The only downside to this soundtrack is that you can’t watch Prince slink around stage or pretend to take a bath with the audience, but at least the Blu-ray. [Jul 2022, p.44]

From the creeping “Let That Sink In” to growling “Warpaint”, Sage Motel is super stuff: check in at your earliest convenience. [Jun 2022, p.31]

Exploratory, visionary record. [Aug 2022, p.22]

The bereft “Have Mercy On Me” and hopeful, lightly gospel “I Have Wandered All My Unending Days” are particularly striking, while the concluding 11-minute instrumental mix works as metaphor for Cave’s faith: immersive and foundational. [Jul 2022, p.25]

Emerald Sea isn’t your average third album. An otherworldly mix of Gustav Holst’s drama, The Flaming Lips’ psychedelia and Broadcast’s retro-futurist exotica, with hints of the band’s earlier Beach House dream-pop, it breaks a fourth wall of sound with “The Glare”’s saturated reverberations, while “Deeper Surround” offers a chimerical carousel ride of synths. [Aug 2022, p.33]

On The Spur, Shelley captures the ache and the sweetness, the loss and the love, the coming and going of it all, with greater scale and skill than ever before.

The pair sparked and quickly knocked out an album that sounds years in the maturing. [Jul 2022, p.25]

The way it weaves this constellation of influence and artfulness into 10 songs that are lighter than air, deceptively simple, yet cumulatively, surprisingly moving. [Aug 2022, p.32]

It starts with rousing rebel anthem “The Real”, and further highlights include the shoegaze drawl of “What’s In A Name?”, the jittery “Silenced” and the sinister growling surf of “You Think I’m Joking”. [Jul 2022, p.25]

This is a generous, curious and commendably weird LP. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Reggae Film Star is a luminous beauty. [Aug 2022, p.29]

“Mr Bojangles”, sung with cornpone syrup by Dylan, here earthily returns to the drunk-tank cell where Walker met its subject, a broken-down, alcoholic tap-dancer his song invests with heel-clicking magic. The tune defiantly climbs, strings waltz and Earle stores sentiment ’til the end.

Mixing classic covers (Big Joe Williams’ “Crawling King Snake”, Charlie Patton’s “Pea Vine Blues”) with his ‘new’ compositions, lyrical advances into commonplace blues melodies like “When The Frisco Left the Shed”, there’s timelessness in every note here, every expression. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Throughout Taylor and Ralston draw from astral jazz, Alice Coltrane's meditation music and the expansive orchestral funk of David Axelrod to create something uniquely emotive over four lengthy and very different tracks. [Aug 2022, p.31]

With its combination of Goodman's ache-filled vocals and Crazy Horse clamour, "Keeper Of The Time" is an even more striking demonstration of what she can do. [Aug 2022, p.26]

She’s made another very good album, her first in six years. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Whether in the propulsive “The Fall” or the more delicate “Desire”, she’s rarely sounded so commanding. [Jun 2022, p.34]

With a '70s/'80s-inspired disco-pop feel, creating a Eurovision-like mood that you probably wouldn't expect to find on a Sub pop release. The lack of top-line sheen, though, ensures this album retains a rough edge without sacrificing any intrinsic appeal. [Aug 2022, p.33]

Their unfussy but subtle playing embellishes the simplicity of Nash’s melodies, while experience brings renewed pathos to songs like “I Used To Be A King”, “Man In The Mirror” and even something as straightforward as “You’ll Never Be The Same”. [Jul 2022, p.30]

There’s plenty for prog loyalists to appreciate in the knotty polyrhythms, hopscotching bass and divebombing guitar excursions of tracks such as “Harridan” and “Chimera’s Wreck”, but genre agnostics may find more inviting access points in the sumptuous stripes of rueful melody, nuggety riffs and widescreen pomp-rock dynamics that Wilson and friends create. [Jul 2022, p.31]

All the writers who share Lund's love of droll wordplay, and all their works are illuminated by Lund's signature laconic twinkle, and the Hurtin' Alberans' deadpan virtuosity. [Aug 2022, p.29]

Behind their heavily stylised surface, these are fairly standard heartbreak ballads, but Li's voluptuous gothic gloom is still intoxicating. [Aug 2022, p.29]

Halvorson's string arrangements admit complexity without overwhelming, and the Mivos String Quartet play gracefully and authoritatively. [Aug 2022, p.26]

You're left wishing these jazz quintet pieces breathed more. [Aug 2022, p.26]

White Jesus Black Problems fizzes with indignation and exults in contradictions. [Aug 2022, p.25]

