More Nugent than Stooges, Detroit Stories recalls his wild '70s heyday, especially on lighters-up "Social Debris" and the gloriously goofy "Independence Dave." Too Often though, it sounds slick and perfunctory. [Mar 2021, p.28]

The true spiritual kin to Neal's spectral fragility is Mazzy Star's. [Mar 2021, p.35]

A bold step into more contentious terrain. [Feb 2021, p.34]

Everything on Little Oblivions will make you feel, and it's the catharsis we all need. [Mar 2021, p.26]

"Hard Drive," meanwhile adds spoken word and Bogie's swirling saxophone to a touching tale of psychic recovery, before "The Ramble" concludes with pretty pastel drones. [Mar 2021, p.31]

In many ways, Distractions is an enigma. In years to come, we may look back on this record as transitional, or a product of its times. But to hear a band of this vintage still listening – and responding – to their instincts is a joy in itself.

Lyrical references to stargazing, sprawling jasmine and the passage of time paint a picture of the infinite, and our small place in it, that is heightened by the band's soaring melodies. [Mar 2021, p.39]

The result is a quietly moving hymn to home and humanity. [Mar 2021, p.29]

Bristles with the unruly energies that enlivened their younger incarnations. [Mar 2021, p.32]

A confident reiteration of this singular group's virtues. [Mar 2021, p.38]

It's more memorable than Mush's debut, simultaneously weirder and more melodic: and the peak of the record, and of this mix of the the strange and the infectious, comes right at the end. [Mar 2021, p.30]

New Fragility is emotionally fraught but musically generous. [Mar 2021, p.28]

While Django Django have spent much of the last decade assembling art-pop collages from eclectic grab-bags of styles, this fourth studio set seems to pull off the trick more seamlessly than ever. [Mar 2021, p.29]

It's when Slowthai turns the lens inward on the soulful "NHS" and loved-up "Feel Away" - featuring James Blake and Mount Kimbie - that he proves himself something of an original. [Mar 2021, p.37]

Start Walkin’ emphasises the team’s many deviations from the mean, demonstrating how inventive and subversive Sinatra’s music could be even before her music with Hazlewood took a more avidly idiosyncratic direction with Nancy & Lee. ... 23 concise chapters that are thrilling, surprising and sometimes sublime.

His joyous fourth album proper leaves behind the folksy stylings of his earlier solo work and instead builds on 2018's glitter-strewn Karma For Cheap. [Mar 2021, p.39]

Picks up where 2015's Justin Vernon-helmed If I Was Left Off, as their three-part blood harmonies form the shimmering centre of an elaborate, album-long soundscape. [Mar 2021, p.37]

Thankfully, there's more than just wannabe Fall stuff here, offering up a variety of teeth-rattling noises. [Jan 2021, p.32]

Conjures worlds of chilly, pulsing synths and waspish guitar. [Mar 2021, p.27]

You'll be hard pushed to find a more adventurously self-assured debut this year. [Mar 2021, p.27]

Richer textures, but no luxury-studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources are deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. Her voice is so distinctive and her writing so personal that a strutting backbeat and a flying hi-hat don't affect the essential character of the music. ... Perfect. [Mar 2021, p.36]

This follow-up is mightily impressive too, the band ramping up their sound into something approaching classic rock. [Feb 2021, p.30]

Giraffe applies a drowsy charm to a wide variety of characters on songs that tap into the traditions of Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks. [Feb 2021, p.30]

Vertigo Days does not deviate far from the established Notwist formula of soft-focused indie-folk electronica, which can feel too tastefully non-committal at times. But there are vivid beauties here too. [Mar 2021, p.34]

Rats On Rafts are shooting for something bold on their third LP. They land their shot too. [Mar 2021, p.35]

These songs feel as if they were written on the fly (which most of them were), their sense of immediacy reflected in the use of skittery acoustic guitar, banjo, and rattling piano. Slim's voice is geared to match. [Feb 2021, p.26]

Their conceptual hinterland is sometimes more interesting than their clobbering racket, but both are exhilarating in places. [Mar 2021, p.29]

Blended with earnest acoustic guitar picking and rattling electronic production, the young songwriter reveals a bright future at the end of personal agony. [Feb 2021, p.35]

Taken as a whole, On All Fours is an impressive balancing act, creating something fresh from the group's diverse influences. [Feb 2021, p.28]

This is pulverising cacophonic stuff but it's also considered and atmospheric. [Feb 2021, p.25]

Four vignettes offer reminders of Brian Eno's early ambient outings. ... But the slower evolution of three longer pieces, which nonetheless maintain this aesthetic, make them more potent. [Mar 2021, p.37]

An astonishing return, up there with their best records to date. [Feb 2021, p.18]

They may have opened out their map a little more for Medicine At Midnight, but the Foos' territory remains reassuringly familiar. [Mar 2021, p.38]

