Another satisfyingly robust effort. [Review of the Year 2025, p.23]

Tracks flirt with minimalism, spiky synth-pop and krautrock while creating an entirely original sonic language. [Review of the Year 2025, p.28]

“Trago notícias de uma nova geração,” he sings reassuringly, “Com certeza o mundo é bom” (“I bring the next generation’s news / That the world is surely good”). The music on Pequena Vertigem De Amor is so wonderfully seductive, so convincingly utopian, that you almost believe him. [Dec 2025, p.32]

They may not go out with a bang on this occasion, but Cheap trick's capacity to surprise prevails. [Dec 2025, p.28]

Often sounds like a man having his most wretched suspicions of the human conditions confirmed, especially on the self-explanatory " The Body Keep The Score" and "I Keep On Coming Back For More". However, his signature bleary wit remains radiant, especially on "Rita Wrote A Letter". [Review of the Year 2025, p.26]

Her most wide-ranging LP, Iconoclasts is also her most unwieldy, but she finds no small catharsis in letting the music overwhelm. [Review of the Year 2025, p.29]

Too much here feels diaphanous and directionless. [Review of the Year 2025, p.29]

Glacial electronic-first compositions like "Vessel" ape the atmospheric intensity of Julia Holter, but even in her exile, Ballentine finds something pretty to latch onto in every song. [Review of the Year 2025, p.28]

After a strong start, though, her sixth album sags in the middle with a run of ho-hum numbers, until Welch summons the elements again with the orchestral flourish of "You Can't Have It All". [Review of the Year 2025, p.24]

Incorporates orchestral flourishes and ambitious compositions into a full-bodied, emotionally bruising documents of divorce, betrayal, new love and self-discovery. [Review of the Year 2025, p.23]

Both Crutchfield sisters sound more comfortable in their own skin, more confident in their lyrics and vocals, as though bringing all those years apart to bear on the sessions. [Review of the Year 2025, p.20]

Back to their homespun, unforced, relatably human roots. [Dec 2025, p.37]

As disaster mounts for these ill-prepared moderns, the soft '70s New Orleans brass of "Through This Night" is among the musical balms. [Dec 2025, p.33]

Asha Lorenz's dreamy, deceptively casual vocals soften the sharp edges throughout and help foster an overall coherence even amid Cosplay's outbreaks of giddy chaos. [Dec 2025, p.36]

The shape and personality of a song are everything, and Elkington's arrangements serve these tracks superbly. [Dec 2025, p.26]

The drowsy pacing and solemn tone drag at times, but these slow-burn ballads from a lo-fi Lynchian netherworld are most achingly beautiful. [Dec 2025, p.37]

A Bridge To Far finds Midlake refining what they do best. [Dec 2025, p.30]

Cook puts Staples right at the front of the mix, accentuating her voice to the point where it's like she's whispering in the listener's ear. [Dec 2025, p.37]

It's a remarkably textural and atmospheric record. [Nov 2025, p.28]

Pedigo is often plugged in, his nimble fingerpicking surfing waves of sludge guitar. But there are moments of unlikely beauty too. [Nov 2025, p.31]

Sometimes ethereal and meditative, and at others blowing his sax and flute with an intensity that belies his seniority. [Nov 2025, p.33]

Thrills and dazzlement abound. [Dec 2025, p.33]

Snider's self-effacing charm radiant through the murk of "Stoner Yodel #2", the Chris Robinson co0write "While We Still Have A Chance" and the closing "The Temptation To Exist". [Dec 2025, p.36]

Chrissie Hynde's worldly ache elevates any lyric, here drawing worthy partners for a set of duets. Spare arrangements coloured by organ and pedal steel mid-tempo, statically framing the singers. [Dec 2025, p.31]

This is a wonderful, creative fusion of pop, electronica and more experimental styles. [Dec 2025, p.37]

The band's range has expanded impressively from their debut. .... Again is the confident fulfilment of the promise of Lush Life, from a band with the spirit and the songs to match their work ethic. [Dec 2025, p.22]

There's no cathartic yelling, but feelings are certainly to the fore in eight tracks that features violin, clarinet, lap steel and piano, with a guest spot (on "Just") from ambient psychedelicist M Sage. [Dec 2025, p.36]

