The fury running through these songs is mostly the joyous, exhilarating kind. [Aug 2026, p.29]

This appreciation for our increasingly complex emotional survival distinguishes The Ground Above, rendering affecting what might have been arduous. No longer are her tremulous vocals instantly ravishing, but they’re still convincingly, endearingly sincere, born of consequential experience. [Jul 2026, p.32]

There are intimations of Basinski, The Cure, New Order and (yes) AC, but also of auteurs like Dean Blunt. [Aug 2026, p.26]

It's ultimately quite boring. [Aug 2026, p.45]

He makes a bold splash - so idiosyncratic, in fact, that you'll wish the music was as powerful and eccentric as the vocals. [Jun 2026, p.26]

The band's elemental approach peaking on the likes of "Diablo" and "Guilt Trippin'", with Ian Gillian in impressively full-throated mode and Don Airey's keyboard runs often worthy of predecessor Jon Lord. [Aug 2026, p.29]

At times it can feel as if Stoltz is demonstrating his mastery of each genre, but he does so with sicu Nick Lowe-esque insouciance it's impossible not to be charmed. [Jun 2026, p.34]

While Hackney Diamonds was about return and resurgence, Foreign Tongues offers something more nuanced. Above all, the Stones' 25th studio album carries an unforced pleasure in playing together. [Aug 2026, p.98]

There’s nothing here to suggest they went unreleased for quality-control reasons. [Jul 2026, p.46]

Young's digressive manoeuvres are given added flexibility by his latest, excellent backing band. [Jun 2026, p.35]

It's teeming with complexity, feeding references to places, events and literary signposts into songs that wrestle with the violent contradictions of being human. [Jul 2026, p.38]

Though the turbulence threatens to shake some songs into their disparate doom-metal and shoegaze components, Wattie's alternately tremulous and ferocious vocals provide a centre that somehow holds. [Jul 2026, p.29]

"Knock Em Out" is a feral prog-punk highlight; "Mr Lion" a shambolic 16-bar blues et in the jungle; "Hangover" a piece of slow-burning sludge metal that narrates a morning recovery; while "vermin Attack" is the heaviest song you'll ever hear about mouse infestation. [Jul 2026, p.38]

It's a bracing reminder of a back catalogue that stretches from Dada cut-ups to honorary status as house music influencers. [May 2026, p.29]

Dredging up the legends of the location [Rhode Island] and the memories of the musicians and setting them to Deer Tick's signature Americana, to gripping effects, [Jul 2026, p.29]

What they have achieve here is a lovely, becalmed sprawl, where Jaime Fennelly's swimming, drifting electronics corral instrumentation from Nathan Bowles and Joe Westerlund, creating a curious kind of rural kosmische. [Jun 2026, p.34]

If there's a math equation at the centre of it all, this one continually produces highly unpredictable and unusually captivating results. [Jul 2026, p.28]

Eight intense instrumentals that run the gamut of emotions from deepest sorrow to supernal euphoria. [Jul 2026, p.35]

When Johnson stretches his helium voice into a yearning falsetto in the chorus of "The Saddest Part Of The Song", it's as if Al Green has been transported to Walden Woods. Then, amid sultry grooves, he spins out a Newman-esque character study ("Silverfish In The Sink") and some Nilsson-esque Whimsey ("Fishin' For a Vision"). [Jul 2026, p.30]

This is a more self-consciously "prog"-sounding LP than Yes have made in a while. [Jul 2026, p.39]

Not quite a full house, but not far off. [Jul 2026, p.31]

No doubt the future Notting Hill star would have made for an exemplary rockstar, but you can already hear his relatively conventional glam-punk growl beginning to chafe against the band’s whimsical harmonies. Ultimately it was to everyone’s benefit that he chose to pursue a different path to fame, allowing Gruff Rhys’s more idiosyncratic talents to blossom. [May 2026, p.42]

It clocks in at 82 minutes, but curiously, never flags; every song is a new twist in the tale. [Jun 2026, p.30]

Spanning alt.blues, grunge, Appalachian folk and slacker country soul, all 13 tracks on Eyes Full have instant appeal. [Jul 2026, p.26]

It's some of Barnes' finest work. [Jul 2026, p.36]

It's heartening to hear Perry still having so much fun and exploring exciting new terrain in his final days. [Jul 2026, p.37]

A hook-loaded gem, showing off the songwriter's playful side and a fluttering new vocal register. [Jul 2026, p.39]

That songs as complex and restless as "Orbis Tertius" and "The Day Of Execution" were largely recorded in single takes elicits and additional measure of awe. [Jul 2026, p.38]