Childers is blessed with a timeless voice and an ear for the plurality of mountain music, these songs roaming between bluegrass, folk, straight-up country and R&B. [Sep 2019, p.26]

This is a broad, swaggering definition of jazz that touches on Nigerian afrobeat, Ghanaian high-life, grungy post-rock and vocal-led astral soul. Non-jazz fans might be drawn to Nerija's astonishing guitarist Shirley Tetteh. [Sep 2019, p.30]

Combined with the rich warm production, this results in a debut of largely seamless retro classic pop-rock. [Sep 2019, p.29]

Despite some pleasant enough tunes, she lacks the vocal charisma to stand out from other wannabe Rihannas, Mileys and Dua Lipas. [Aug 2019, p.29]

Handsome melodies are dispatched with nonchalant flair, while the lyrics are consistently wry, whether concerning romantic or political entanglements. [Sep 2019, p.33]

While there's plenty of laidback sheen, the collection is void of original hooks. [Sep 2019, p.24]

They're masterfully groovy and mysterious, at times malevolent, panoramas with a potency that simultaneously historical and futuristic. [Sep 2019, p.27]

First Taste is focused round the self-imposed discipline of not featuring guitars. ... In truth, the challenge barely affects Segall's shred-happy sound. [Sep 2019, p.34]

The allusive, poetic intimacy of songs and singer are enriched, while an atmospheric haze keeps the concept loose. [Sep 2019, p.34]

An album s indebted to garage as it is to pop. [Sep 2019, p.27]

Her catchy new songs find comfort and self-reliance in solitude. [Aug 2019, p.31]

A grouchier echo of that opening shot [their 1983 debut album]. [Sep 2019, p.27]

A modest triumph. [Aug 2019, p.28]

With only three of the eight songs clocking in at under five minutes, things can get a little ponderous, but clearly, our expectations are of little concern. [Aug 2019, p.29]

Unsurprisingly, the comp is most interesting in its lesser-known material found between bigger names. [Aug 2019, p.51]

Woodstock 50 is an archival feat, an exhaustive capsule melding bygone sentiments with timeless performances. [Sep 2019, p.49]

Songs like "of Lucky Hand" and "Deathwish Blue" see him shed the more chameleonic nature of last year's Full Circle Nightmare and more fully establish his own raggedly glorious sensibility. [Aug 2019, p.29]

A witty and fresh response to America's current commander-in-chief. [Sep 2019, p.34]

McMahon has the same eye for poetically absurd detail as her compatriot Courtney Barnett. [Sep 2019, p.29]

Chords is a stark, minimal listen--but one that rewards patience. [Jul 2019, p.24]

It’s an odd sort of idea: a trio paying tribute to themselves. But even if no new ground is being broken exactly, there’s a pleasure in hearing the old space cadets out on manoeuvres. The music of Apollo is meditative and benign, yet strangely inscrutable; a reminder that while you might be able to visit space, it will never be home.

A fascinating and deeply rewarding journey through the ages. [Aug 2019, p.38]

A great idea, brilliantly executed. [Sep 2019, p.37]

A certain gravitas is restored. [Sep 2019, p.46]

At first it all sounds slightly undercooked, but soon its crunched funk and sinuous synthwork, nicely judged on "Another State Of Consciousness," suggest a master grasping a new technique. [Sep 2019, p.37]

A return trip worth taking. [Sep 2019, p.29]

It's a cathartic and necessary release in these dark days of America, a riot reverberating through political resistance, social inclusion and sheer cathartic gyration. [Sep 2019, p.27]

Anima feels like a dive into an inner world, profoundly intimate and emotional even as it remains enigmatic and blurred at the edges. [Sep 2019, p.25]

Bratty autobiography still peaks though the clean and healthy Californian veneer. [Aug 2019, p.26]

Unexpected and quietly ambitious. [Aug 2019, p.32]

Thomas lurches from surrealist poetry to impressionistic short stories, like a hybrid of Captain Beefheart and Ernest Hemingway. [Jul 2019, p.33]

A little more zip wouldn't go amiss. [Aug 2019, p.36]

18 tracks--and stylistically it's disparate, but that's the point. It's a one-time postcard. An advert for uninhibited experimentation. [Aug 2019, p.25]

Sauser-Monnig's songs retain a sense of early-morning introspection that lingers. [Aug 2019, p.29]

Too engaging to be ambient, too amorphous to be melodious, Félicia Atkinson's latest continues her ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) experiments, her poetry whispered--often indistinctly--over strangely riveting electro-acoustic collages. [Aug 2019, p.26]

