A fairly respectable blend of new and reworked older material, deconstructing vintage 1970s tracks like "Mr. Bassie" into airy melodica ripples and sinewy basslines. [May 2022, p.23]

On the feverishly catchy bubblegum punk of tracks like “Talk About It” and “Petals” they sound something like Dolly Parton fronting Blondie ... And, on tracks like “Happy Hour” and “Crossing Lines”, the interplay between twin guitarists Adam Johnstone and Fergus Sinclair is reminiscent of Television, which adds to the CBGBs vibe. [May 2022, p.35]

Joyous cosmic weirdness. [May 2022, p.36]

Add sublime dimensions to James's already impressive canon. [May 2022, p.36]

Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig apply a dance-pop shine to the 10 songs here, an approach that lightens the load of heavy-hearted lyrics rooted in changes and challenges like Wolfe’s recent divorce. [May 2022, p.30]

Richly cinematic and more eclectic than recent efforts. [May 2022, p.25]

Though the motherlode of unreleased music found on Slanted And Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’s reissues is absent, many of the extra tracks here are worth checking out. ... The rest of this set shows that it’s still a station very much worth stopping at, now more so than ever. [May 2022, p.42]

Fletcher’s and Pursey’s The Catenary Wires offer sweet vocals and dirty guitars on “Wall Of Sound” and Heavenly comrade Peter Momtchiloff jangles in French on Tufthunter’s “Monsier Jadis”, while Secret Shine still pursue shoegaze, Boyracer remain appealingly chaotic, and Sepiasound’s bucolic instrumental “Arcadian” maintains Blueboy’s yearning. [Apr 2022, p.36]

You Belong There is an album rich in moments of beauty and wisdom, even as it confesses that there are no easy answers. [May 2022, p.18]

He sings the gospel with everything pared back to its essence: a flinty guitar tone, that surprisingly recalls the chipped, clanking tones of Pip Proud or Mayo Thompson; a throaty, gorgeous voice; beautiful, soul-informed backing, only when it’s needed. [May 2022, p.24]

The legendary guitarist-turned-frontman leads his mates through supercharged honky-tonk (“Brigitte Bardot”), headbangers (“Cheap Talk”, “External Combustion”) and a ZZ Top-style tailfin rave-up (“Lightning Boogie”).

Smart, sharp and endlessly stimulating. [May 2022, p.36]

Brisk and adrenalised, Wet Leg leaves little room to get bored, and is impressively low on filler for a debut. Even the sketchy minor tracks earn their place here. [May 2022, p.33]

His honeyed, Elliott Smith-esque vocal adds to the lush warmth of spare but forceful arrangements, softening the blows soaked up by his songs’ baffled and blitzed Angelenos. [May 2022, p.29]

Like The Knife's opera about Charles Darwin, The Unfolding tackles the biggest themes in a way that's awed, never overwrought. [May 2022, p.32]

While songs like “Nashville Mess Around” heighten the good-time vibes, Crooked Tree’s often playful manner is balanced by deeper considerations.

The Next 20th Century contains a bunch of songs – “Goodbye Mr Blue”, “We Could Be Strangers”, “Buddy’s Rendezvous” – that go right to the gut with their instant melodic charm, and a bunch more – “Kiss Me (I Loved You)”, “Q4”, “Only A Fool”, “The Next 20th Century” – that are deeply striking a few listens later thanks to their sumptuous arrangements, exceptional playing and emotional pull. [May 2022, p.24]

Huge, head-rushing opener “Happy New Year” and sad banger “Hall Of Mirrors” exemplify the giddy “new” LEG, while the country-folk “Sunday”, powerfully harmonised “Strange Conversations” and Angel Olsen-ish title track are maturations of their earlier sounds. [May 2022, p.30]

His verse is relentlessly positivistic and hippy-ish (“I go forward in the courage of my love”), delivered in a conspiratorial whisper, but the highlight is the backing, which drifts between spiritual jazz, skeletal dub and folksy minimalism, all the time featuring Fairbairn’s quiet, quavering tenor sax improvisations. [May 2022, p.26]

