The Sisypheans is a work of personal reinvention that succeeds in open-armed, accessible fashion. [Dec 2019, p.56]

It’s tempting to call these outtakes but their vision is sharp and purposeful, sustained by a consistently monolithic interplay and helped by Steve Albini’s signature traits. It all makes Pyroclasts one of Sunn O)))’s heaviest and most penetrating albums. [Dec 2019, p.55]

Their pop is the sharpest it’s ever been. [Dec 2019, p.53]

It’s definitely a mixed bag, but pays off with “The Dawn” in which Lipstate’s guitar exhales in tandem with a spoken admission of small hours frailty. [Dec 2019, p.53]

Nelson used to use his voice to give focus to soundscapes; now they are means to express some uneasy feelings about country and relationships in the 21st century. [Dec 2019, p.52]

Sounding at times as though someone had isolated the synth track from a classic Hawkwind record, the music here is familiar and invites associations. ... Regardless, On A Clear Day is a pleasant affair.

Unsurprisingly the mood is melancholy and the louche, theatrical sexuality or carnal drama of earlier albums is replaced by a battered and searching tone, striving to make sense, or failing that, some poetry or beauty out of the tragedy. The narratives take on a less devilish tone here. [Nov 2019, p.46]

Released on their freshly launched record label Keck, Giant Swan is a front-loaded beast. ... The second half of the record loses momentum, danceable rhythms outweighed by slow motion drones and jagged noise

A return to form, of sorts. Shifting from the dappled sunshine warmth of the psychedelically swamped “Away From You” to the black stoner sludge orgy that is “Shadow Of Skull”, the direction guiding LφVE & EVφL twists and turns like a bucketful of electric eels. [Dec 2019, p.43]

This album explores that idea of opposites attracting and co-existing within one entity. It’s also a powerful, confident pop record tooled up to compete with the heaviest hitters (Paul White’s production is key, as it has been for Danny Brown and Charli XCX) while occupying its own uniquely ambivalent and querulous space. [Nov 2019, p.60]

Heavy, expressive and uncompromising, both Wrecked and Analog Fluids Of Black Holes gesture at fresh, purposeful possibilities for noise and experimental music. [Nov 2019, p.49]

Heavy, expressive and uncompromising, both Wrecked and Analog Fluids Of Black Holes gesture at fresh, purposeful possibilities for noise and experimental music. [Nov 2019, p.49]

The sonic diversity and range of Magdalene is a marked departure from the breathy triphop of LP1, yet a thematic trajectory is clearly traced from the suggestive sensuality of the first to the combative provocation of its follow-up named after a defamed biblical figure. [Nov 2019, p.54]

It’s not just that this set feels way more focused and streamlined than the debut; the band have also been sharpened up by incessant live work to the point where Lally and Canty are murderously diamond-tight, and Pirog is flat-out incredible, encouraged by the sheer precision of what backs him to fly into some gloriously discordant fuzzed-up psych and post-punk abrasion. [Nov 2019, p.56]

The musical quality is high, and it’s unusual among the saxophonist’s post-1959 studio recordings in reprising earlier compositions – he mostly featured new material. Coltrane’s rather unvarying dynamic level makes him a less effective film composer than his former employer Miles Davis, with his dramatic mastery – but Trane can’t be blamed for not fitting his music to the action, given that he had little idea what that would be. [Nov 2019, p.69]

It blends jazz, funk, dub and electronic sounds into a seamless, at times psychedelic whole. [Nov 2019, p.66]

The whole set has the provisional, unfinished feel of a diary or sketchbook. Some tracks are arranged so sparsely you’d think they’re missing parts; the flipside of this is that For You & I an incredibly personal, even intimate listen. [Nov 2019, p.64]

It sounds like something struggling to be born, and probably not something you’d want to see grow up in your house. [Nov 2019, p.64]

One Eleven Heavy have an uncanny knack for sucking in the charms of rock heroes of yesteryear and expelling them with contemporary fancy, with the best results being the hazy drag of “Hot Potato Soup” and the dizzying Allman Brothers-like closer “Three Poisons”. [Nov 2019, p.62]

JPEGMAFIA ain’t really here for the put-ons and doesn’t expect his listeners to be either. But those expectations do not come without a kind of sound education, one that considers the context and multiplicity of characters he’s speaking to and through. In that way, Cornballs demands repeat plays, critical engagement and a goddamn sense of humour. [Nov 2019, p.57]

This LP kicks off with a run of tunes that are wistful and simply beautiful. [Nov 2019, p.56]

She’s the type of restless innovator that doesn’t stick with the same style for too long, and FIBS is a joyful, energetic follow-up to her debut. [Nov 2019, p.56]

Gordon sings with a becalmed daydream-y satisfaction, mixing and matching phrases from different notebooks into a confident patchwork. [Nov 2019, p.54]

From the cartoonishly unhinged prog/ boom-bap hybrid “Savage Nomad” to “Shine” (a duet with Blood Orange that flirts with melancholic, synth-heavy new romanticism) it’s the seemingly contradictory emotional timbres that animate uknowhatimsayin¿ and provide the core tension that brings the project to life. [Nov 2019, p.50]

Combined with the sincere and fiery anguish of Lenker’s delivery, this propensity for surprise makes Big Thief a genuinely affecting proposition. [Nov 2019, p.50]

This is a record that doesn’t sound like it emerges from hermetic isolation, rather it feels as extrovert and joyous and intriguing and intrigued as the city that inspires it. New York City made sound flesh.

In mindbending, psych-wormhole cruising mode. Nobody should be able to write a song like “Flesh Fondue”, about alien invaders out for human snacks, as a stomping rock-out, but Hawkwind pull it off. [Nov 2019, p.55]