As a whole, Goons Be Gone feels strangely anachronistic, but not nostalgic. Retrieved from the heyday of punk rock, but with a lot of its own to say. [Jun 2020, p.59]

The record works best however when Leandoer wears his heart unashamedly on his sleeve.

Where Spectrum was full of empty (head) space, All Things Being Equal is flooded with warm, luxuriant modular texture, across its bandwidth. [Jun 2020, p.56]

1988 is full of these striking juxtapositions, placing tales of hustling and gunplay in smoothed out, soulful musical beds. [Jun 2020, p.50]

With their reverent, celebratory tone, tracks like “Naked (You Enter & Leave This World With Nothing)”, “I Will Follow You For Life, Everywhere” and “We Must Grieve Together” speak to the music’s function as an integral part of a community’s healing process. Sung together in deep harmony and pulling their inspiration from a source too powerful and mysterious for words, fra fra’s funeral songs offer a glimpse into how the people of this particular corner of West Africa deal with the pain, uncertainty and finality of death. [Jun 2020, p.49]

For Schofield, the word scrambler symbolises both a sort of opiate and a happy place from childhood, so the music highlights this dichotomy by fusing danger and warmth into an irresistible oxymoron. A sensation of the world ending while we carry on dancing. [Apr 2020, p.51]

Whether the listener feels it succeeds will depend on their willingness to accept its surface passivity. ... Shall We Go On Sinning is most persuasive on the second side. [May 2020, p.60]

There’s a kind of manic, excessive inventiveness here, as if the song needs just one more bridge or a doubling of the refrain to sustain its ideas. Yet on closer inspection they are often internally samey. [May 2020, p.53]

Apart from a few works for chamber instruments, which have a similar pleasing air of fakeness to Michael Nyman’s faux baroque cues for Peter Greenaway, these sketches all have uncertain origins and textures. [May 2020, p.66]

Strike a rich vein of form. ... This record lacks a stated motif, but finds the musician digging into the American primitive style (which has often been at least in the orbit of his playing) more keenly than before. “Celerity”, “Enville” and “Vellum”, deft instrumentals all, sit ably in Fahey/Basho territory. [Apr 2020, p.50]

As Jackie Lynn, Fohr’s voice still occupies center stage, but it does so within synthesized set pieces crafted for her to inhabit. Like a hotel decked out with themed rooms, each song on Jacqueline has its own fine-tuned palette and nostalgia-tinged lighting scheme. [Apr 2020, p.49]

The too brief, purely instrumental “Sensational” is the best track, with suggestions of Weather Report’s jazz rock expansiveness. But the general impression is gimmicky and lightweight – effects without causes. [May 2020, p.66]

Filled with ghosts; confessions; jokes; an abundance of Jay-Z features and a prodigal son offering explanations for his disappearance and return. [May 2020, p.65]

The production is flawless. ... But the obvious big tunes fall flat.

It Is What It Is is a fitting ethos for an artist whose genre-twisting tendrils have extended themselves into the highest reaches of the pop canopy, simultaneously flexing their deep funk and jazz roots. [May 2020, p.62]

For those who appreciated the rigour of old, the new album might offer a challenge due to its lyrical sentiments and a base literalism that might be ironic. [May 2020, p.60]

Such excursions don’t amount to the group reinventing their personal wheel, but at just over an hour, this album is about the length of an average Necks performance, and at least as exploratory. [May 2020, p.58]

It’s hard to believe this is the same band who bowed out with Ghost Stories. There they sounded uptight and reticent; here they are restless and free. The creative rebirth continues. Where to next? [May 2020, p.55]

There’s no stridency, special pleading or chewing of scenery, just gentle enactments. This is what folk music used to do before Volk became toxic. Malkmus represents his characters via traditional techniques. [May 2020, p.54]

Surprisingly, it works and doesn’t come apart, punctuating a conceptually striking, musically flawed, but altogether enjoyable record. [May 2020, p.53]

What makes Knuckleball Express slightly different from previous Hex albums is that the songs seem slightly straighter, though it’s a matter of moments before the apple cart is upset and a whole packet of noodles is scattered over the mix. [May 2020, p.52]

The band’s template has barely changed over those years but that isn’t to suggest a lack of artistic growth. “How Deep It Goes”, the opening track from their tenth album Let It All In, is a prime example of their peculiar progression as it exudes the reassuring warmth of California songsmiths of yesteryear yet still somehow manages to wedge a wash of icy interplay between Huemann’s guitar and Matthew Pierce’s synths smack dab in the middle of the track. [May 2020, p.48]

Producer Gary Odlum builds an atmospheric, sunset glow version of the Tuareg sound that rolls and chugs with every conventional element in place, but has a widescreen stadium swagger few other groups have mastered. [Apr 2020]

Knowing the emotional background behind its recording makes it unbearably poignant but this crackly, lambently textured mix of treated piano, longwave static and vocals would move anyone who had a heart. Sublime art from horrible circumstances and Craig’s best work to date. [Apr 2020]

Rose Golden Doorways sits somewhere between grindcore and raga. Created in a consecrated place – a church in Stoke Newington lends volume and reverb – it moves relentlessly forward, a continuous 38 minutes that reaches an apogee with the alien blast of “Those Among Us”. [Apr. 2020, p.59]

If there’s a criticism, the album is a bit samey: virtuoso drum intro, declamatory trumpet, modest group support. The formula becomes ever more predictable with each return, but Allen and Masekela are irresistibly listenable almost irrespective of what they are playing and Rejoice is a very special opportunity to hear two masters who’ve orbited at a distance coming together. [Apr 2020, p.48]

It’s as stunning and vibrant a set of agitpop brilliance as Conn has ever produced. If he’s ever moved you, move to this. [Apr 2020, p.64]

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]