Whatever your take on Tibetan Buddhism, this is done with powerful sincerity and musical sensibility. The Albanian born Kodheli in particular does a remarkable job, and I defy anyone to listen to Anderson’s voice for an hour and not become a better person. [Oct 2019, p.48]

More so than her previous work, Carla dal Forno establishes a cold, dreary atmosphere as the ground for lyrics and delivery that strike a balance between doleful and cool. [Oct 2019, p.50]

Bringing further gravitas and grace to mundanity, he continues in the business of poetically detailing everyman strife and significant moments. [Oct 2019, p.50]

Each listen evokes a different feeling. At times there is a feeling of contentedness. [Oct 2019, p.55]

Sonic Citadel is a showcase for titanic, incisive riffs, gnarly yet immediate, accessible. [Oct 2019, p.56]

Somebody’s Knocking is marginally more rockin’ than 2017’s uninspired Gargoyle – due to a slightly increased emphasis on guitar – but it doesn’t measure up to 2014’s Phantom Radio (or its EP companion No Bells On Sunday). [Oct 2019, p.63]

Unlike the alluring textural build-up that precedes it, this rocking culmination feels frustratingly empty, as if missing a voice. ... Eventually [on "8 Spring Street"] a groovy, almost accidental rock lick is dispersed by a radiant conclusion. ... [On "Galaxies (Sky)"] Picked and bowed strings sound pleasant like wind chimes, then painful like nails scraping across a blackboard. The guitarists’ incessant repetitions are reminiscent of Orthrelm’s OV until a lone guitar breaks the cycle by oscillating sharp chords, augmenting them to saturation. [Oct 2019, p.56]

This album finds itself wandering far too into pop territory, without the accompanying substance and adventure that made his preceding releases so refreshing. [Oct 2019, p.67]

It is al-gitarra in the classic style: raw and intimate, with the gravel-voiced Abaraybone leading the band through the militant and melancholy blues that have long been his trademark. [Oct 2019, p.61]

Patton and Vannier make a fine combination, vintage and modern, taking familiar sounds wonderfully elsewhere. [Oct 2019, p.58]

It’s dense and esoteric, but gorgeous. [Oct 2019, p.55]

There’s a sweetness, and an earnestness, driving these ecstatic breakbeat rave confections (you can hear the influence of Drew’s hardcore-heavy record collection too). In someone else’s hands that mood could feel forced, or just plain naff, but Resonant Body never does – if your hairs don’t stand on end for the daft euphoria of “Spin Girl, Let’s Activate” or the raw junglism of “Ecstatic Beat”, it’s about time you got off the dancefloor. [Oct 2019, p.64]

There’s a weighty sense of looking back and taking stock to Venus In Leo, while simultaneously navigating a present that’s growing increasingly alien to its protagonists. [Oct 2019, p.55]

Antwood hops between an arcade’s worth of genres, twiddling microprocessors to their squiffy, pixel-helicopter max later in that track, or embracing flute and some approximation of a banjo on “Castalian Fountain” before the Street Fighter beats hit. [Sep 2019, p.65]

Devour is unwaveringly formless; drills, drones and hysterical screeches become food for trauma. It’s frightening, at many points torturous, but not without emotional weight. The record mirrors what oppression really looks, sounds and feels like – no pool parties, ice tea, sunglasses and shiny colour palettes, just untamed agony, screaming and pain. [Sep 2019, p.60]

Code warms up as it winds down, as Malone is joined by frequent collaborator Ellen Arkbro for a trio of live recordings. [Sep 2019, p.56]

The End Of Radio’s cache of 1994 and 2004 John Peel sessions admirably bucks expectations even as it serves up multiple reminders that Shellac are a crack live unit equipped with airtight panic room ragers. And while singer/guitarist Albini takes care to toast BBC DJ Peel, who died weeks prior to the 2004 sessions, the charge here lies in hearing Albini, drummer Todd Trainer and bassist Bob Weston improve upon and deviate from the studio recordings. [Sep 2019, p.62]

This album is not about re-using their old sounds. Most of the tracks offer something different and work well to complement the story being told. [Sep 2019, p.54]

He cites Frank Sinatra and Disney soundtracks as influences, and creates gorgeous music that paired with the vibrant visuals, disguises the horror within the film itself. [Sep 2019, p.56]

Not hating the LP, but not liking it much either, seeing it as a mid-level release covering all bases; political interludes, references to reparations and racism, interspersed with rap-frat boy antics. [Sep 2019, p.58]

They sound for good or ill like they’ve beamed in from psychedelic hard rock’s boom period too. ... Face Stabber is 80 minutes long, with two songs accounting for 35 of those minutes, and betrays mild hubris as regards their ability to jam interestingly. [Sep 2019, p.60]

Torche’s engagingly awry blend of harmony and heaviosity finds full fruition on Admission, an album you might feel somewhat ashamed for enjoying so thoroughly. [Sep 2019, p.61]

There's a mismatch between sound and vision here that forestalls true wonder or joy. ... A little more concision and concentration throughout could have made Guild of the Asbestos Weaver more effective. [Sep 2019, p.62]

An even deeper dig into the wound exposed on her debut. The album is drenched in divinity, its consideration of good and evil as polar concepts is biblical, elevating vengeance to a God-given imperative. Her classically trained voice deals in spiritual cadences, and commands gothic instrumentation of strings and drones. [Aug 2019, p.58]

This is folk music for the post-industrial era, which aspires to the condition of a true world music, not as a postcard from some Club Med of the mind, but as a dispatch from the front lines of both climate change and the extinction of animal species (real and imagined). Essential listening, and a real adventure in the undergrowth of the underground. Sit a spell in the shade of the Borametz. [Aug 2019, p.56]

Delivers on the forward-looking promise of The Art Ensemble’s motto: great black music – ancient to the future. [May 2019, p.61]

This is Ambarchi at his most user-friendly, waxing nostalgic for a music that never was. [Aug 2019, p.50]

House And Land’s eternal music drone tendencies are more sparingly employed than their debut, but folkie staple “Blacksmith” is a glorious outlier to this end, Morgan’s shruti box a keening back and forth foil to a two centuries old tale of metalworker induced heartbreak. [Aug 2019, p.64]