It's uneven in places, but "OMW" - a twinkly 10-minute closer written with Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig - is a low-key delight. [Mar 2021, p.25]

There's a loose lyrical theme of branding and consumer culture inspiring the maverick meta-pop of "Personal Shopper." ... The Sparks-y spriteliness of "Follower" also stands out, thanks to beautifully falsetto-iced vocal hooks, which further grace the gorgeously forlorn synth-pop of "King Ghost." [Feb 2021, p.37]

The 20-year-old punctuates beautifully languid, trip-hoppy vignettes with a voice redolent of Martina Topley-Bird and a neat line in spoken word poetic musings. [Feb 2021, p.32]

The immediacy is obvious, and the band stretch Yorkston's reassuring vulnerability in new directions. [Feb 2021, p.37]

For the most part, Milosh goes for mood over hooks, but the sultry "Helpless" seductively sports both. [Feb 2021, p.32]

Album highlight "White Sands" is a soundtrack in miniature, the acoustic and electronic tones combining like a neon-streaked empty road. [Feb 2021, p.37]

Jeremy Gaudet's Jonathan Richman-esque speak-sung tones breathe life into protagonists widescreen-daydreaming their way out of drudgery. [Feb 2021, p.29]

It may have been assembled as a lockdown stopgap, but Songs From An Old Guitar is overall glorious, a career highlight in a career full of them. [Feb 2021, p.47]

Humble back-porch jams to relieve the monotony of lockdown. [Jan 2021, p.27]

This handsome sequel stays mostly within their comfort zone of melodic, propulsive dance-pop tailored both to clubs and home listening, an impressive balancing act even if the formula sometimes feels over-polished. [Feb 2021, p.25]

These songs often sound like Broadway-style miniatures tilted at strange angles. [Feb 2021, p.30]

He remains a precise craftsman with a bottomless trove of '60s pop hooks and dreamy melodies, but he upends them with acute-angle riffs and scribbled punctuations. [Feb 2021, p.37]

It's a fine country record refracted through a DIY folk-rock lens. [Feb 2021, p.30]

No major revelations, but plenty of pleasant surprises. [Jan 2021, p.47]

It's a deeply ambitious debut offering. Musically, it ducks and weaves like the shape-shifters that populate its world. [Feb 2021, p.30]

He sings in a hushed, fragile whisper that is a;most unbearably personal. [Mar 2021, p.35]

It is without question a wintering record, but out of this muted musical landscape songs of great and complex beauty emerge. [Mar 2021, p.34]

Skyway Man's fantasy realm is absorbing enough that he can pull off increasingly audacious musical combinations. [Dec 2020, p.38]

The Sleaford Mods we hear on Spare Ribs sound more comfortable in their own skin, relaxed enough to explore their eccentricities. A tart, sometimes topical edge remains. [Feb 2021, p.35]

Drunk Tank Pink triumphs. No less do-or-die in their commitment, these songs are less determinedly dense. [Feb 2021, p.35]

Despite the sombre circumstances, J.T. is a celebratory affair, the elder man bringing a hymnal ruggedness "Far Away In Another Town" and a hearty hoedown spirit to "I Don't Care." [Feb 2021, p.27]

A quality love letter to the music he committed to early on. At times, it's hard not to wish he'd been bolder and a little less faithful. [Feb 2021, p.36]

Bittersweet pop songs are the order of the day, gently psychedelicised. [Jan 2021, p.27]

The Dirty Nil relive those innocent times when callow rock'n'rollers made noise designed to drive grown-ups batshit. [Feb 2021, p.27]

It's a very fine thing when a writer and craftsman of Gibb's standing embraces his own legacy and finds such persuasive ways of embellishing it. [Feb 2021, p. 24]

Dangerous Visions is a curious half-and-half. Side One collects raucous new material. ... Side Two, meanwhile, rests on an exhumed Peel session from 1989. [Feb 2021, p.30]

Welfare Jazz ratchets up the pizzazz. [Feb 2021, p.37]

On "Silenced By Hum" her amorphous delivery helps bring Bjork's more recent experiments to mind. Nonetheless, "Come About" suggests the duo's closest kindred spirit is Jenny Hval. [Dec 2020, p.30]

Certainly a claustrophobic listen, and not for the faint-hearted. [Feb 2021, p.25]

A rich, absorbing listen. [Apr 2020, p.33]

Either of Dwyer's bands would be a fine fit for Yonkers' primitive but inventive garage rock - best examples are the pummelling "sold America" and "The Thunder Speaks," both hyped-up takes on Yonkers' originals - but Damaged Bug are better equipped to tackle his more tender moments. [May 2020, p.26]

Along with her interest in free jazz and expressive, improvisatory styles of music, it’s possible to see these seven songs as a type of painting with sound, a messy, wild process of distillation and curation, until only sparse daubs of bright colour remain on the canvas. Limited elements, but a giant impact. It’s been worth the wait.