Purple Mountains is an excellent return to form for Berman; a worthy next chapter for a songwriter who quit, many believed, in his prime. [Aug 2019, p.30]

The emotional honesty displayed is equally effecting [as 2018's Warm]. [Jul 2019, p.37]

She summons the spirits very effectively here. ... John Parish's production of Hoop's delicate finger-picking adds to the sense of beautiful, bewitching isolation. [Aug 2019, p.31]

They've leapfrogged stasis and had what sounds like fun along the way. [Jun 2019, p.29]

Together, they've crafted a cerebral yet effortless vast and cinematic ode to love and new beginnings, one that splits the difference between shoegaze and synthpop. [Aug 2019, p.36]

It's striking to hear just how confident the trio now are, and how interwoven their playing is. [Aug 2019, p.18]

What is basically an update on the kind of blissed-out composite at which Andrew Gold used to excel. [Apr 2019, p.29]

These are ageless, thrillingly energised devotionals for our secular and fast-moving times, full of euphonious noise and the dust kicked up by their deep-dug grooves. [Aug 2019, p.27]

It's part folk-rock fantasy, part avant-pop mind trip, and all gorgeous. [Aug 2019, p.32]

An album that reveals fresh layers on every listen. [Jul 2019, p.33]

It would be unfair to expect a "Whipping Post" from Devon Allman, Duane Betts and Berry Duane Oakley on their first outing, cut live to tape in Muscle Shoals, as they seek a comparable energy, but they manage to capably shoulder the responsibility rather than sinking under it weight. [Aug 2019, p.25]

Strongly evokes a member of Foo Fighters attempting a modern Americana album, and as such is largely a punky take on the stomping arena country of Brad Paisley. [Aug 2019, p.36]

Lars Andersson and Phillip Dornauer commit themselves wholeheartedly to epic objectives. [Aug 2019, p.32]

The 64-year-old artist time-travels to her formative years, bringing unexpected twists to 10 radio hits. [Aug 2019, p.31]

Their CSNY-meets-MGMT harmonies are as sun-dappled and warming as ever. But this is also their most skillfully diverse record yet. [Aug 2019, p.35]

They're on fine form with the hammered glam-boogie of "Eagle Birds" and the absurdly good-time "Lo/Hi," but underwhelm with the mid-tempo "Walk Across The Water and QOTSA-ish "Shine A Little Light." [Aug 2019, p.26]

A 4LP limited box adds a typically transcendent live set from Ann Arbor, mixing new tracks with retooled classics: a 19-minute take on "Tutankhamun" still feels far out. [Aug 2019, p.26]

Though Return To center has its campy moments, he's removed his tongue from his cheek. [Jul 2019, p.24]

It's hard to take it quite as seriously as it seems to take itself, although there are certainly stirring moments. [Aug 2019, p.32]

Generally excellent, sporadically sublime. [Aug 2019, p.39]

Daughters mixes history, fable and philosophical thought, with vocalist Horwood switching between euphoric and mournfully reflective. [Jul 2019, p.24]

The duo's lesser songs may not stray from a familiar pocket of retro-soul, but it's a very fine pocket nonetheless. [Jul 2019, p.24]

Jambu is the best starting point, a genuinely revelatory voyage through the mythic sounds of the Amazon. [Aug 2019, p.90]

It's a(nother) set of hushed, impressionistic tracks tapping the British folk tradition, digital psychedelia, Talk Talk and Japanese death poems. [Aug 2019, p.36]

Borrowing from the past for Bowie's "Heroes" doesnt't result in anything interesting, but Perry's deep, reverb-heavy vocal on Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" is a perhaps surprising highlight. [Aug 2019, p.31]

Their voices just sound so good together. ... Maybe that's why this album ultimately sounds so generous and compassionate despite the many tensions it voices. [Jul 2019, p.35]

Mostly, though, youthful folk-rock tendencies are sacrificed for Wilco's mature Americana, as on "Only Dream Would Breathe," while additional late-Beatles flavours enhance "Barely Living Room," and "The Bottom Of It" adds hints of Jeff Lynne. [Jul 2019, p.27]

Brodsky shows himself to be a sensitive oil, shadowing Nadler's mournful keening with desolate country licks on "Dead West," or wreathing a straight-faced cover of Guns N Roses' "Estranged" in banks of dreamy fuzz. [Jun 2019, p.32]

Snaxx is more informal collection of sample-based miniatures that sound like the architectural blueprints for larger hip-hop epics. [Aug 2019, p.32]

While Pilbeam's gorgeous, dreamy melodies remain her main strength, a longer running time give her space to play with different ideas. [Jul 2019, p.29]

