Double Negative stands alongside Yo La Tengo’s There’s A Riot Going On as a painfully honest expression of what it’s like to live in a post-truth country and have to call it your own. [Oct 2018, p.58]

The focus is on the uniqueness of their music (check out the Deep Purple inspired organ solo on “Forest Dweller”) which infuses progressive song structures with foundational black metal’s penchant for folk melodies and historical narratives. [Jul 2023, p.62]

Wet Tuna always sound as if they’re trying to escape the constraints of product and profit. “Disco Bev” is delightfully sour and affectionate, “Sacagawea” more expansive and produced sounding, but it all hangs together brilliantly, even as it falls (dis)gracefully apart. [Oct 2019, p.52]

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]

Unsurprisingly, Badu’s is the least pretentious, the least bogged down in gushing musical detail; it’s also the most politically woke and personally reflective. It is perhaps the most in tune with Fela’s own unique worldview, with eternal struggle as a way of life. [Feb 2018, p.65]

The album cuts across a plethora of genres, refusing to be static. “La Vacanza” and “Sublime” completely submerge you into this dream state, slowing down, giving a reprieve from the increasing intensity. [Sep 2023, p.56]

The results are at times brazenly brilliant. [Mar 2013, p.65]

Oddisee is a hyper-eloquent, charismatic rapper, and this album is buoyed with lyrical wit and lush instrumentation. [Jul 2015, p.57]

Iconoclasts finds von Hausswolff at her most unabashedly accessible and soulful. [Jan/Feb 2026, p.86]

The sum is Ocean’s most thorough reading of his world to date. [Oct 2016, p.65]

Avalon Emerson & The Charm will find favour with anyone into Cocteau Twins, dreamy bedroom synthpop and anything Balearic. “Entombed In Ice” feels nostalgic but fresh, Emerson’s vocals floating effortlessly overhead. [Jul 2023, p.63]

It may look wildly out of control but closer inspection reveals the symmetry and order that supported the garden’s historical design. [Nov 2017, p.53]

Whether K Bay is progressive rock or not, White hooks you in with his big warm voice and big tunes, and then goes weird on you in such a strong way that he can’t really be asked to leave. [Aug 2021, p.55]

The album is imbued with the expectant, febrile energy that comes with having forged ahead into unknown spaces with out the means or desire to backpedal. [Jul 2015, p.58]

Body is a sound sculpture that cares less for internal time than for the cerebral pleasures of long duration. [Oct 2018, p.60]

Where as The Notwist traffic in mellow tempos and beautifully seamless surfaces, Dose and Jel conjure all manner of conniption ta[s and noise. [Jul 2011, p.62]

Like all the music collected on Off The Record, "Lake Shore Drive Five" serves as a testament to McCraven and his band's ability to make improvisation sound focused and intentional, even as they take us on an unexpected journey. [Jan/Feb 2026, p.88]

The result is an enriched soundworld, more ambitious than her much discussed debut, Tragedy. [Aug 2013, p.53]

Most of SremmLife II’s successes are confined to its front half, but the brothers have a strong enough pop sensibility to reward your attention even when they’re on autopilot. [Oct 2016, p.65]

This EP, the first in a projected triptych, shows the group in their best light. [Nov 2008, p.74]

With Return To Archive, the balance is just right – this gets nearer to sound art. [Nov 2023, p.52]

Here as elsewhere, Hval manages to perfectly combine an eerie, folkish, ethereal pitch that even veers on yodelling at times, as if summoning an army of hidden folk, with an earthly sensuality that speaks of all kinds of lust, particularly the kinds that hint at lengthy afternoons in obscure cabins. [Jun 2018, p.58]

Pig Destroyer explore transgression on their sixth album by creating a new narrative that begs for more careful introspection about who we are and the world we live in. [Oct 2018, p.60]

Children's voices soften and lift the sound, not with nostalgia but with unvarnished purity. Even the darkest tracks have this sense of movement: "Endgames" trudges on a low, stubborn pulse until bowed strings and harp flourishes nudge it into tentative radiance. The album becomes a procession, carrying its own weight into a brighter place. [Jan/Feb 2026, p.88]

The production, courtesy of DJ Dahi, No ID and James Blake, spirals outward from the world this Long Beach native’s peers inhabit and into satisfyingly experimental territory. [Oct 2016, p.65]

Even the occasional instances of hypergloss cinematic texture and vaporwave mannerisms have their place, glueing together spikes of noise, luscious organ reverberations and feverish glitch pulses into a synthetic yet intensely human whole. [Aug 2022, p.50]

A striking collection of shadowy electronic soul. [Nov 2023, p.62]

It’s smooth and contemplative at times, punctuated by cinematic ruptures and ambient textures that trail behind El Shazly’s elastic vocal phrasing. Her voice, processed and layered with care, frequently emerges as the central narrative device and quickly slips between intimacy and distance. [Jun 2025, p.58]