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]

Includes an epic live show at the Montreux Jazz Festival, where Bowie played songs from Heathen alongside strong selection of hits followed by Low in its atmospheric entirety. [Oct 2025, p.41]

What may be lost slightly in translation is mitigated by the musicality of the vocal tones, with Cate Le Bon and H Hawkline H adding a plaintive backing chorus on "Pan Ddaw'r Haul I Fore". [Oct 2025, p.32]

That it all hangs together so seamlessly is testament to his inherent charm. There's a warmth and looseness to these songs that feels deeply convivial. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Phillips has released a dozen solo albums characterised by a vivid lyricism and a rootsy, melodic sensibility, paired with the ability to throw in an unconventional chord so the song never goes quite where you expect. Those qualities are as strong as ever on In The Hour Of Dust. [Oct 2025, p.31]

The overall sense here is of old friends reunited, not taking themselves too seriously, still making a thrillingly ramshackle racket. [Sep 2025, p.37]

Mehldau brings the influence front and centre, with bittersweet, often lovely arrangements of even the darkest moments in the Smith songbook. [Sep 2025, p.33]

As steel guitar groans and floats away like dying stars at the close and Raymond bends drones to her will, John Cale's singular Welsh spirit feels near. [Oct 2025, p.32]

Things are really supercharged here by Epworth's electronic touch. It's a highly potent and undeniably successful combination. [Oct 2025, p.24]

Jump Into Life feels like a vital reminder of how the expression of joy can serve as both an act of resistance and a demonstration of resilience. [Jul 2025, p.33]

Smith sees the fragments left behind by an old songwriting mentor - paintings, cups of coffee, the gift of her first guitar - as things to be celebrated, and the same is true of these 10 fragments of herself. [Jul 2025, p.37]

It's all inimitably Sparks. [Jul 2025, p.37]

Fractures sound healed, leaving Sunflower Bean's classicist optimism intact. [Jul 2025, p.37]

"Time" hits hardest, a righteous prayer riding on Stax brass and gospel harmonies toward safe harbour. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Beautifully curated collection. .... It's rare for familiar work to be re-contextualised in such a way that you hear it with new ears. But that's exactly what happens here. [Oct 2025, p.48]

Meticulously crafted, haunted and hypnotic. [Sep 2025, p.31]

The playing is admirably under stated throughout, and the highlights numerous. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Edwards sounds comfortable and confident in this setting, although occasionally she indulges some awkward, first-draft lyrics. [Sep 2025, p.31]

Who Is The Sky? benefits greatly from Byrne's singular perspective as a songwriter. It also shows how much more expressive he continues to become, even here in his eighth decade on Earth. [Oct 2025, p.26]

Like all the best goodbyes, Saint Etienne bow out on top form and affectionate terms. [Sep 2025, p.26]

A flood of captivating images are buoyed along by the rich musical tapestry and a song that's illustrative of the broader mood: uplifting and open-hearted, looking backwards and forwards without blame or trepidation. [Sep 2025, p.22]

Antidepressants is the most unhinged, intoxicating Suede album since Coming Up, and boasts the best first side of a goth album since the Banshees' Juju. [Oct 2025, p.22]

A little like The Strokes of Is This It trying their hand at metronomic Can jams or mesmeric slowcore. And yet melody is key throughout. [Sep 2025, p.33]

You Heartbreaker, You lands like an accusation, with love (and other) songs which draw blood. [Oct 2025, p.23]

Excellent news that Price has re-embraced the old-school virtues that got her noticed in the first place: the rowdy yet droll honky-tonk tear-up, heard here on such Southern soul-infused cuts as "Losing Streak" and "I Just Don't Give A Damn". [Oct 2025, p.31]

The whirl of ideas is intoxicating. .... But there's space for moments of straightforward beauty too. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Only Frozen Sky Anyway is a seriocomic meditation on the absurdity of humanity, unfailingly generous in music and spirit alike. [Oct 2025, p.32]

Take the modulated soundscapes of, say, Terry Riley or Max Richter, add some beats, more warm analogue synth arpeggios and some fuzzy vocals and you've got a close approximation of Gush. [Sep 2025, p.39]

A finely judged set that draws deep from his Texan heritage and that of nearby Louisiana, a favourite teenage haunt of his. [Oct 2025, p.24]

Engaging New Zealanders The Beths masterfully marry muscle and vulnerability here. [Sep 2025, p.28]

Strong on characterful production, writing and lyrical fronts, it's a country-pop tour de force that showcases her insight and humour as she addresses everything from the economic precarity of her homeland to the devastating harm done by body shaming. [Sep 2025, p.29]

There's barely a track above three-minutes as it charges along with spiky intent, bursting with energy. [Sep 2025, p.32]

While the earlier albums had a rich dramatic and conceptual structure, things feel looser thus time round. [Sep 2025, p.39]

Short and sweet, with an alluringly timeless analogue feel. [Oct 2025, p.32]

A set of songs about romantic love, self-love and self-actualisation whose confident arrangements sacrifice none of the intimacy of Duffy's earlier work. [Sep 2025, p.32]

Their ability to turn despair to joy even stretches as far as being able to turn a song called "Everybody Dies" into a thrilling, fuzzed-out blast. [Sep 2025, p.39]

Although this LA-based Chinese-Icelander gas woven a loose temporal theme through the loungey chamber pop of her third album, it's the waspish lyrical sting in the tail of these songs that sets her apart. [Oct 2025, p.29]

The decades since Fogerty first recorded these tracks have perhaps cost him some of the high top and low bottom ends of that distinctive half-drawl-half-snarl with which a California kid reinvented himself as some Southern swamp monster, but across “Legacy” he sounds generally in vigorous form, verging in parts on the downright feral, and he is surely entitled to what is as much a vindication as a celebration. [Sep 2025, p.30]

A bell-bottomed soft-rock glaze courtesy of Greg Kurstin that gives their new songs real heft - "Bloom Baby Bloom" splits the difference between Spinal Tap and the Carpenters - but leaves some tumbling along like Elton John offcuts. [Oct 2025, p.35]

As the title wryly suggests, they work as an ambient field, though the pairing of soft-chiming strings and vaporous synth drone in "Mossy Stump" makes it a standout. [Sep 2025, p.31]

They still sound epic and unusually angry. [Oct 2025, p.31]

When delicate motifs from accordion, harmonica and piano join her softly plucked acoustic guitar it can make for a sweetly seductive sound, but just as often her vocal melodies meander without leaving a mark. [Oct 2025, p.31]

Snipe Hunter is Childers' familiar reconciliation of the raucous and thoughtful, and possible his most accomplished to date. [Oct 2025, p.24]