Weird is more insular, almost cabin feverish in Hatfield’s tendency to celebrate her own company (“All Right, Yeah” and the impossibly wholesome “Do It To Music”) or conversely magnify her own physical flaws (“Broken Doll”). If you hold some nostalgia for Hatfield’s early years but tuned out some time ago, you might get more from this than you expect. [Mar 2019, p.62]

At times flush with the meditative air of Alice Coltrane, elsewhere like some whispered about 80s new age obscurity, this album both requires and justifies extensive attention. [Mar 2019, p.62]

Bob Mould is not pulling up stylistic roots on Sunshine Rock, but it’s still breezier than his average, thanks in part to the use of an 18-piece string section on much of the album. [Mar 2019, p.62]

A modest effort of just over half an hour. [Mar 2019, p.62]

The blithe ease with which it slips from unruly quasi-techno to Tony Conrad-like violin drone (“Pumpkin Attack On Mommy And Daddy”; “The Wrong Thing”) keeps this consistently diverting. [Mar 2019, p.62]

This is darkly delicious pop--with no smiling. [Mar 2019, p.64]

Cross’s ability to get the job done with his stripped down trio is the real achievement here. [Mar 2019, p.65]

It’s something like Noname if she had a backstory closer to The Game. And just when it almost veers too close into Soulquarian-lite territory, Boogie drops “Self Destruction”, a vocally agile self-examination that reminds you why his contract was picked up by Eminem. [Mar 2019, p.65]

Tobacco’s beats sound like a mescaline trip through a haunted theme park from Scooby Doo, while the Def Jux legend in a different lifetime raps about an eagle snacking on a cat like a churro. Pretty standard stuff really. [Mar 2019, p.65]

This is rain-choked pain music, inspirational negativity, hypnotic blood moon melodies over crack-slanging boasts. [Mar 2019, p.65]

Their world is one where the scrambling of senses serves a true psychedelic purpose--to open doors, to facilitate fresh ways of perceiving and, most gloriously, to wonder. It’s great to have (all of) them back. [Mar 2019, p.49]

What on the record might be the magnified pop of dust and surface scratch, here could represent imperfections on a cosmic scale--the debris of space and time, swallowed and digested. Where Basinski succeeds is the tone he adopts; rather than the heavy dread of inevitable supermassive doom, these sections are somehow wide-eyed and full of slowly drifting wonder. [Mar 2019, p.49]

If you listen to White Stuff and hear good time rock ’n’ roll then perhaps it’s time to check into the rock ’n’ roll nursing home. On the other hand if you hear avant garde brinksmanship, check your ears. It’s both, it’s neither. Does it matter? Does anything? Yes and no.

Thankfully here, in spite of the occasional song in Latin or mention of the Peninsular War, Batoh succeeds in stripping things all the way back to a jewel-like clarity. ... Even when things do take on a heavier and more expansive turn, technique, structure and lyrical meaning are powerfully combined. [Feb 2019, p.44]

It’s not uncommon for DIY punk, hardcore and noise artists to veer towards the more contemplative, electronic ends of musical experimentation. ... Croatian Amor’s exercise in post-apocalyptic world building is another effective example of this transition. [Feb 2019, p.53]

Drift Code may not be as bold an artistic statement as Spirit Of Eden, nor as interesting a sideline as .O.Rang, nor in all likelihood be as celebrated 17 years hence as Out Of Season. But Webb proves himself just as skilled as his former collaborator Gibbons in his ability to build worlds whose orbits brush against the heart while always staying at arm’s length. [Feb 2019, p.49]

The sixth album by this Norwegian power trio is, like each of its predecessors, a fierce demonstration of their strengths as individuals and as a collective. [Feb 2019, p.54]

Musically, Ace Of Cups remains more or less faithful to the instrumentation and stylistic idioms of the place and time in which the band formed. ... Other songs on this sprawling debut tend toward the folksy, bluesy and disarmingly earnest. [Feb 2019, p.55]

He has the knack of E-40, of Slick Rick, of George Clinton, for whipping up ugly shit with infantile rhyme to make it taste like candyfloss. On “Outside!”, he turns “Who want to die” into a sprightly singalong. The cheer proves to be a cover for both an experimental edge more disruptive than that of Some Rap Songs and a hefty impact when Vince does finally start to crumble. [Feb 2019, p.56]

It’s hard to get with the tiresome self-deprecation of that album title, the way he hides his pain behind a smile and hides his smile behind a dope aesthetic on that artfully blurred cover. When Earl does choose to project beyond his navel he has a powerful, booming voice and an ear for novelty. Where his gaze shifts to the outside world he can be inspirational. [Feb 2019, p.56]

A tight action trio who have screwed their collective anger and frustration into a balled musical fist and let fly. [Feb 2019, p.58]

There’s a brace of humble attempts to get his head round his situation, tracks like “Trauma” and “Oodles O’ Noodles Babies”, brilliantly nuanced performances where Meek wavers on the edge between uncommon restraint and a violent simmer. Jay-Z showing up on “What’s Free” to boast about tax avoidance brings everything back into perspective.

Once the starpower dazzle fades, it’s not always obvious who he is, but the lack of easy answers makes him interesting enough for now.

Though the compilation is vast and the songs hardly bleed into one another--we’re often jumping genres, pivoting off cascading basslines and quickly changing pace without missing beats--there is a level of thematic cohesion here. [Feb 2019, p.66]

The music for the horror/revenge fantasy developed from Cosmatos and Jóhannsson’s mutual appreciation of heavy metal and psychotronic cinema, and it shows. [Nov 2018, p.56]

When it works, it’s pretty thrilling--as on their version of Joe Henderson’s “Earth”. Whether bassist Domenico Angarano will ever forgive himself for fluffing the galaxy-unlocking riff at the start of Alice Coltrane’s “Journey In Satchidananda”, however, is between him and the Creator. [Dec 2018, p.63]

There’s no denying that braggadocio has always been a key component of the genre but after a while it does become wearing when little more is on offer to elevate the tunes. What rescues the whole affair is Daniel Boyle’s dedication to the task at hand and his skills in bringing the rhythms and end mixes together, though with session input from the great but unsung UK reggae sessioneer Hughie Izachaar on guitar and bass plus old Upsetter Robbie Lyn on keyboards it’s enough to infuse any session with confidence. [Nov 2018, p.62]

Melnyk’s playing has a rare capacity to energise and exhilarate, and in that respect Fallen Trees does not disappoint. [Jan 2019, p.82]