This incarnation features plenty of impressive fusion pyrotechnics from guitarist John Etheridge and saxophonist Theo Travis, but the highlights dig deep into Soft Machine's legacy. [Mar 2026, p.36]

These esoteric pieces sometimes splash around in puddles of flimsy whimsy, but with enough moments of luminous beauty to reward an immersive dip. [May 2026, p.26]

Total Dive is once again remarkably cohesive. .... There’s a dramatic urgency to a lot of this music that’s sometimes distantly reminiscent of the REM of, say, “Begin The Begin”, or the wild upheavals of “Just A Touch” from Life’s Rich Pageant, perhaps the dark churn of Document’s “Oddfellows 501”. [May 2026, p.20]

The shape, tone and settings of songs from "Gitarhum" onward shift their author's stance and point her somewhere else, perhaps yet to be determined. That they do so without throwing her off balance is another mark of Evergreen In Your Mind's achievement. [May 2026, p.28]

Life Slime is anything but maudlin, though, as Lynch ad producer Mike Lindsay fashion spry, agreeably wonky electropop from an arsenal of synths, samplers and other instruments. [May 2026, p.34]

The results are as striking and challenging as you'd expect. [May 2026, p.35]

"Greetings From Mars" touches on Lana Del Rey's desolately pretty Americana, with Nagler's voice reserved yet reaching ecstatically high. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Bright Spirit is a wide-ranging set flooded with singer-guitarist Kavus Torabi's metaphysical imagery. [Apr 2026, p.33]

An album of incredible acoustic maximalism and conspiratorially whispered melodrama - enjoys the theatrics of its acidity. [May 2026, p.33]

Julie takes lead on a few numbers, but otherwise this is raw, classic Childish. [May 2026, p.29]

Gentler hues are to the fore on the soft strum and harmonies of Teenage Fanclub's "Lonely Night", coming as near as dammit to an indie Crosby, Stills & Nash. They veer from the template just once, on the slow country rock of "Me And Magdalena". [Apr 2026, p.26]

Idiosyncratic to the last. [May 2026, p.29]

A stepping stone to more original work to come? Could well be. [Apr 2026, p.29]

Pernice's stately tastefulness, acoustic guitar studded with slide and steel, offers honed adult reflection, not excess. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Phased guitars recall that past's sweetest '60s spot as lyrics touch on wider, cosmic delay. The epic "Might As Well Ne Me, Florinda" is the best of two Robert Hunter co-writes. [Apr 2026, p.33]

These songs, still beautifully disruptive decades later show why the music outlasted the club itself. [Feb 2026, p.50]

Distracted may be his most coherent album to date. Less prone to abrupt zigzags than its predecessors, it's his smoothest, too. [May 2026, p.35]

There's an urgency to The Leaf Library's latest that's unlike anything we've heard from them before. [May 2026, p.33]

Too often the slick production feels overwrought like a bad Cure facsimile and the songs struggle to breathe, though the murkiness at least conveys the sense of doomed romance. [Apr 2026, p.26]

One of those albums that evokes a tangible mood; in this case, somewhere adjacent to the sun coming up after a rollercoaster of a night out. As such, it's frequently wonderful. [Apr 2026, p.34]

The album is a magnificently heavy double of downtuned, epic riffing. [Apr 2026, p.36]

"Turn Your Heart Back On" shows the pair can still cut it when the moment is right. [May 2026, p.33]

It's all over the shop, but worth a rummage. [May 2026, p.33]

Confirms Lewis's now crucial role in their pummelling yet emotional propulsion. [May 2026, p.33]

These are anguished addresses of the world's current turbulence, U2 needing to scrabble unusually and interestingly hard in the cinders to disinter sparks of their trademark redemptive optimism. [May 2026, p.37]

His fourth album features no immediate bangers in the vein of "As It Was" or "Watermelon Sugar", but Styles does take some interesting risks. [May 2026, p.37]

The naked, more soul-leaning titke track works nicely, as do the almost cosmic jazz explorations of "Didn't Come To argue" featuring Monica Martin), but for all the heavy sentiment and weight here, the results sometimes feel hollow. [May 2026, p.26]

It would make a perfect soundtrack to traversing chilly landscapes, but an emotional current runs through Fables that elevates it beyond mere background music. [Mar 2026, p.36]

Songs start as brooding slices of minimalism and slowly mutate into Morricone-esque ballads ("Teeth"), motorik synthpop ("Propeller") or chugging waltzes (a version of Neil Young's "Red Sun"). [Apr 2025, p.36]

Monster Magnet and Mudhoney's sludgy heaviness and Hawkwind and Stooges prototypes form the mulch for this unexpected double. [Mar 2026, p.33]

This follow-up sees their experimental instincts tempered rather than tamed, with more focus on song structure and melody, and Susman's expressive vocals softened. [Apr 2026, p.34]

Any sense of musical nostalgia is banished by the quality and restraint of the performances and the album's majestic, half-asleep flow. [Apr 2026, p.28]

