have their own pleasures, even if they are more straightforwardly textural than his collabotation with Double Dee. [June 2008, p.57]

It's exhilarating and rare to hear such bruised raw performances as these. [#242, p.71]

This is a rare gem of an album that projects Kacy and Clayton into the category of all time great folk duos. [Jun 2016, p.50]

Despite the obvious post-production touches and curation, the outtakes from 20 minute studio improv sessions featured across the four pieces feel authentically extemporaneous and evolve organically, akin to a late night jam between friends. ... “Bloodstream” provides the stunning album with a fittingly grandiose ending by digging into a psalm-like recital full of solemn organ, voluminous textures, invigorating fanfares and rumbling spectral melodies. [Feb 2023, p.52]