There are highlights galore. .... A shiver goes through you when Dylan opens his November 1963 Carnegie Hall concert with the public debut of “The Times They Are A-Changin’”. Imagine hearing that for the first time. The entire show plays out over Discs 7 and 8. The setlist is incredible, his performance impeccable. [Dec 2025, p.38]

They can still surprise, too, with tinges of organ psychedelia, anxious time-signatures and, on the sweet acoustic reverie of "Salt Water", evocative found sounds. [Dec 2025, p.29]

The sound overall mostly evokes the primordial, punky, pre-grunge Lemonheads, leavened now as then by Dando's insuppressible pop sense. [Dec 2025, p.33]

The hightlight is the 14-minute, exploratory "Heat Sink", as the pair size up and seduce each other like a pair of tropical birds in an elaborate courtship dance. [Oct 2025, p.31]

The greatest pleasure of its four eloquent tracks comes from the way the duo hint at narrative, delicately suturing disparate sounds to build a complex electro-acoustic suite. [Oct 2025, p.29]

it's not just a band getting back together after nearly a decade apart, but a band reaffirming the ideals that animated them in the first place. [Nov 2025, p.29]

The remastered Nebraska album and Springsteen’s stately live performance – accompanied by Dylan sideman Larry Campbell and his own Charlie Giordano – complete the story, but the magic comes with the first two discs. They reveal that Nebraska would have been an incredible album if the electric versions of “Atlantic City”, “Johnny 99” and “Downbound Train” were included, but it wouldn’t be Nebraska. [Dec 2025, p.42]

A bold and vibrant tableau of pulsing beats over which Hamdan's serpentine voice coils and caresses. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Cheap bubblegum keyboards sound even more archaic in a present the embattled singer knows all too well. .... Beach Boys harmonies brighten "Electric Rock And Roll", and the '70s dream-time of Mike Post themes and lost childhood comfort is caught in "Glorious Chorus." [Dec 2025, p.36]

Ashcroft's ornery, sometimes conspiratorial resentment of authority and spiritually minded uplift feel of the moment. [Nov 2025, 28]

This south London trio are fine-tuning their battling-for-attention combination of three voices and elegantly scruffy indie-rock. [Dec 2025, p.29]

A curious hybrid. Side One is a series of haunting instrumentals. .... Side Two sees his chamber jazz outfit provide delicate accompaniment for assorted vocalists. [Nov 2025, p.36]

This set of songs are Pollock’s richest and most melodic. Her dusky alto voice, once compared to Dusty Springfield, is weighty with newfound wisdom, ushering the listener to come closer where the subject matter shifts from the confessional to more straightforward narrative storytelling. [Nov 2025, p.30]

[Soulwax has] always been great at eroding the lines between rock and dance music, utilising and harnessing the power of the riff in an electronic context. This continues to be forcefully apparent on tracks like "Idiots In Love". [Dec 2025, p.36]

At 15 tracks, The BPM is rather too much of a sensory overload, but this is enthusiasm in context. [Dec 2025, p.37]

The extrovert quintet hold their nerve and deliver another wild pop ride. [Dec 2025, p.31]

The complete One To One concerts and Live Jam 2 are welcome additions to the brief Lennon live canon, but while Studio Jam is fun, there’s only so much that can be gained from listening to the band running through rock’n’roll classics, however good they are. Of more interest is Home Jam: scraps of home recordings, phone calls and hyperactive Lennon chat. [Nov 2025, p.48]

Their songs are a cola rush of pop harmony, like the Fizzbombs with added Mentos. [Oct 2025, p.24]

He Squeezes endless crescendos into numerous mastered genres, from the no-wave funk of "Jerskin Fendrix Freestyle" to surprise post-rock hurricanes on "Sk1". The straight-talking piano ballads, meanwhile, contain almost too much grief and joy to bear. [Nov 2025, p.32]

Shards of pure folk goodness poke through the ambitious, abstract arrangements on tracks like "Life's Work" and "Surviving You". [Nov 2025, p.33]

Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas' latest masterpiece is dense but unfathomably gorgeous. [Nov 2025, p.28]

Here, on "Afraid" and "Theo", she articulates her feelings in lush folk ballads, whose effortless warmth belie the challenges facing Wasner. [Nov 2025, p.32]