Occasionally it can feel like you’re listening to in-jokes playing on repeat, but good tunes like “Eight Minute Machines” (Sleaford Mods, 1978) and “Twitchin’ In The Kitchen” (“It’s Tricky” repurposed for drug users) emerge from the funky environs with characterful fuzz intact. [May 2022, p.36]

The piano house pop of “Woman” and synth-fuelled trance of “Holiday” could have been released in 1992, but they’re no less likeable for it. They’re shot through with CM’s trademark wry cool, as is “What I Like”, wherein Sugar Bones’ laconic vocal makes a dancefloor anthem sound somehow like The Dandy Warhols gone disco. [May 2022, p.25]

There's a sharper focus this time round. [Apr 2022, p.31]

Williams' charismatic performance, switching between English and Ibibio, keeps the songs grounded in the "rage, hope, soul" she sings about on "Freedom"; the synth, brass and rhythm make them dancefloor bangers regardless. [May 2021, p.29]

Margo's curled-lip rock sneer and urgent folk purity stay sides of the same coolly distanced conviction. [Apr 2022, p.26]

What threads these eight songs together into a true album rather than just a compilation is the idea – the threat, the inevitability – of leaving and being left. Partly that’s due to Auerbach’s judicious curation, but that fear of loss animates almost all of Son House’s music, if not all of the blues in general. ... House conveys as much joy on these songs as he does pain, telling us so many years after his death that we cannot experience one without the other.

His latest is less complex and makes a strong move to the dancefloor, without ditching the intrigue. [Apr 2022, p.26]

Harding goes wherever her voice takes her, and like fellow apostate traditionalist Richard Dawson, she is comfortable picking for shiny scraps of melody on the hard shoulder. As a consequence, these songs command close attention but – like the messy universe around them – do not necessarily beg to be decoded. [Apr 2022, p.18]

There are more weather-beaten back-porch vibes to the pedal steels of “Not The Only One”, and the sublime Jenny Lewis duet “Everybody” sounds like a dream date between Glen Campbell and Dusty Springfield. [Apr 2022, p.25]

It's a high-concept work that also stands on its own, radiating beauty, calm, comfort and energy. [May 2022, p.30]

A record that is intensely visceral, loud and charged yet not needlessly overblown. [May 2022, p.26]

Embellished with hints of country and Southern soul, it belongs to the same school of forlorn pop classicism favoured by Dennis Wilson or Emit Rhodes. [Apr 2022, p.29]

Opens with three tracks that feature his street set-up and have the sparse rawness of Lomax’s 1930s Mississippi Delta recordings. The other eight tracks were recorded in a studio with a full band and bounce and ricochet with the joyous energy of the Bhundu Boys at their most exuberant. [Mar 2022, p.29]

It’s her voice, always expressive and active, that anchors even the wildest experiments, whether it’s the children’s choir at the end of the title track or the ratatat rhythms of “Obligation”. [Apr 202, p.32]

This might have worked better as a single LP, but to ensure the collection doesn’t run out of steam, there are two new tracks: the bouncy “Curious” and retro rocker “Billy Goodbye”. [Apr 2022, p.44]

Island Family examines themes of identity, isolation and belonging against an endlessly inventive backdrop of sweeping electronica, clever samples and weirdy folk, sometimes strangely blissful and at others beat-driven and wakeful. [Apr 2022, p.32]

Wonky charmer of a third album. [Apr 2022, p.31]

It's Cypress Hill's own B-Real who steals the show, though, his nasally raps still as distinctive as a whiff of the green stuff. [Apr 2022, p.26]

It secures Midlake's future with small yet significant shifts that haven't erased their identity. Not deeper waters, necessarily - but running clearer and on a newly energised course. [Apr 2022, p.22]

A better-than-respectable restatement of many of their original virtues, the primary being the flair for sunny, Hollies-like melodicism. [Apr 2022, p.25]

