Her gusto is undeniable. Sadly, the abundance of karaoke-night misfires among the 30 tracks makes Rockstar such a slog. [Jan 2024, p.34]

This is about consistency of themes and mood over time, reimagined by a man reckoning with his past and drawing new light to the deepest of cuts. [Jan 2024, p.38]

Diligent cherry-picking makes this collection a decent illustration of their left-field charm. [Dec 2023, p.44]

Regal's freewheeling eccentricity brings a wild new dimension to White Denim's sound; he should stick around. [Review of the Year 2023, p.30]

The music is decent enough. .... The problem is Jake Duszik's vocals, which are soft and blank of affect in a way that is oddly characterless. It leaves Rat Wars feeling, if not completely without merit, a bit of an empty vessel. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

There are points where his relentless utopianism can sound trite. .... But, let’s face it, these are nice flaws to have. In an era where so many of our musical heroes seem to be growing more cantankerous and ill-tempered with age, it comes as a welcome relief to see one heritage act pushing positively into the future – and making some of the warmest and most joyous music of his career. [Review of the Year 2023, p.21]

When The Roses Come Again feels like something impossibly ancient, sent back to us from some distant future. [Dec 2023, p.32]

Ther music is spacious yet intimate, drawing from the dramatic guitar textures of fellow Texans Explosions In The Sky, yet Sun June's hazy songs blur and shimmer at the edges, like a mirage on the horizon. [Review of the Year 2023, p.32]

An album of midnight moods. [Nov 2023, p.29]

The results are instantly rewarding. [Review of the Year 2023, p.21]

The biggest spiritual influence is The Kinks, another band adept at exploring London’s darker undercurrents. On Theatre Of The Absurd…, Madness gleefully peer through the net curtains of life, revealing the moth-eaten carpets and peeling wallpaper obscured by the elaborate facades we all hide behind. [Dec 2023, p.24]

The resulting 10 tracks, each maintaining a single key throughout, conjure interstellar space in all its sublime beauty and ominous unknowability. [Dec 2023, p.28]

Some fans just seemed to hate it [1979's At Budokan] very, very much. .... But listening to this expanded edition - featuring the two full concerts from which the original was compiled - the reaction is, "What's the problem?" Dylan sings his heart out. [Review of the Year 2023, p.40]

Who Can See Forever stands up fine as a live album in its own right. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

It's only on the lengthy, ambient, vaporous "La Sirena" and the pretty, dramatic ballad "ICU" that everything gels together. [Dec 2023, p.31]

This sprawling set is a testament to his talents not just as multi-instrumentalist but as bandleader, a rapturous unwind through sprightly bouzouki-powered jazz, soulful strings and serene New Age. [Dec 2023, p.25]

These renditions are suffused with the joyousness with which Hatfield embraces the source material as she finds the sweet spot between emulation and invention. [Dec 2023, p.31]

What really distinguishes LXXXVIII is its sense of soul. [Review of the Year 2023, p.21]

These slight but beautiful tracks have gossamer-thin melodies and are held together by repetition, willpower, a creaky Steinway piano and some stunning vocals. [Review of the Year 2023, p.23]

Songs lurch from amphetamine ballads to sullen dream-pop and always keep you guessing. [Review of the Year 2023, p.23]

Saved! is powered by a sense of joyful rebirth. [Review of the Year 2023, p.29]

Smith has skill and ambition galore, but too often settles for tasteful stupor. [Review of the Year 2023, p.32]

It all seems to emerge from some vast, long-abandoned cistern, though the astonishing degree of detail contained in "Awakening" and "Vigil" rewards listeners willing to be fully immersed. [Review of the Year 2023, p.32]

"White Horse" and the chest-thumping "South Dakota" recall the redneck drama of a Skynyrd show closer, and standout "Think I'm In Love With You" is a simmering mirrorball-country slow jam. [Review of the Year 2023, p.32]