The best of Ride Me Back Home feels as much a companion to [2018 My Way] as to its predecessors in Nelson's trilogy of reckoning--there's a certain Sinatra-esque conspiratorial intimacy. [Aug 2019, p.37]

A rousing debut that constantly eschews genre conventions. As a result, the record manages the impressive juxtaposition of perpetual unfurling in unpredictable ways yet remaining tonally coherent. [Aug 2019, p.26]

Previous weighty concepts have been scrapped in favour of intense focus. [Jul 2019, p.37]

There's an effortlessly freewheeling quality to the 10 songs. [Jul 2019, p.34]

A slight problem is that the London quintet are third-generation mimics: "You Are Not An Island" could be Broadcast, and "Magician's Success," complete with cartoon effects, occupies Stereolab's former territory. [Jul 2019, p.36]

11 bewitching songs that evoke late-aughts hypnagogic pop, Mac DeMarco's dreamiest ballads, and a badly warped cassette of '80s-vintage dinner jazz. [Jul 2019, p.26]

Though they're all pushing 40, Hot Chip have seldom sounded as youthful and carefree as they do on seventh studio album A Bath Full Of Ecstasy. [Jul 2019, p.29]

Contributions from Angel Olsen and newcomer YEBBA may be more subtle, but reveal themselves to be the real hidden diamonds. [Aug 2019, p.36]

"Tired" and "A Couple Highs" rather drag their feet, but the freewheeling "Lies" and terrific title track easily compensate. [Jul 2019, p.34]

POTR are up to the challenge, delivering concise, dynamic performances a la Petty's Heartbreakers. [Aug 2019, p.35]

At its best it feels emblematic of California: merging a sunny disposition with the hard, ragged terrain of the desert. [Aug 2019, p.29]

His return is an oddly subdued affair. [Aug 2019, p.35]

Claustrophobic, gripping, uncomfortably frank suite. [Aug 2019, p.39]

The Flaming Lips remain masters at creating an irresistible sense of sheer awestruck wonder that demands its own emotional reaction from the listener. [Aug 2019, p.24]

For all its excursions into dancehall and fado, it's no advance on 2014's Rebel Heart: there's a sense of chasing trends. [Aug 2019, p.32]

There's no shortage of invention and genre mashes to prick up the ears here. [Aug 2019, p.34]

While the change in the band's output is not revolutionary, its subtle shift proves fruitful. [Jul 2019, p.37]

These are quietly quixotic pieces, rich and poignant, possessing a stilled, slowly unfolding melancholia. [Jul 2019, p.27]

Sirens may be the most acutely personal and deeply unnerving music Kevin Martin has ever made. [Jul 2019, p.30]

It's all deftly constructed and beautifully realised. ... Some songs tend to play it safer, lessening their impact in the process. [Jul 2019, p.26]

This sprawling, beguiling collection strives to reveal all, but every answer brings more questions. [Jul 2019, p.18]

A lusty, witty, charismatic racket. [Jul 2019, p.30]

Well-annotated five-disc boxset. ... The collection does include a fair bit of drearily competent pub blues, but even here there are some glorious moments. [Jul 2019, p.48]

If you're a Prince bootleg freak you'll know most of it already, but if not it's a great introduction to his writing for outside productions. Often, the real revelation is how closely performers hew to his demos. [Jul 2019, p.48]

An album of wistful majesty. [Jul 2019, p.30]

Tuscaloosa is an incredibly valuable document of Neil Young in 1973, battling his demons in front of thousands and delivering some of his most deeply felt music. [Jul 2019, p.42]

Humanworld is every bit as good as, and at points even better than, its predecessor, as though Parrett's finally, almost five decades in, found his true metier. [Jul 2019, p.32]

Age Hasn't Spoiled You sees them easing off the sonic throttle as they explore other sounds, while maintaining a similar level of emotional fervour. [Jun 2019, p.29]

The extent of [Caleb Scofield's] bandmates' shock and grief is palpable throughout the eight songs they built up from the demos recorded with Scofield. All that sadness and fury adds further turbulence both to the more melodic likes of "Winter Window" as well as "Led To The Wolves." [Jul 2019, p.26]

Clever and thrilling in equal measure. [Jul 2019, p.30]

With North African and Latin American angles also explored, this is a throbbing, ominous, rigorous homage to garage basics. [Jun 2019, p.29]

It's rhythmic patterns and twisting beats are surprising throughout, making the record as unpredictable a voyage as the times we live in. [Jul 2019, p.33]

The unquestionable highlight is the seven-minute version of "The Rainbow Willow," but there's so much to admire throughout. [Jul 2019, p.27]