Hopefully, no one other than Eno and Wolfe will use the term "nong" (non-song) to describe this bridge between the Summer's ambient Lateral and song-based Luminal. Nonetheless, these 11 songs occupy that space successfully, whether Wolfe's voice is filling out Eno's eerie soundscapes as a textural but poetic component ("Little Boy") or mere embellishment (the slow-motion "Flower Women"), or conjuring Julee Cruise ("Part Of Us"). [Dec 2025, p.30]

Exuberant opener "Sushi And Coca-Cola" signals Philip Janeway's intention to loosen up, which he reiterates in the "I saw the light" refrain of "Ooo Wee". The band morphs into The Four Tops on "Nothing More Lonely". [Nov 2025, p.39]

They've reverted to broader strokes on their self-titled follow-up. If few musical envelopes are pushed, the pounding melodic rock of "Like I Had Before" is irresistible, and will sound huge live. [Dec 2025, p.31]

In looking to ramp up their sound for bigger stages, the Galway trio have adopted a polished style of shoegaze in place of the earthy charm that won them admirers such as Robert Smith. This suits the muscular new songs of Julie Dawson. [Dec 2025, p.36]

Disquiet is a marathon - it's more than three hours long - but every minute matters. [Nov 2025, p.35]

Vivid and unsettling [Dec 2025, p.33]

Ana Kravanja, Iztok Koren and Samo Kutin plays sympathetically, but they're also careful enough not to homogenise, each voice finding its own space in which to speak. [Dec 2025, p.36]

A fine record. .... The title track and "Come As You Are" are creations of Jimmy Webb-ish sumptuous lachrymony. [Nov 2025, p.35]

It's a chronological trip, serving as a scrapbook of memories for Gedge himself, borne out by his lively track-by-track annotation. [Nov 2025, p.51]

11 raw but gorgeously melodic songs. .... One of the least cliched [breakup] records you're ever likely to hear. [Nov 2025, p.31]

While diligently pursuing McCaslin's own vision, this could be an extra disc on Bowie's I Can't Give Everything Away boxset, breathing the same excited, expanding air. [Nov 2025, p.35]

It's a little disorienting at times, but it's a vibrant and varied listen nevertheless. [Nov 2025, p.35]

It all sounds like prime Jennings, all twinkling swagger on such upbeat tracks as "After The Ball", and bruised pride on the exquisite ballads. [Nov 2025, p.47]

Electric glitches and intriguing lyrics add to a quietly seductive package. [Nov 2025, p.27]

Some of the best moments involve lesser-known artists, such as The Mad Lads tearing through "Don't Have To Shop Around" and Wendy Rene Delivering a superlatively funky "Bar-B-Q". [Sep 2025, p.50]

While there's a little less shouting than usual going on, a more laconic American influence serves the well when Charlie Steen's drawl lends the title track's electro-pop textures a Dandy Warhols feel, and "Lampiao" channels an LCD-style tale of gangster mythology. [Nov 2025, p.36]

McKenzie tries to have it both ways, peppering Freak Out City with schlocky tunes like the title track and "Too Young" that fail to deliver comedically or musically. [Sep 2025, p.33]

These are songs ripe for revisiting. [Oct 2025, p.35]

Tim Wheeler's flair for crashing power-chord melodies and happy-sad lyrics remain undimmed. .... Graham Coxon makes two slight but likable cameo appearances. [Nov 2025, p.28]

Quite a lavish package. It includes some very rough demos from Headley Grange. .... Both the high-water mark of the prog concept album, and the most potent example of the genre's glorious, boundless absurdity. [Nov 2025, p.40]

The gradual brightening of "Living" feels like some form of private epiphany; "Streetlights And Stars" and "Friend Zone" take on a pale cinematic grandeur. The latter proves Shires' playfulness is still intact. [Nov 2025, p.32]

You could mount an argument that these are the definitive performances, although that probably isn’t the point – the idea is to view these time-honoured tunes from a surprising new vantage point. Whatever, you leave Mulatu Plays Mulatu in reverence. Astatke’s status – as gifted musician, visionary bandleader and eternal innovator – is forever assured. [Nov 2025, p.34]

Based On The Best Seller is a high water mark. [Nov 2025, p.39]