The duo show renewed confidence as they strike a balance between pristine electro=pop songcraft and the loopier inclinations that once fuelled Dazzle Ships. [Review of the Year 2023, p.30]

The pair's keen rhythmic sense makes even the unusual palatable. [Review of the Year 2023, p.30]

An album that has moments of shiny, hooky, electro-disco-pop as well as moments of more reserved melancholy. [Review of the Year 2023, p.30]

Hadsel sounds both ethereal and earthly. [Dec 2023, p.27]

For the acoustic half, she genuflects a little too readily, but the limberness of her voice hades new contours for the songs; the electric half takes a while to ignite, but "Like A Rolling Stone" is gorgeous. [Dec 2023, p.27]

Another fine encapsulation of what has become Price's signature mix of bracing honesty leavened with droll self-mockery. [Dec 2023, p.34]

A masterpiece in any time zone. [Dec 2023, p.26]

The manic, galloping "Susie Mullen" proves Anderson's still got a nose for fun. [Dec 2023, p.31]

The likes of "Scapa Flow" and "Rose With Smoke" are assured orthodox shoegaze, while "Tarantula" reflects a more playful, almost power-poppy tendency. [Dec 2023, p.28]

This rock'n'roll album falls far short of Little Ricard's atomic excitement in a genre here showing its age, but 78-year-old Van sounds youthly eager, even sensual in between the hushed female harmonies and honky-tonk piano of "You Are My Sunshine". [Dec 2023, p.34]

Her new album whizzes by in a 28-minute blur of finger-tapped melodies, lopsided time signatures and arrangements that, on tracks like "earth Eater" and "Believing IS Seeing", whip from jazz to glitter to metal with neck-snapping precision. [Dec 2023, p.36]

A baggy sprawl in places, but generally rewarding. [Dec 2023, p.36]

Standouts such as "Rocks Of Time" and "Next One, Maybe" have all the depth, richness and candour that Veirs' admirers have come to expect. [Dec 2023, p.36]

"Daddy Pop" has a Queen-like Break; "Jughead", post-Bomb Squad production. "Money Don't Matter 2 Night" is more subtly impressive. .... B-Sides plus intinerant sessions yielding 33 unreleased tracks. [Dec 2023, p.51]

While the material is frequently just serviceable, the arrangements are inspired thanks to the virtuosic interplay of JaRon Marshall's gilded piano, Brendan Bond's percolating basslines and Quesada's sizzling solos. [Dec 2023, p.27]

Less effectively soothing than 2022's A Journey..., it's unconventionally beguiling, more ambient predecessor. [Dec 2023, p.34]

The album flags a bit in the middle but maintains enough propulsion to easily glide past those saggy moments. [Dec 2023, p.34]

It's an embarrassment of riches. [Nov 2023, p.40]

LeBlanc wears his canyon-rock influences proudly on his sleeve, all high harmonies and chiming guitars, from the yearning "Stranger Things" to the tender "No Promises Broken" and the cathartic closer "The Outside". [Dec 2023, p.33]

The Aussie Maestros deliver seven concise tracks of electronica, largely indebted to Giorgio Moroder but with ventures into many of those elements Moroder inspired, from disco to techno and even jungle. [Dec 2023, p.33]

A familiarity with the back-story is not necessary to enjoy this potted indie-rock opera: as always with Darnielle's work, an appreciation of droll storytelling and deadpan melodies will do. [Dec 2023, p.34]

Skinner's brightest, punchiest and most eclectic in memory. It's a welcome return. [Dec 2023, p.36]

A reworking of an early Squirrel Flower track, "I Don't Use A Trash Can", and the delicately atmospheric "Finally Rain" bookend the work, showing Williams' quiet strength as a songwriter. [Dec 2023, p.34]

Laugh Track features a band free of some of their usual burden. [Dec 2023, p.34]