Works best when it diverts furthest from the originals. [Aug 2022, p.25]

By far the most compelling persona on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is the Kendrick who is trying to make sense of his own family. ... ["Mother I Sober" is] a tour de force, almost but not quite as revelatory as "DUCKWORTH", a similar family saga off 2017's DAMN. And the best moment is when the strings swell and Lamar's voice changes. [Aug 2022, p.24]

It’s just five tracks, barely half an hour of music, but worth the wait in gold. ... Particularly on the radiant “Make Lovely The Day”, where she’s accompanied simply by Steve Hackett’s fluttering acoustic guitar, it’s like hearing the greatest British singer of her generation for the very first time. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Sophie Allison's ascent from teenage bedroom-pop savant to incisive chronicler of Gen Z angst hits a crescendo on Sometimes, Forever, an improbable but rewarding collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin. [Aug 2022, p.33]

This pleasing mix of exploratory guitar tones and ever-shifting rhythms that switch between the kinetic and flowing makes for an arresting debut. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Reflective of our era of political polarisation, the likes of “Contempt For You” can make for bruising listening experiences. Yet there’s still plenty of solace to be found in performances by Iceland’s Elin Ey and the ever-remarkable Anohni. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Though some tracks really need the context of performance or visuals, on the astral fourth-world funk of “Eye In The Wall”, Hadreas sets sail on his own Arthur Russell-style “African Night Flight”. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Ultraviolet... demonstrates both purpose and renewed vigour. [Jul 2022, p.25]

Deliluh are more economical on their third album, even if they regularly expand on its mix of Kyle Knapp’s intimidatingly recited, enigmatic lyrics and angular post-punk. [Jul 2022, p.25]

An album of skippy, infectious, electronics-soaked disco rock. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Love and hope stay preciously rare yet infinitely possible, and this album’s guttering, guiding light. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Les Racines is ultimately a full and fierce showcase for Vieux’s own prowess, and his restatement of desert blues. [Jul 2022, p.27]

It’s the Phenomenal Handclap Band’s Daniel Collás, as producer, who brings Jackson’s long-lost creations to life. The eight tracks here, written during the Scott-Heron era, re-emerge more relevant than ever, courtesy of a strong backing band. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Even by Head's own lofty standards, this represents a late-career masterpiece. [Jun 2022, p.29]

Inside Problems is a rather less meticulous and more spirited band set that examines the questions that keep him awake at night, in ear-snagging songs shot through with ’70s country rock, chamber pop, Balkan and Appalachian folk and Tin Pan Alley eccentricity. [Jul 2022, p.23]

They stew in the rich absurdity of it all, and offer a collection that rings of the band’s tendency toward Southern-gothic neo-noir, but with frequent punctuations of light. [July 2022, p.32]

Raggedly glorious covers of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” and Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up” rate as major highlights along with the live debut of Tattoo You’s “Worried About You” and a blistering take on “Hot Stuff” that amply demonstrates the liberating effects of the band’s temporary escape from baseball stadiums and hippodromes. [Jul 2022, p.44]

The album is a deeply textural listen, led by Leaneagh’s impressive voice. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Her sixth, co-produced by Jonathan Wilson, executes no radical stylistic swerve but neither are its 10 songs of a single type. Rather, they’re a balancing of country – here are echoes of Tammy, Emmylou and Lee Hazlewood – and torch song (kd lang, Roy Orbison), with the odd flourish of cocktail-lounge melancholy (a la Badalamenti) and classic, MGM-style orchestrations. [Jul 2022, p.28]

There’s a new sense of maturity, even kindness, starting with “More Power”, a song of odd, regretful sentiments, reputedly addressed to Noel and full of family references. ... Songs mostly remain Frankenstein stitch-ups, though: Jeff Lynne’s softly simulated psychon the Threetles’ “Real Love” seems the production template, when not mixed for terrace power, minus tunes. [Jun 2022, p.26]

Cruel Country is the rare album that throws everything that came before it into sharp relief – a small miracle for a band 30 years into its run. [Jul 2022, p.22]

It’s a little stiff and metronomic in places, working more as a calling card to Hollywood than a standalone album. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Past Life Regression is a perfect distillation of Quever’s aesthetic – 10 hook-filled tracks that bring to mind vintage Paisley Underground excursions, Barrett-era Floyd and jangly C86 moods. [Jul 2022, p.31]

As thrilling as it is unexpected. [Jul 2022, p.30]