Like Faye Webster or Wednesday's Karly Hartzman, Cornfield makes every line count. [Apr 2026, p.28]

Righteous and blissful. [Apr 2026, p.33]

The surrounding circumstances inevitably bring an additional layer of darkness to allusively eloquent, quietly agitated songs. [Apr 2026, p.36]

An instantly engaging album. [Apr 2026, p.24]

It's a record that walks a fine line between joy and sorrow. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Adapting the lushest textures from'90s alt.rock, grunge and shoegaze, most strikingly on "tractor Beam" and "Dead End", Jordan is ready to take the next step. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Maybe this could have been two different records: the big-name covers album and the back-room jam session. But in terms of conveying the passions, frustrations and intriguing contractions of its restless instigator, Honora is perfect. [Apr 2026, p.27]

Fussy productions mires some of these songs, but there are a few that rank among her best. [Apr 2026, p.36]

No single track grandstands, but the Black Midi-ish epic roll of "Senegal" is a laser-tooled highlight. [Mar 2026, p.36]

There's much to like, though the groovy, Frank Ocean-adjacent "Cherry" stands out. [Apr 2026, p.34]

Momentum sags somewhat over its lengthy duration - but it also unquestionably features some of their finest, and funkiest, work to date. [Apr 2026, p.34]

Is what might be expected of a song entitled "My Kinda Saturday Night", all growling guitars, pounding pianos and soaring choruses extolling the merits of beer, pickup trucks and jukeboxes. But it is no less irresistibly rousing for that, and the same can be said of the broadly similar "Back In The Saddle" nd "Alcohol Of Fame". [Apr 2026, p.29]

On Transmitter, Cut Worms' fourth album, Max Clarke reaches a rarefied level of expressiveness and self-assurance alongside Jeff Tweedy. [Apr 2026, p.29]

The songs themselves range from ringing country-rockers to soulful ballads and vary shades between, thematically weighted between reflection and renewal. [Apr 2026, p.31]

This is Tinariwen as deep and darkly compelling as we've ever heard them. [Apr 2026, p.32]

There are few traces of the more liminal varieties of beauty that distinguish recent Halo efforts like 2023's Atlas, though a sense of eerie gracefulness often imbues the music here as various sonic elements cut through the inky drones like shards of light. [Apr 2026, p.33]

It's a beautiful collection of genre-hopping songs. [Apr 2026, p.37]

Subtle it is not, but it's thrilling, adrenaline-pumping stiff that's fun as it is angry. [Apr 2026, p.29]

She alternates between fighting the current and giving in. That approach, coupled with vocals balancing despair and determination, lends "The Smoke", with its cathedral synths, and especially "Division", with its narcotised krautrock drumbeat, an unsettling energy that's both treacherous and cathartic. [Mar 2026, p.29]

On this outing it sounds more like step-by-step calculation than natural evolution. [Apr 2026, p.36]

Studio 68! return with full-throated Devonian Dani Turner adding a soulful garage twist. [Mar 2026, p.37]

consider this the handiwork of a special group of musicians who know the value of what they've inherited, yet have made an album that feels avidly and thrillingly contemporary. [Jan 2026, p.28]

Quietly lovely, sporadically sublime solo debut. [Apr 2026, p.26]

Melancholy, noir-ish electro textures dominate on the deceptively lovely "Imi" and the deliciously mangled techno-tribal ballad "Black Boots", but Tagaq's punk-metal side is never far away. [Apr 2026, p.37]

A mighty feat of reinvention. [Mar 2026, p.36]

Aided by sympathetic vocalists, Wasylyk consolidates a multi-instrumentalist's multiple interests - from New Classical to lounge jazz to lo-fi-pop - into a coherent style. [Apr 2026, p.37]

The most straightforward of Oldham's catalogue, and yet still rich with the oneiric and mysterious qualities that drew so many listeners to his art. [Apr 2026, p.20]

This 23-track release is even better than its Britpop-heavy 1995 predecessor. [Apr 2026, p.37]

Some tracks are more like art installation art. .... But the highlight might be closer "BY Absence", where a single-note drone is slowly orchestrated over the course of 20 minutes. [Mar 2026, p.34]

While the lyrics largely deal in anguish and dissolution, Bachmann's settings switch between exhilarating noise ("Cold Waves" featuring Superchunk's Mac McCaughan), grand synth-pop ("Hospital") and quasi-orchestral soul ballad (the sweeping "(I'm Your) Bodhisattva"). [Mar 2026, p.29]

She takes on the Trump administration in "ByeBye25!", one landmark among many in her forward-thinking solo career. [Apr 2026, p.33]

This record’s full engagement with its modern moment refuses to engage on that moment’s terms, instead offering its own blissful, unified escape.