There's often a giddy, even ecstatic feel to Pierce's exercises in personal exorcism, one that connects the exuberant indie-pop that was The Drums' stock and trade during their breakout a decade ago with his more smiths-y and synth-laden music here. [Dec 2023, p.28]

Hackney Diamonds strains at the leash to show just how vital and dynamic the tones still are, with Jagger very much in pole position. .... Reborn again, the Stones kick back and celebrate. [Dec 2023, p.20]

Black Bayou is a showcase for Finley the storyteller, an artist who can convincingly inhabit narratives that may not be entirely based on his own experiences, lifestyle or even beliefs. [Nov 2023, p.27]

The set ranges ambitiously from hypnotic, twisted love songs such as "103" and the title track to the warped gospel undertones of "My Girls My Girls" and "LA Hex", courtesy of the Compton Kidz Club Choir. [Dec 2023, p.31]

But for all the rueful, wistful, middle-aged preoccupations of History Books, its two most emblematic tracks, "Little Fires" and "Positive Charge", catch The Gaslight Anthem at their most glorious and furious. [Dec 2023, p.30]

Selvutsletter is a shapeless sprawl in places but covers an impressive range. [Nov 2023, p.31]

It's an album that unfurls like a flag on a battlefield, glorious, tattered, defiant, full of big choruses, vaulting harmonies, a brazenly windswept sound. The guitars couldn't be louder, bolder, more heroically deployed. [Nov 2023, p.28]

While Pearlies often invites comparisons with music by Lush’s many dream-pop descendants – “The Presence” and “Tonight Is Mine” being just two songs here that Beach House will wish they’d crafted – Anderson continually finds intriguing ways of deviating from those templates. In so doing, she’s able to nudge the guitar pedals aside and demonstrate that her music still has other places to go.

Ultimately, what CMAT has done with CrazyMad, For Me is create a new pop music, centered around melody, heartache, and resolve, and filled with more than a dash of gallows humor to boot.

["And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me" is] unashamedly lovely but manages to avoid tweeness through the clarity and concision of both the composition and the playing. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Sweeping arrangements, thoughtful ambient passages and judicious archival samples drive the story, which is cleverly weighted from a thematic viewpoint. [Oct 2023, p.33]

The London trio chart out some fresh trajectories for the mesmeric brand of avant-pop they established with 2019's eerily prophetic The Age Of Immunology and 2021's superb Ookii Gekkou. [Nov 2023, p.33]

There's a similar vibe here [to the soundtrack they created for BBC drama Gallows Pole] on tracks such as "raised By Hills" and "Tripping In The Graveyard", although elsewhere the psych weirdness is as rampantly eclectic as ever. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Clear, uncluttered, minimally adorned, it works in different measures to the usual. [Oct 2023, p.31]

It ["Hurtin' Or Healed"] is one of many moments on the record with a reflectively slow and gentle pace. But there are also subtle dynamic shifts and spikes throughout. [Nov 2023, p.32]

Sherwood's production is typically stylish - clear when needed, dubbed-out and spiraling when the music demands; heavy and uplifting. [Nov 2023, p.26]

Faithful and reverential throughout, there's nonetheless clear signs of Joe's own personality shining though. [Nov 2023, p.27]

As an artistic exercise, it's interesting enough. [Nov 2023, p.33]

The blend of early Cure and gnarly grunge of "Soft Like A Flower" produces an indie-ish racket, the dance pulse of "Wild Times" and the smoky brass curling around "Golden" show new facets to her sound that work just as well. [Nov 2023, p.26]

The eight songs of Midnight Rose range from serviceable to cringeworthy. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Javelin sounds like a proper Sufjan Stevens album, picking up the lyrical and sonic threads of Carrie & Lowell and 2010's The Age Of Adz. [Nov 2023, p.22]

This incarnation of Modern Nature has delivered a slim but rich volume of musical poetry, that demands a certain commitment to appreciate its quiet fervour. [Nov 2023, p.18]

