Lahey excels at crafting chewy pieces of bubblegum-punk whose exuberance and smarts are often matched by their emotional potency. [Jun 2023, p.32]

At 15 tracks it rather drags its anchor, but there's much promise here. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Even without the backstory or an understanding of how difficult this record was to make, …Frankenstein is a skilful portrait of what it means to feel disconnected from the joy and urgency of life.

Airy melodies and Rachael's breathy vocals combine to create music that gets under the skin. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Her vulnerability is more affecting on the wistful break-up anthem "Losing", before "Younger & Dumber" closes the set with a pedal steel-laced paean to the woman she used to be. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Though these tracks are fluid and often meandering, they never lose their immersive, pulse-like groove. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Their angsty post-rock elements have been largely superseded by quivering/rousing chamber pop reminiscent of early Arcade fire and Florence + The Machine, yet a weird emotional intensity remains - along with a talent for self-mythology that inspires audible devotion in an excitable crowd. [Jul 2023, p.23]

There are star turns from figures like the veteran tenor saxophonist Ari Brown. But this is a collective, community affair - never more so than on "Stigmergy", which sees multiple instruments feeding into a single, glowing master melody. [Jul 2023, p.30]

Finger-poppin' fantastic. [Jul 2023, p.36]

There's a lot to like, and though "Pilot Was A Dancer" runs close to standard, indie folk-pop fare, the title track, with its Fairport-ish twangling and braided harmonies, and the wintery, Croz-styed "Give" compensate. [Jul 2023, p.36]

The bewitching tone varies from languid to experimental. [Jun 2023, p.35]

The smoky drawl and casual phrasing of her vocal often seems to channel Billie Holiday. [Jun 2023, p.31]

She relies on relatively conservative house music tropes sometimes, but the hooks never fail to cut through. [Jun 2023, p.29]

It's sunny and optimistic and mostly dynamic (sans a few sleepy, repetitive moments on the six-minute-plus tracks). [May 2023, p.35]

Nelson remains the supreme interpreter of American song, and age has wearied his fretboard fingers not even slightly. [May 2023, p.32]

They're both incredibly deft players, executing taut riffs with obvious charisma. [May 2023, p.35]

Jean plays a mean guitar and the trademark rockabilly romps of "fate" and "trouble", or heavier numbers such as "Godmother", are perfectly fine. ... The wild, carnivalesque cover of Enya's "orinico Flow" - a novelty but a thoroughly enjoyable one. [Jun 2023, p.31]

At 72 years of age, Crowell remains both a vital link to Van Zandt's classic sensibility and an enduring force whose vitality shows few signs of waning. [Jun 2023, p.28]

Confirm that the brothers have fully absorbed their influences in a work of stunning sophistication. [Jun 2023, p.32]

The concept is implicit in the music's gospel-soul communion, the lyrics' yearning and reckoning, and the rousing, towering power of Jones' purposively nostalgic soul vocal. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The band's creativity, imagination and power remain undimmed. [Jun 2023, p.29]

Ultimately, too much easy-listening stoner-tronica makes Prism yet another pleasant but inessential late-career Orb album. [Jun 2023, p.35]

It's the more emotional moments which prove The Damned's undimmed commitment. [May 2023, p.28]

Self-imposed limitations allow Lawrie to create unusual textures and sounds and force him to be more resourceful in how he deploys them. [Mar 2023, p.36]

Each song is so confident and perfectly formed, unravelling with cascading flurries. Orcutt is so confident and comfortable in his own skin that he has become a maser oif phrasing and economy. [Jun 2023, p.35]

Bullion's smooth, rounded sound burnishes what is a dynamic collection of songs. [Jun 203, p.26]

A set full of dynamic nuance with a filmic scope. [Mar 2023, p.23]

Dreamer is irrefutably dreamy. ... Nonetheless, she strays into other early-to-mid-'90s styles. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The subject matter sits somewhere between Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Led Zep. ... Yet the sounds owes little to either as flute and mandolin lend a folk-rock ambience and John O'Hara's keyboards and Jow Parrish-James' guitar essay '70s prog tropes like they never went away. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The Window Is The Dream is sonically richer than Horn's often sparse 2022 debut, Optimism, but each choice - the temporary Band-esque folk-rock swagger of "The Dream", the way "Old Friend" hovers at the edge of an extended jam that never quite breaks - is in service of, rather than overpowering, the song. [May 2023, p.30]