While "Choir In The Wires" showcases Watson's forte for lustrous, wide-scope chamber pop, more characteristic is the gentle hush of "House On Fire". [Nov 2025, p.39]

There's something unerring precise about the four compositions here, even as they stretch their limbs outwards. [Nov 2025, p.28]

13 songs of luminous, impeccably judged country-folk. [Nov 2025, p.36]

No shortage of noise-rock credentials. But there's also a real sense of groove: from the opener "A Star IS Born", all fuzzed-out Psych rock, both hypnotic and raw, there's a pleasing pulse to much of their debut. [Nov 2025, p35]

Baby Man is an impressive display of unfettered emotionality, but you may miss Johnson's usual luminous band arrangements and bass-driven grooves. [Oct 2025, p.27]

Perhaps the richest and most varied of the trilogy. [Sep 2025, p.29]

The curveballs keep flying through the climactic triptych - the Kid A-evoking eruption "Bow Down", the incantatory "Taxes" and the hallucinogenic "Long Island City Here I Come". [Oct 2025, p.27]

12 richly expressionistic and mercurial songs shaped by a mix of indie rock, country both alt. and classic, ragtime, folk, powerpop and Southern Gothic, which flit between darkness and melancholy, hopefulness and light. [Nov 2025, p.38]

Quite mesmeric. [Oct 2025, p.31]

While the blues, folk and country moments are excellent, the most striking offering on Saving Grace is its most primal, namely their savage version of Low's "Everybody's SOng". .... It's hard to see a limit to their powers, such is their skill with both sweet and the sour, the delicate and the bruising. [Nov 2025, p.22]

Twilight Override is a 30-song triple album of mostly mellow consolation, insightful rather than intimidating. [Nov 2025, p.26]

A set of lush and moody ballads boasting ripe wisdom. [Oct 2025, p.31]

LSD features some of Smith's finest writing. .... You couldn't ask for much better. [Nov 2025, p.31]

Zips from perky jazz runs to fragrant folk odes without breaking a sweat in the elusive search for the genre she can't own. [Nov 2025, p.36]

The sparse strum of "Easy For You To Say" eavesdrops on a troubled couple, a fear of romantic failure permeates the otherwise upbeat jangle of "Rose Town", and the country pop "When Will The Morning Cone" craves light at the end of a dark emotional tunnel. [Sep 2025, p.37]

Once you’ve heard Fleetwood Mac or Rumours, Buckingham Nicks feels a little threadbare, like sketches for the main event – and that’s fine, because before fate or destiny intervened in the form of Mick Fleetwood in November 1974, this captured the duo at their best. Taken on its own, Buckingham Nicks is a nifty collection of floral folk cuts and quicksilver instrumentals, with one foot in Laurel Canyon, the other in Nashville, that show Buckingham and Nicks’ songwriting promise. [Oct 2025, p.44]

"Where Are You?" confirms they mean business, if in peak Simple Minds manner. [Oct 2025, p.24]

Like such fellow travellers as Horse Lords and Still House Plants, the band often seem hellbent on inaugurating a post-rock revival. [Nov 2025, p.39]

Their selection is most impressive during climactic moments - the opening double whammy of an explosive "2=2+5" and impatient "Sit Down. Stand Up" a frantic "Where I End And You Begin", a thunderous, almost unhinged "Myxomatosis" - but quieter moments like the skittish "The Gloaming also flourish. [Nov 2025, p.50]

Sensibly sequenced to feature the biggest hits at the top of the order and end with the newest single, "Devotion". The latter matches their standards for sparkling, dancefloor-friendly synth-pop with underlying notes of melancholy and wry humour. [Oct 2025, p.43]

"Timber" is almost all Tyler, "Spider Ballad" a lowkey club throbber, all of it only made possible by this unexpected partnership. [Nov 2025, p.33]

Hannon is in his element, from the bittersweet ba-ba-Bacharachian title track to the glam, high-kicking chorus of "Down The Rabbit Hole". [Nov 2025, p.31]

Atmospheric, good-natured and often very beautiful. [Nov 2025, p.33]

We can surely welcome more bittersweet beauties like the steely "Elderberry Wine" and, in particular, "The Way Love Goes", Hartzman's very own "Silver Springs." [Oct 2025, p.35]

The album is alive with everything that has always made him great. [Oct 2025, p.36]