Any compilation that roams from Chris Bell's "I Am The Cosmos" to Husker Du's Hardly Getting Over It" and The Cynics' "take Her Hand" will surely kickstart your day. [Mar 2026, p.49]

With their abundance of charm and good cheer, the performances ensure the patchier numbers still satisfy. More genuinely impressive are "You Get The Feeling" and "Hell On Earth", corkers that demonstrate the creative chemistry that was there since moment one. [Mar 2026, p.37]

Features eight lengthy original instrumentals, om which his guitar playing is as vibrant and virtuosic as ever. [Mar 2026, p.34]

Amelia Fletcher and Cathy Rogers' harmonies remain charmingly sweet. [Mar 2026, p.33]

The Mirror is, in many ways, peek Meek - a batch of candid and deceptively affable country/folk-leaning songs that occasionally kick up dust and whose lyrics are an unfussily poetic pleasure. [Mar 2026, p.32]

The title track lurches woozily like it's about to break out into a waltz but never does, and "hard Times" is an aching Celtic/Appalachian ballad. We end with the loveliest take on "Home On The Range" you've ever heard. [Mar 2026, p.31]

"Never Come Never Morning", propelled by chunky drums and a vulnerable lyric, showcases a more accessible heart and introduces the spirit of openness that sits at the centre of an excellent record. [Mar 2026, p.34]

Hen's Teeth is where Beam truly leans into the possibilities of dropping simple songs into the laps of intuitive musicians and delighting in what emerges. [Mar 2026, p.27]

It's hard, then, not to view My Days Of 58 as among his most transparently autobiographical works, as brimming with self-scrutiny and pontification as it is elegant wordplay. [Mar 2026, p.26]

Its 15 tracks are filled with cheery major-key singalongs, sitar-soaked synth-pop bangers and whimsical waltzes that serve as ecstatic celebrations of life, rebirth and reinvention. [Mar 2026, p.20]

Altin Gün's more psychedelic tendencies are less overt this time around, though there's still plenty to enjoy. [Mar 2026, p.25]

Curiously retro-sounding production and accompaniment. .... Her gift for infectious topline melodies manages to transcend such stylistic quirks. [Feb 2026, p.31]

The Dreamin' Kind is far more persuasive when it allows room for his more nuanced tendencies. [Jan 2026, p.30]

A voyage of rediscovery through terrain whose appeal remains undimmed by time and familiarity. He treats the blues with the respect it deserves, but he aims to have fun along the way, while proving that, at 80, he still has the voice – albeit an octave or so lower than in his early days – to make the material live again. [Mar 2026, p.24]

A truly singular record. [Mar 2026, p,33]

Peaches still bangs, in more ways than one. No Lube So rude, her first album in a decade, drips with fluids, fragrances and various viscera. [Mar 2026, p.36]

The opportunity to behold such a comprehensive survey of Wilson’s artistry even in this compromised state can be both startling and staggering. That’s especially true of The Beach Boys Love You. .... The vocals-only versions of “The Night Was So Young” and “Let’s Put Our Hearts Together” and other demos emphasize the songs’ childlike spirit of joy and invention. [Mar 2026, p.42]

The lurching tempo shifts of opener "She Makes Me Real" set Masquerade's brooding, anxious mood. [Mar 2026, p.26]

The good news is that their sound has not dated, nor has the vision dimmed. [Feb 2026, p.35]

An ambitious and spirited album. [Mar 2026, p.29]

Smart work all round. [Mar 2026, p,31]

Lightweight but charming covers collection. [Jan 2026, p.29]

Imaginative, poignant and fundamentally, achingly human. [Feb 2026, p.30]

Despite the references to Oxford Circus and the Northern Line, Smith's baritone voice often strays into mid-Atlantic territory, but the highlights see him lean into English pastoralism. [Jan 2026, p.35]

It's the smart pop and clever arrangements of "Glance" and "Songbird (Forever)" that suggest Whitelands are in danger of evolving into a heavyweight proposition. [Feb 2026, p.39]

An album of gently textured art pop, the lightness of her voice and almost ethereal sounds in direct contrast to the diaristic darkness of lyrics that explore raw, familial emotions. [Mar 2026, p.29]

Snaith largely maintains the requisite club-friendly bpm rates while deftly integrating more surprising elements. [Mar 2026, p.29]

EXPO grooves, booms and unspools in ways all its own. [Mar 2026, p.37]

This is a record that has both groove and bite. [Feb 2026, p.37]

As ever, he's at his most engaging playing slide and singing in a gentle baritone on acoustic compositions such as "Go Down Ol' Hannah" and the title track. [Jan 2026, p.27]

An almost comically seductive blend of luxe funk, disco strings (arranged by Owen Pallett) and analogue synths, which he pastiches with affection and elan. [Feb 2026, p.39]

The Balance between deftness and density underpins much of the record, as light and airy as it is atmospheric and tactile. [Feb 2026, p,38]

On Selenites, Selenites! they create a party anyone would want an invitation to. [Review Of The Year 2025, p.29]

"Bodies" and "Sludge" bring some metal chops to the show, but experimentalism comes in the shape of "Giraffe", based around a beat by David Sitek. [Feb 2026, p.31]