There's a clear path being charted, expanding the grammar of R&B into the heart of the modern-day mainstream. [Oct 2023, p.34]

Another dazzling yet soulless smorgasbord of bold, modern pop composition that mixes the latest AI with more old-school contributions from Lee Renaldo and Jim O'Rourke. [Nov 2023, p.31]

This deluxe set showcases the vital rush and wildness that Stinson brought to the band for the last time. [Nov 2023, p.36]

An album from a band that still sound truly individual. [Oct 2023, p.25]

The music reflects this stark, witty chronicle of precarious modern living with a queasy tableau of churning beats, one minute harsh and industrial, the next lush and dreamy. [Nov 2023, p.25]

These four numbered tracks fall closer to dance music, although Föllakzoid's hallmarks - a lysergic dreaminess, tethered by a constant, hypnotic propulsion - remains intact. [Nov 2023, p.28]

Cousin is deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album. [Oct 2023, p.24]

Even better [than Time Skiffs]: consistently inventive rather than merely quirky, it makes sincere effort to get to the emotional core of what they do. [Nov 2023, p.25]

The album is tethered by Roberts' spoken-word poetry. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Together, the North Carolina instrumental trio revel in heady improvisatory zones. .... There's no lead voice here, just three musicians moving as one. [Nov 2023, p.32]

Best of all might be the ecstatic, heavily orchestrated astral-jazz freak-out of "thank You God". [Oct 2023, p.23]

Halo is occasionally guilty of tasteful conservatory restraint, but overall this is a richly, immersive headphones experience, a haunted sonic mansion of many chambers. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Cobb recorded the record at Macon's legendary Capricorn Sound with Georgian musicians, and it sounds it. [Oct 2023, p.27]

The antic hippie of Banhart's early work is long gone on this depressed but not despairing record, warmed by the melancholy, spacy hush of his voice over drifting synths and the bass's heartbeat pulse. [Oct 2023, p.25]

[Endless Arcade's] follow-up is even more impressive, the five-piece creating an organic song cycle largely concerned with the roll of time hope's eternal promise and an unerring sense of where their natural strengths lie. [Oct 2023, p.34]

The teenage tyrants of "Girls From Mars" fame may now be chasing the tail-end of their forties, but they've lost little of that youthful vigour. [Nov 2023, p.25]

Overall the vibe is more celebration than confrontation, but there's still room for the odd reassuring freakout. [Nov 2023, p.29]

From the moment you heard her with Our Native Daughters, you knew it was only a matter of time before she made her album for the ages. The Returner is that album. [Oct 2023, p.27]

Weird but oddly wonderful. [Oct 2023, p.37]

The result is a varied, disjointed, entirely unpredictable yet utterly singular record. [Oct 2023, p.29]

It's a dozen of his finest compositions reworked as bluegrass tunes, and it's magnificent. [Oct 2023, p.31]

The self-produced LP captures the energy and sentiment of a veteran bar band tearing it up in some Jersey Shore dive - meaning they're very much in their element on this timeless record. [Nov 2023, p.31]

As ever, OCMS manage the deft balance of embracing tradition without lapsing into curatorial piousness or zany pastiche. [Nov 2023, p.31]

The fourth album from Speedy Ortiz crackles with typically furious energy - but there's a deftness which makes the band's polemics as fun to listen to as they are powerful. [Nov 2023, p.33]

It pitches up somewhere between devotional music, modern classical and shoegaze and plays as a set piece, though the powerful ebb and flow of "Skel" stands out. [Nov 2023, p.32]

There's not a weak moment here, though the aforementioned "I Don't Like My Mind" and "The Deal", with its sudden percussive tumult, shine brightest. [Nov 2023, p.31]

An expansive, soulful set that embraces modern West Coast fusion, Hancock-style funk, , psychedelic soul-jazz and more. [Nov 2023, p.26]