Vincent Belorgey’s obsession with buffed-up synths and corny lyrics earnestly sung (“Reborn” by Romuald, “Renegade” by Cautious Clay) does pay off, but the air-tight production and endless cascade of saccharine arpeggios – plus a lovesick Sébastien Tellier pining on “Goodbye” – lays on thick the sentimental shtick. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Feels more like a refreshment, refinement or even fulfilment of Radiohead core principals, rather than an extracurricular dalliance. [Jul 2022, p.24]

Closer "Underdog", a stripped-back self-portrait of a striver still "trying hard [to] leave a mark", provides an intimate coda to Harwood's depiction of his teeming inner world, a hermetically sealed ocean of emotion. [Jul 2022, p.27]

The result, unsurprisingly, is a downbeat, ruminative affair. [Jul 2022, p.31]

An album that feels charged by forward momentum while also embracing the comforting pulse of a locked groove. [Jul 2022, p.31]

A reflection on memory and transience amid which his deadpan drawl is frequently draped in incongruous but effective orchestral splendour, while Finn’s character sketches are as deft as ever. [Jun 2022, p.26]

The 76-year-old virtuoso is at his most poignantly expressive on the album's inward-turned, stripped-back blues ballads. [Jul 2022, p.34]

Backed by a 15-piece band plus horn section, they delivered a spirited set of classic blues, R&B and gospel that concluded with “The Weight”, which Staples and Helm had first performed together at The Last Waltz in 1976 at the start of their 35-year friendship. [Jun 2022, p.33]

While the tempo and patterns vary, with “I” featuring Christer Bothén on the six-string donso n’goni, the vibe is pleasingly uniform, with a boundless feel akin to Neu!’s “Hallogallo”. [Jun 2022, p.23]

With This Is A Photograph, he offers the wisest and most assured rendering of the Middle American vision he’s been honing of late, one where Dylan-esque anti-singing narrates impassioned, earnest and earthen tales of family, place, love and heroes, and a crack band shakes the rafters. [Jun 2022, p.32]

A “Time Of The Season”-like Latin groove powers standout “It Ain’t Over”, syncopated by percussionist Sam Bacco, whose tambourine and shakers are the album’s secret sauce. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Taken on their own merits, Royce Hall and Dorothy Chandler are prime examples of Young in early ’71 … but maybe we can move on to other territory now? [Jun 2022, p.43]

This is their best set of songs since the band’s sex-crazed 2004 debut, continuing some of the debt-to-the-’80s feel of 2014’s Get Back on homage-paying tracks like “Nikki Go Sudden” and “Swollen Maps”. [Jun 2022, p.31]

It’s an affirmation of their relationship and personal and creative identities in an(other) electronic-soul set with muted beats and a meditative, rather than impassioned bent, though no less righteous for that. [Jun 2022, p.29]

It’s a unique performance, with a wealth of rarely played material. ... The Bottom Line bootleg was the kind of listening experience that turned casual fans into obsessives. Now remastered and officially part of Neil’s ongoing saga, its seductive power remains undimmed. [Jun 2022, p.43]

Dorothy Chandler is the one to get; the 8+-minute “Sugar Mountain”, with numerous spoken-word digressions, is Neil at his most hilariously droll. [Jun 2022, p.43]

We’ve Been Going... is above all an incredible sounding record. Across its 10 tracks, it incorporates the Jupiter synths and saturnine beats of Remind Me Tomorrow and the stark, swooning strum of her early records to create truly a cosmic dynamic range, from the softest whisper to the most desolate scream. [Jun 2022, p.18]

Far from a series of intimidatingly empty spaces, Endless Rooms is more like RBCF’s shared mind palace, a place rich with experiences and emotion in which they’re stretching their creative legs, throwing open door after door and rushing eagerly through, to play. [Jun 2022, p.22]

While these dozen faithfully and fabulously Soft Cell-ish songs do not stint on paranoid foreboding, they are buoyed by an undimmed pop instinct and Almond’s waspish wit. [Apr 2022, p.35]

It all combines to paint a picture of a band entering a distinct new phase. [Jun 2022, p.33]

The album never becomes a dry documentary, though, because the music adopts the station’s spirit of dissent and subversion. [Jun 2022, p.31]

There’s always a risk with these kinds of collaborations – too many cooks, watering down the essence – but that’s largely avoided on Where’s The One?, thanks to the openness and playful spirit of the music. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Leaning lightly into their love of R&B on the likes of “Proof” and “Stevie”, and relaxing into expansive, stoned-in-the-sunshine grooves on pulsing lead single “Champion” and “Like Sweetness”, it’s a perfect goth summer record. [Jun 2022, p.34]