Instrumental understatement and forlorn romanticism define The Jacket. [Apr 2022, p.36]

This is Raum's greatest gift—it's not just a trip to the past but a truly worthy addition to one of the most important but overwhelming catalogues in electronic music. [Apr 2022, p.35]

It's entirely fantastical stuff. [Apr 2022, p.32]

It's a tart set but not a sour one - concerns are laid bare and life lessons shared, with whip-smart confidence. [Apr 2022, p.25]

In many ways, it’s everything you could want in a Spiritualized album. [Mar 2022, p.22]

Alex Cameron returns to the more overtly acerbic studies in modern male toxicity that established the Australian singer-songwriter as a suave provocateur. [Apr 2022, p.25]

Classic Objects is, on its face, Jenny Hval's most straightforward work: her songs flirt with conventional verse-chorus structure, her lyrics are clear nd direct, drawn from life. Closer listening, though, reveals Hval interrogating those experiences. [Apr 2022, p.29]

Old-school techno beats dominate as Flür cuts a dance-pop swathe through his own history and back. [Apr 2022, p.26]

There's no revolutionary do-over taking place here, just solid, reliable indie rock from a songwriter who knocks it out with what's bordering on flippant ease. [Apr 2022, p.28]

The whole work glides in one long, soft landing. [Apr 2022, p.35]

Her supple voice is a thing of understated beauty, bonded to tales of emotional attachment and release in a way that suggests full closure is still a little way off. [Apr 2022, p.28]

More inward-looking than her conceptual debut, its emotive lyrics lending themselves to a more tightly focused musical palette. [Apr 2022, p.36]

A lively, impassioned record that proudly eschews convention and celebrates its outsider roots. [Apr 2022, p.31]

It is quite simply stunning. [Apr 2022, p.30]

He roams a palette of solo guitar modes, from Sonic Youth-y harmonics, through melodic lines, all slight but identifiable his own. [Mar 2022, p.32]

The arrangements - as ever - are more Les Misérables than Les Cousins, but her voice and her writing have lost non e of their chandelier sparkle. [Apr 2022, p.26]

Another stunning album. [Mar 2022, p.29]

Here, informed by the BLM movement, the lyrics on his third Black Radio LP are often mournful. ... Sometimes the mournfulness is sublime. [Apr 2022, p.32]

As stylishly coherent as it is surprising. [Mar 2022, p.26]

That unsubtle drive for huge hooks can sometimes be a bit exhausting, but tracks like "New Age Millennial Magic", the groovy "Feel The Change!" and "Demolition Song" come so loaded with good vibes it's hard not to smile. [Mar 2022, p.25]

The graceful arrangements of Owen Pallett and the pristine production of Mark Lawson, both best known for their Arcade Fire connections, ensure that the results are lovely, while the gorgeous purity of Bulat's voice glides elegantly above it all. [Mar 2022, p.25]

Subtle this isn't, but ironically, for a band once compared endlessly to Interpol and Editors and their Joy Division-inspired brooding indie, White Lies Have probably shown more versatility and evolution than either on their latest. [Apr 2022, p.36]

Feeding The Machine operates in a bold and unorthodox way. [Apr 2022, p.34]

"Don't Worry 'Bout What I Do" get quite heavy-metally, while James takes tracks like the wah-wah-infused "This Is Who I Is" in a distinctly Hendrix-inspired direction. [Apr 2022, p.29]

It's often mournful in tone, dwelling on loss and abandonment. But Bevan infuses his music with a glowing warmth, these tunes framed like prayers for happier times ahead. [Apr 2022, p.25]

Even if it doesn't push the needle for Ono in terms of broader cultural awareness, it reinforces the crucial idea that those who know, know. [Apr 2022, p.24]

An altogether less whimsical - and much more Pearl Jam-esque - undertaking than 2011's Ukulele Songs. [Apr 2022, p.36]

The follow-up, recorded in isolation during lockdown, has a mellower, be-thankful-for-what-we've-got vibe. [Apr 2022, p.35]

It's a lovely listen, unassuming as ever. [Apr 2022, p.32]

