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]

Despite a perennial weakness for soppy whimpering, Blake always delivers spine-tingling jewel-box beauty. [Nov 2023, p.25]

This is an album about distortion, not just of traditional folk instruments but of the emotions - grief and rage and bewilderment - that he experiences as a black trans person in America. [Oct 2023, p.23]

The abundance of dreamy, placid wonders like "Between The Past" and the instrumental "White Wonder Melody" doesn't entirely negate one's longing for more of the ferocious, Ira Kaplan-worthy shredding that fills the final moments of "Another Dream" or other touches that add a wobblier, woozier feel to the proceedings. [Oct 2023, p.37]

The music is varied, best expressed by "Peace Or Quiet", which stretches their loud-quiet dynamic as far as it can go. [Oct 2023, p.28]

An inspired left turn. [Oct 2023, p.25]

Striking successor to 2021 breakthrough Pohorylle. .... Her phrasing is exquisite throughout. [Oct 2023, p.26]

This soulful, spiritual, experimental collection is a rich testament to the chemistry of collaboration. [Oct 2023, p.26]

A surreal sense of the macabre in everyday life remains their MO, from "Skunks"' shuffling crawl space inhabitants to the winged appetites of the softly intoned "Mothballs". [Oct 2023, p.29]

The diversity here is testament to the sheer scope of his [Leon Russell's] writing. [Oct 2023, p.37]

Confirming the band's Merseyside-'67 LA space-time portal, retracing familiar if melodically firm ground. [Oct 2023, p.26]

If these [tracks] feel like throwbacks, they're no more so than Norah Jones' best work, and there's nonetheless something timeless about the breezy "While You Were Sleeping" and, with its chugging guitars, "Lovesick". [Oct 2023, p.29]

Deliciously dark and yet full of an elegant lightness, this is Hersh at the top of her considerable game. [Oct 2023, p.29]

While Mid Air is an album occasionally rooted in grief following the loss of Romy's parents, it seeks to take those moments of joy and dancefloor elation. [Oct 2023, p.34]

They produce a whole lot of full-fat dance-pop joy. [Oct 2023, p.85]

It's a rather ragtag collection. .... You do, however, really get a sense of what a playful, unique and ahead of his time composer Garson was. [Sep 2023, p.42]

Bursting with warmth and character even when nearly tweaked beyond the point of recognition, Murphy's voice has rarely had a more satisfying showcase. [Oct 2023, p.31]

Held together by a unifying drone, End Of The Day is a welcome if unusual addition to Barnett's catalogue. [Oct 2023, p.25]

12-song collection brings together four elders, three younger practitioners and original James Gang singer-guitarist Glenn Schwartz, along with The Black Keys in Deep-blues mode. [Sep 2023, p.37]

What should have been the next step in Branch's innovative career became a tragically beautiful final document that captured an artist cresting a peak. [Oct 2023, p.30]

This is the Slowdive you've been waiting for. [Oct 2023, p18]

She has crooned before, but the freight of intimate emotion here, letting low notes waver within the ferally alive arrangement, is masterful. Ending an album of looking back, this is the new prime of Chrissie Hynde. [Oct 2023, p.22]

It's a warm, modestly confident record with elegant touches, and one that spits out occasional sparks, too. [Sep 2023, p.27]

The album finds the 69-year-old musing on mortality and checking in on his past with poetic articulacy. [Oct 2023, p.37]

It's all great fun and played by a road-hardened band full of vigour. [Oct 2023, p.26]

They're bummed to learn that adulthood breeds more angst than adolescence, which inspires a sharp-edged '70s hard rock, with songs celebrating kink and demanding equal pay and full-body autonomy on "Big Trouble". [Sep 2023, p.23]

Meek and producer Mat Davidson took the band to Sonic Ranch in Texas and gave the record a much more expansive, full-sounding presentation, a resounding and confident tone that matches these optimistic and often unfiltered emotions. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Jump For Joy is a panoramic, magical reverie on the sometimes hard gift of a life in American music. [Sep 2023, p.36]

The extraordinary power and jaded romance of Suede, which has been given renewed depth and sparkle in this new version. [Sep 2023, p.49]

Isakov's most panoramic album. [Oct 2023, p.29]

Suitably laid back and gently psychedelic, unhurried guitars wringing through the breeze, harmonies washed in from The Notorious Bryd Brothers. [Sep 2023, p.32]

The deep-cut-heavy, career-spanning set is manna for the faithful. [Oct 2023, p.48]

This is the most approachable and therefore unexpected Osees album for some years. [Sep 2023, p.32]

"De Selby Part 2" shows he can stylishly bring funk and R&B influences to bear. But most distinctive are the afrobeat touches that lace "damage Gets Done" and "Anything But". [Oct 2023, p.29]

It seems Allison has finally found her voice, on her own terms. [Sep 2023, p.23]