For all the record’s sonic invention, though, its Sangaré’s voice that commands attention, a rich, textured instrument that has only grown more nuanced and subtle with age. [May 2022, p.34]

Arcade Fire have delivered a triumphant restatement of purpose that 2022 probably doesn’t deserve but is brightened by all the same.[Jun 2022, p.35]

LP number nine features meditations on ageing: “Deathbed Of My Dreams” does it in a Nashville style; “Young And Stupid” does it like an early 1970s Eurovision entry. There’s also joyous self-affirmation. ... Best of all are “Prophets On Hold” and “Talk To Me Talk To Me”, AOR masterpieces that should have been on the last Abba album. J[Jun 2022, p.25]

Playful homages to country at its most synthetic and dancefloor-friendly, “Better Than Any Drug” and “Fall In Love Again” bridge the gap that once existed between Madonna and the Mandrell Sisters. [May 2022, p.29]

Woozy psych-folk remains her default setting, but there’s a fresh sense of experimentation at play here. [Jun 2022, p.26]

An eventually rousing album. [Jun 2022, p.34]

The constant is Wilson’s fiery vocal, still powerfully passionate well into her seventies. [May 2022, p.36]

The thoughtful A Beautiful Time finds Nelson in remarkable voice, giving thanks for a life well-lived over songs that feel wise and wily without being overly sentimental. [May 2022, p.30]

It absolutely stands on its own merits, however, as an album replete with the sinister strangeness and bleary whimsy which has characterised Laibach’s best work. [Jun 2022, p.29]

This Liverpool duo’s debut full-length occupies a brooding space somewhere between Mazzy Star and overlooked early-’90s slowcore heavyweights Idaho. [May 2022, p.29]

Palomino is upbeat, glossy country, tending somewhat towards the generic, but redeemed (as usual) by the rich twang in Lambert’s voice and the waspish humour which frequently enlivens her lyrics. [Jun 2022, p.29]

“Sex Magik” and “If We Get Caught” offer unashamedly lusty visions punctuated by agreeable glimpses of pop glitter. Otherwise, though, waspish, charismatically delivered lyrics are let down by workaday instrumental backing. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Fear Of The Dawn succeeds better when it surprises. [Jun 2022, p.34]

Tomberlin's second long-player seems to semi-consciously urge you to move along – nothing to hear here. Yet it creates its own slow-burning allure on repeated listens. [Jun 2022, p.34]

On her 2019 debut album Keepsake, Harriette Pilbeam, who records as Hatchie, showed an inclination to take her shoegaze-infused pop onto the dancefloor. That’s something continued on Giving The World Away. [Jun 2022, p.28]

It makes for another assured chapter in a celebrated life, a celebrated achievement. [Jun 2022, p.24]

At low volume, the album could serve as dinner music, but crank it up and its hushed intensity will gut you. [Jun 2022, p.25]

An exceptional, disarming collection of mutant electronic music. It’s a dense, disorienting 40 minutes of hyper-punctual edits, very tonally bright and often overwhelming; a sensorial bombardment. [Jun 2022, p.29]

There’s a sweet sadness to the end-of-relationship duet with Dave Gahan on “Stop Speaking”, but while the melancholy romantic meditations of other tracks can also be initially intriguing, the songs then lack the peaks and troughs to keep you from disengaging. [Jun 2022, p.29]

Prochet crafts another bewitching set of songs that weave together strains of vintage Gallic pop and gentle shoegaze with the gnarlier elements. [May 2022, p.30]

Thanks to a glut of albums by introspective piano students, there are elements in these largely reflective pieces that may seem familiar, but James Heather is still capable of subtly defying expectations. [May 2022, p.29]

There are some pretty melodies here, like “Bells”, “Hymn” and “An Intimate Distance”, but there are some tracks where Eno’s melodies are so minimal that they become quite mind-numbingly banal. [May 2022, p.26]

Heartbeat rhythms raise the emotional temperature. Joseph’s theme is abuse, and survival. Her voice coils and swirls in songs that play like maternal nursery rhymes rendered for comfort. [May 2022, p.29]

On “Tangerine” and “Fuzz Jam”, The Lazy Eyes strike an appealing balance between Beachwood Sparks-calibre prettiness and their gnarlier, squigglier impulses. [Apr 2022, p.31]

A record that acts as both a good-humour history lesson and a rousing party-starter for future generations to discover. [May 2022, p.22]

Spencer Gets It Lit is the strongest recorded offering from the rocker since the Blues Explosion’s 2012 album, Meat + Bone.