Flicker is never derivative or predictable, with Bell using these influences to craft often beautiful songs, from the groove of "riverside" to the lovely strum of the Simon And Garfunkel-influenced "lifeline" or the springy disco-beat of "Sidewinder." [Apr 2022, p.32]

Four albums in, feels like Marr is finally settled into the business of a solo career. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Sasami's aim is clear: she forces you to pay attention. [Mar 2022, p.35]

Sa Cities puts more weight on mood than on song, though, which means Shapiro, always an elusive singer, sometimes gets lost among all the synths. [Mar 2022, p.35]

A record that is heavy on textures and atmospherics. [Mar 2022, p.36]

The finest moment is the moving wartime ballad, "No Man's Land." [Mar 2022, p.35]

Fans of Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal will find more than enough reminders of their glory days. [Mar 2022, p.36]

Modestly presented, then, but as skillfully turned as ever. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Trupa Trupa's sixth album favours often lovely, mysterious ritualistic sounds. [Mar 2022, p.36]

Terrific collection. [Mar 2022, p.49]

Without sacrificing urgency, outrage or compassion, Alynda Lee Segarra gives these story-songs a light touch musically, favouring airy, even breezy arrangements driven by insistent drumbeats. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Rae’s measured, river-clear voice is a thing to behold too, buoyed by piano, organ, pedal steel and unobtrusive guitar. It’s the kind of record that recalls the muted grandeur of Bobbie Gentry or Judee Sill.

A wonderous, modernist mix of LiLiPUT, Husker Du and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. [Mar 2022, p.28]

Once Twice Melody's greatness lies not in its hugeness - it's in the duo's ability to create music that possesses the same intimacy regardless of its scope. [Mar 2022, p.33]

The Sea Drift owes something to the classic sounds of Kristofferson, Gentry, Chips Moman/Dan Penn and Glen Campbell, but there’s no throwback nostalgia here. The Delines’ way with romance is all their own, and for 41 sweet, orchestral minutes, time is somehow suspended while we watch with our ears. [Mar 2022, p.34]

Layered with folklore and mysticism, lustrous synthesiser textures and twangy surf-punk guitars, the band's third album maps an expansive musical cosmos. [Mar 2022, p.26]

An album of soaring pastoral symphonies, grand emotional vistas, knowing nostalgia and surreal wordplay. [Mar 2022, p.35]

If a few concessions are made to mainstream mores here, it still works on its own idiosyncratic terms. [Mar 2022, p.25]

The bleak but beautiful moments here represent a suave, dignified coda for an artist whose work never quite got the hugs it deserved. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Spoon display their signature style, precision and immediacy in real time, locked together through 10 taut tracks. [Mar 2022, p.36]

It's familiar territory but there's plenty to enjoy being pummelled by here. [Mar 2022, p.23]

Instantly satisfying, but its charms and mysteries will resound for years. [Mar 2022, p.25]

This is good-time instrumental party music that mixes Turkish Psych, South American cumbia, surf-rock and reggae, sometimes with the poise of Khruangbin but more often with the tequila swagger of a Tarantino caper. [Mar 2022, p.31]

There's a relentlessly macabre tension and ultimately savage catharsis to these six songs. [Mar 2022, p.36]

For him a song is no older than the last time it was sung. His fifth album, Good And Green Again is his most thoughtful, his most eloquent, and his most poignant explication of this idea. [Feb 2022]

Delicious desolation. [Mar 2022, p.23]

As with all of Le Bon's projects, the claustrophobic, wonderfully awkward whole is very much her own. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Ants From Up There is often beautiful, but its not an album you can listen to casually. Its relentless emotional pummelling is quite an experience, a rollercoaster ride for the soul that is likely to leave you feeling distinctly and permanently rearranged. [Mar 2022, p.18]

The songs, reworked with producer Patrick Hyland over a three-year period, shapeshift in time to the lyrics. [Mar 2022, p.32]

Yes, they're really that good. [Feb 2022, p.37]