These blown-out and clanking loops, atmospheric drones and jump-cut textures are more like the product of electronic collage than free-guitar improv, and all the more fascinating for it. [Jun 2020, p.34]

On older Bartx compositions "Uhuru Sasa" and "Dr Follows Dance" they sound like a Herbie Hancock-less Headhunters; while "The Stank" is a jaunty boogaloo. [Jul 2020, p.27]

The Bats still trade in sparse, self-effacing indie rock, and retain a talent for wringing the most sumptuous melodies from the most utilitarian of ingredients. [Dec 2020, p.27]

Ad hoc, anything goes is the mood of what follows. Much is accomplished and playful. ... When he allows himself to forget who he is and just remember what it is that he does, he can still come up with songs to surprise you. More impressively, maybe even surprise himself.

A rich, dense, cinematic journey into inner space. [Dec 2020, p.30]

The fifth season might be more art piece than album, but is no less intriguing because of it. [Oct 2020, p.32]

Several tracks sound like ruminative 1970s jazz breakbeats that have been sampled by hip-hop DJs. [Nov 2020, p.33]

What strikes you, above all, is the innocence and affection in their breezy blues, at odds with the heavy weather White has made of his post-Stripes career. [Feb 2021, p.49]

Lyrically on "Men" they come for the jugular of the patriarchy. ... It's not all tension and frantic energy, however. [Feb 2021, p.33]

The twin voices of Jonsi and Andersen make for an eerie contrast at times, with "Stendur aeva" a ravishing, multi-faceted highlight. [Feb 2021, p.35]

The band's pleasure in playing and connecting with fans shines throughout. [Feb 2021, p.25]

Through its adventuresome twists and well-considered combinations, this record acts a a necessary treat amid a turbulent and uncertain climate. [Feb 2021, p.22]

This is a leftfield party album bursting with personality, wonky charm and random sonic mischief. [Feb 2021, p.29]

It's a rich ensemble sound, full and complex, but not overly dense. [Feb 2021, p.30]

Each of these three artists brings out something new in the others, prodding them slightly out of their comfort zones. [Jan 2021, p.16]

This swift reimagining of the Protean Threat tapes launches into greater psychedelic flights. [Jan 2021, p.31]

Musically, it can get a little one-note but there are some terrific moments. [Nov 2020, p.37]

While Ward's phrasing is very much his own at times, the gambit yields the most compelling results when he best approximates Holiday's silvery delivery and weary air. [Jan 2021, p.33]

Curiously nonconformist to the last. [Jan 2021, p.27]

Fans of Steve Reich - an admirer of Perich's 2009 1-Bit Symphony, whose release required listeners to plug headphones into a CD case - will revel in his latest, as will those who've tired of "New Classical's" limited palette. [Jan 2021, p.31]

Eerily beautiful record. [Jan 2021, p.30]

Cuttin' Grass Vol 1 is Simpson's warmest, most life-affirming record by a country mile. [Jan 2021, p.26]

Skelton's music has an ascetic quality that gives these tracks the sense of little rituals, pagan prayers brought blinking into the present. [Jan 2021, p.32]

A genuinely beautiful, expansive record. [Dec 2020, p.36]

A spirited album that runs the gamut from pop to pop-punk to punk. Not everything works. [Jan 2021, p.23]

True, there are covers of Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again" and Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," but it's informed by the general spirit of seasonal holidays, which is as much reflective as celebratory. [Jan 2021, p.23]

Wreckless Abandon is great fun, infused with the characteristic boogie and swagger of Campbell's guitar, and heavily in hock to his obvious formative influences. [Apr 2020, p.27]

Beguiling if familiar thanks to the many echoes of Jessie Ware and Goldfrapp at their most forlorn. [Jan 2021, p.23]

The sparer treatments on How Beauty Holds the Hand of Sorrow make for something more enthralling, partially because of how much the largely piano-and-vocal arrangements evoke the crystalline beauty of Brun's early albums. [Jan 2021, p.23]

Surviving on the present, these songs infer, may be hard. To process this, he uses expansive, hypnotic arrangements: winding guitars, jazzy undertones, sturdy melodies sent into the ether. [Jan 2021, p.23]

Metal-tinged stadium rockers like "The Machine," "Stand And Fight" and the Sabbathy "The Alchemist" still offer their strongest moments. [Dec 2020, p.27]

If 2020 confirms anything, it's the breadth of what Magik Markers can do, within what might read like constraints. [Nov 2020, p.36]

When they succeed, it's on more traditional Pumpkins territory. ... Otherwise, Cyr sounds like an underwhelming misadventure. [Jan 2021, p.32]