10 songs that glint like shards of glass yet brim with love, grief, courage, existential doubt and all the stuff that makes us human, to a soundtrack of grungy alt.rock cut with torch-song melodrama and Lenker-ish folk. [Sep 2023, p.27]

There's a tense, nervous energy o songs such as "Obsession", "Our Song" and "Oversize Sweater" and surprises aplenty. [Sep 2023, p.34]

The countrier she keeps it, the better. [Sep 2023, p.43]

Opener "Ocean Mouth" is similarly enticing, as are the crystalline synth hooks of "Don't Believe It Now", as his singular approach to lo-fi dance pop continues to charm. [Sep 2023, p.28]

Variety is this album's strength. [Oct 2023, p.33]

There's a dusty charm to Little Songs, which lacks the gravity of his 2017 self-titled debut but has higher stakes than his albums since then. [Oct 2023, p.37]

In isolation, it’s a dozen of Young’s best songs, powerful no matter how many times they’ve been reshuffled since. But in reality, it risks getting lost in the shotgun spray of Young’s self-curation. [Oct 2023, p.49]

The better tracks are ones where Lydon stops grumbling about the modern world and creates his own mythic universe, both lyrically and musically. [Sep 2023, p.22]

The result sees them maintain high energy levels while showing off a richer musical palette and a keener sense of flow. [Sep 2023, p.31]

An open, compassionate record with a fierce spirit. [Sep 2023, p.33]

"D4N" is a shimmering piece of neo-soul featuring vocals from kindred spirit Sampha. even better are the tracks that dispense with the drums and moves into woozy, beatless territory, using choral harmonies and FX-laden electric pianos. [Sep 2023, p.27]

It's back-to-basics good fun garage rock, and while it's familiar territory it's undeniable that the band know their way around a hook. [Sep 2023, p.28]

If the production lacks the stark immediacy of their finest work, this is still music filled with hooks, abrasion and their signature swagger. Cynthia Sley is in particularly fine voice. [Sep 2023, p.24]

The best tracks gently slip their moorings, as with the sour fuzzed guitar and damaged lyrics of "Got The Fear", and hazy warp and alchemical concerns of the insinuatingly additcive "Green". [Jul 2023, p.33]

Loving You is a poignant last statement, rich with nuance and personality. [Sep 2023, p.34]

It's a calming, beatific experience. [Aug 2023, p.34]

The best bits mash up the retro influences, like the krautrock-meets-Motown collision of the title track, the glam grunge of "The Best Is Yet To come" or the Weller-ish ballad "Scared Of Love". [Sep 2023, p.31]

Epic eight-minute closer "Give Me Your Love" produced by Hot Chip's Al Doyle and Joe Goddard, will keep you dancing until dawn. [Sep 2023, p.27]

Here it's his "Story Of An Artist", delivered with a disarming simplicity. With contributions from regular collaborators Jim James and Neko Case, the other eight songs are striking originals. [Aug 2023, p.38]

The whole album, across a wildly varied and genuinely unique 18 tracks, feels like tuning in to some kind of revolutionary post-apocalyptic radio station. [Sep 2023, p.31]

The purposeful "Fast Asleep" or swirling "Dirtmouth" - featuring labelmate/saxophonist James Brandon Lewis - might loosely suit Parker's Chicago collective too. But "Solanin" with Brandee Younger, boasts a lush Cinematic Orchestra elegance, while Daedalus lends "(If You Don't Leave) The City Will Kill You" an irresistibly propulsive energy. [Sep 2023, p.27]

It's fair to say that Mitchell rarely does the heavy lifting here. Her role onstage is a fluid one: muse-goddess, North Star, shredder, comic foil and sometimes singer. The playing by her fellow artists is stellar and the backing vocals, in particular, ooze class. [Aug 2023, p.22]

The group confidently flits between low-key funk, lush symphonic Philly soul and the more punchy post-Motown dance grooves of Chairman Of The Board, the constant being Rowland's powerfully assured vocal delivery of his mea culpa confessionals. [Aug 2023, p.28]

Throughout all nine songs, Glenn-Copeland's voice seems to exist on the eternal plane, powerful and vulnerable in equal measure, an elder sharing his knowledge in stirring sonic form. [Sep 2023, p.26]

through his efforts to convey a profound experience of loss in a long-gone summer, these songs offer an uncommonly generous wealth of grace and beauty. [Aug 2023, p.32]

Georgia's also able to fuse a few different eras of electro-pop to create songs whose high sheen doesn't impede their intimacy or immediacy. [Sep 2023, p.27]

While lyrics like "this is the hottest summer I can ever remember 'cause the world is on fire" leave little to the imagination, the final product is hard to dislike. [Aug 2023, p.26]

A confident record that picks up where her recent DJ Kicks set left off. [Sep 2023, p.31]