Alfa Mists addresses a key weakness in so much contemporary jazz - it actually has some decent tunes. He's helped by his guests. ... But Alfa himself (who also raps on a couple of tracks) can also develop a compelling melodic idea. [Jun 2023, p.35]

An elegantly spare showcase for her radiant voice, a tremulous yodel tinged with gospel and country inflections. [May 2023, p.31]

An intimate, ballad-dominated song cycle that melds their vintage and experimental sides. [Jun 2023, p.36]

If it lacks the politicised urgency of previous 21st-century Hunter albums, or much surprise, his faith in a rock'n'roll cause first signed up to in the '50s has its own majesty. [Jun 2023, p.31]

More intimate but still privy to occasional bursts of discordant, unsettling energy. Several tracks are exceptionally brief. [May 2023, p.38]

The music is spectacular, of course. But if you want to know how the deal really went down, you'll still have to go under the counter. [Jun 2023, p.48]

High Flyin' is like a snapshot from a long-ago holiday romance. Sweet, sometimes spine-tingling to recall. But you maybe won't linger over it too often. [Jun 2023, p.48]

Some tastefully lightweight, pleasantly inessential filler ultimately make Fuse a minor late-career coda. [Jun 2023, p.26]

Startling stuff. [Jun 2023, p.29]

Recalls both Erykah Badu and Arlo Parks, but there's no heavy shadowing here. [Apr 2023, p.32]

The songs here are country rock, unadorned and sensitively played, nestled around Young's lovely acoustic take on Barn's "Song OF The Seasons." Inevitably, Young's influence proliferates. [May 2023, p.31]

Warm, fuzzy and delicious. [May 2023, p.31]

Heavy and heady, free jazz shot through with the urgency of spoken word and pleasure of experimentation. [Jun 2023, p.32]

Most of this album is more laudable than listenable. [Jun 2023, p.26]

As with Daft Punk's sleek 1970s upgrades, his accomplished 1780s meditations go past pastiche. [Jun 2023, p.25]

Wittily expressed and beautifully sung. [May 2023, p.31]

Distinguished by the forceful, deeply personal flows of Roots' MC Black thought, their fourth takes on hip-hop jazz tone, leavening their somewhat overly tasteful retroism without ditching its widescreen pleasure. [May 2023, p.28]

Leaving New York for Sweden during the pandemic gave fresh perspective to these songs of past American odysseys and accumulated loss. [May 2023, p.36]

The album is at its most interesting when it breaks from this mould [dreamy psych rock], embracing more atmospheric sensibilities. [May 2023, p.36]

All necessarily mood but never morose. [May 2023, p.32]

It's the restlessly inventive guitars, from silvery solos to swaggering glam rock, where Metallica find ageless redemption. [Jun 2023, p.32]

Lyrically, relationships dominate, if unconventionally. ... Her effervescent voice like muted Liz Fraser. [Jun 2023, p.32]

If you've not already bought into the LDR mythos, it's like joining a long-form TV show midway through its difficult fourth season. [Jun 2023, p.26]

It's a great illustration of how the trio are even more than the sum of their considerable parts. [Jun 2023, p.25]

A gorgeous collection of songs steeped in Americana roots and full of breezy canyon vibes. [May 2023, p.28]

A passionate but ultimately rather clean record of angst-filled ballads. [May 2023, p.27]

This record is a graceful, seemingly intuitive unfolding into various emotional and/or imagined physical landscapes. [May 2023, p.29]

Deep and heartbreaking. [May 2023, p.35]

The album may be even bolder and more bracing than the theatrical experiment that preceded it. ... She sounds fearless in every sense of the word. [May 2023, p.20]

A bleakly beautiful record that smuggles moments of elation into its ambient dread. [May 2023, p.28]

For all the widescreen grandeur and fresh perspectives of the orchestral arrangements, they're curiously at their most rousing when just voice and acoustic guitar embellish "Won't Get Fooled Again". [May 2023, p.38]

Remarkably, the world they create together never curdles into sentimentality. ... Wednesday turn that stabbing pain into triumphant rock'n'roll. [May 2023, p.39]

1982 has some nostalgic moments. ... But there is forward motion too. [May 2023, p.25]

There is a luscious warmth to this collection. [May 2023, p.28]

Demos - impressive for Elton's ability to nail a song on first take, amusing for his repertoire of Goons voices - and songs from the Feb 1972 Royal Festival Hall concert which amounted to his showbiz coronation. [May 2023, p.46]

The trademark humour that seemed less prevalent as a result on 2018's Digital Garbage is satisfyingly back in evidence here, alongside agreeably ragged riffs and an admirable refusal to tighten up. [May 2023, p.31]

This is hypnotic stuff. ... A record that feels genuinely transportive. [May 2023, p.30]

An album that uses traditional African instrumentation and state-of-the-art electronica with a boldness that is extraordinary. [May 2023, p.31]

Brilliant though many of these musicians have been in numerous other contexts, this might be some of their finest work: a thrilling 90-minute voyage into the outer regionso f electric jazz. [Apr 2023, p.33]

While you'll find little direct trace of Odessey And Oracle here, or of course White's distinctive songwriting contributions, Blunstone's heartfelt interpretation of Argent's classicist craft does, though, endure. [May 2023, p.34]

A blissful affair. [Apr 2023, p.25]

These songs fizz as freshly as if the group have only just discovered that combination of the post-punk pugnacity of prime Attractions with the acerbic disquisitions of a spoken-word Springsteen. [May 2023, p.28]

One of its overarching joys is its relative directness, very much a conscious deciaion on the group's part. This is Deerhoof we're talking about, though - they still play it like they're hurtling towards collapse at breakneck speed, before pulling everything together with a fantastic flourish. [May 2023, p.28]

The interplay between the two string players is as elegant as ever, but their new partners dramatically expand the range of flavours on offer. [May 2023, p.36]

The veteran band's warmest, most tactile record. [May 2023, p.32]

A wonderful pop album that reads as both a studied tribute and a welcome update. [Apr 2023, p.35]

A super-sophisticated set of soul-jazz covers of songs. [May 2023, p.38]

Nakedly intimate narrative of self-discovery. [May 2023, p.35]

"When The End Is Over" offers a glimpse of his sweetly ruminative side, but the amped-up riffs and recorded-in-a-garage fidelity keep things firmly in the red. [May 2023, p.32]

A generic gem, full of virtuosic playing, breathtaking three-part harmonies and memorable, melodic songs about the human condition. [May 2023, p.32]

Lankum have found a convincing way to keep the damn hulk going, stoking the engines of folk tradition and setting course to who knows when. [May 2023, p.24]

Moskowitz takes the role of wise guide, ruminating on life and the cosmos with a grandmotherly warmth. [Apr 2023, p.32]

Too many artists on this well-intentioned and occasionally even enjoyable tribute album seem to forget they're country artists. [May 2023, p.38]

September November is undeniably a vital, relevant 21st-century artefact. [Apr 2023, p.22]

Love In Exile stands as a worthy summation of the trio's alchemical live shows. But there's enough here to dangle the promise that this trio formation could run and run, and this remarkable collaboration is hopefully just the beginning. [May 2023, p.33]

Over the full 82 minutes, though, 93696 can feel a little relentless, undone by the scale of its own ambition. [Apr 2023, p.32]

Fantasy is a spellbinding return to form for the French producer. [May 2023, p.31]

Their most powerful work this century. It's the sound of a band entering a final act with a renewed sense of purpose, and sharp, sober new focus. [May 2023, p.26]

It works at least as well [as 2018's The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini] on this collection of new originals. [Apr 2023, p.38]

The clarity and effervescence of much of V can seem revelatory. [Apr 2023, p.34]

As a whole, the record is a persuasive parcel of slick Americana with just enough redneck grit in the oyster. [Mar 2023, p.26]

His latest album triumphs on levels beyond its inimitable Holley-ness. On the one hand, it reads like another act of spontaneous divination, revisiting past traumas with pained understanding, yet also hopeful and celebrating the wonder of life. But it’s also his most substantial and accessible album yet. [Apr 2023, p.18]

Gendel makes it all appear effortless - as usual. [Apr 2023, p.26]

Aşk feels like a liberation, bursting out exuberantly in all directions as they boldly rework a set of ancient Turkish folk tunes with characteristic invention. [Apr 2023, p.23]

it's another kaleidoscopic exploration of neo-psych and garage. [Apr 2023, p.24]

The highlights are splendid: a brass-embellished "Red Hill Mining Town", a languid piano-led "Beautiful Day", a near-calypso "Miracle of Joey Ramone". [Apr 2023, p.38]

Milk For Flowers is intimate, introspective and melancholic, yet peppered with moments of joy, elation and hope. His best album so far. [Apr 2023, p.29]

Though Cleveland's delivery is generally far more subdued, Manzanita shares a similarly transportative, anciently psychedelic feel with The Incredible String Band's magical '60s work. [Apr 2023, p.24]