Meditative, agitative and seductive throughout. [May 2019, p.32]

Tuba can feel somewhat unwieldy, but in Cross's hands it's anything but. his style a blend of New Orleans brass-band music and a grime and soundsystem culture that's somewhat closer to home. [Apr 2019, p.26]

Tightly structured, lavishly orchestrated, brilliantly realised. [May 2019, p.18]

The covers aren't impersonations. [Apr 2019, p.28]

You're The Man is a bitty, madly varied collection. ... But as a series of discrete and individually brilliant EPs, it's a fascinating documents of the myriad directions that Gaye could have investigated at his creative peak. [May 2019, p.48]

Collins' first album since 2013 sees the singer in pleasingly superb form. [Apr 2019, p.26]

The group channel tasteful elements of the Grateful dead, the Allmans, Pink Floyd, Steppenwolf and CSNY in nine songs that swirl and melt into one one another, forming an album-oriented listen where dual guitars steer the ship, and nascent vocals take a back seat. [Apr 2019, p.29]

There's a biting political edge to the off-kilter "In The Desert," which savages Bush and Blair for instigating the Middle East crisis and its attendant horrors. At the same time, this wouldn't be a Mekons record without a fair dollop of humour. [May 2019, p.26]

She brings Gorecki's great classical prayer to life beautifully, an expression of empathy that feels deep and profound. [May 2019, p.25]

Much of Agora recalls his 2001 breakthrough album Endless Summer: long, processed guitar drones engendering an atmosphere of extreme, if rather familiar, calm. [Apr 2019, p.29]

Only the too-obvious "Lady Liberty stumbles, but even that song is redeemed by a road-hardened band that adds a twangy stateliness to Farrar's outrage. [Apr 2019, p.36]

Herbert enlisted more than 1000 extras to stitch together this patchwork of mournful classical music, keening choirs and parpy Brit-jazz. [Apr 2019, p.31]

It's all held together by the band's well-honed knack for a screwy groove. [Apr 2019, p.39]

There are more fine moments--"powder Man" is softly somnambulant, and the cinematic soundscape of "Kubrick" is an intoxicating affair--but self-editing is notably absent. [Apr 2019, p.39]

Patty Griffin reached something of an artistic peak with 2015's Servant Of Love, a record that distilled her love of American folk, blues and country into an intimate song cycle with a powerful emotional pull. Its follow-up is no less personal, perhaps even more so. [Apr 2019, p.28]

TNP have slimmed down, morphing into a thoughtful electronic pop group with shades of Depeche Mode or late Talk Talk. [May 2019, p.37]

A trove of intimate, impeccably judged delights. [Apr 2019, p.29]

An electrifying collision of cosmic jazz and squalling psychedelic rock, all tumbling grooves and frenzied collective euphoria. [May 2019, p.34]

It's closest to the similarly spare Peace Queer and Agnostic Hymns & Stoner fables, and smider's writing assumes spectacular meta-dimensions. [May 2019, p.34]

They're rich articulations of home, longing and identity, the denuded production allowing a shivering vulnerability to pierce their core. [May 2019, p.32]

The sound, constructed with The very best's Johan Karlberg, is spare, clean and spry, a gratifyingly novel fit for Taylor as she dissects Slow Club's split and raw romantic wounds--a heady emotional brew of pain, thwarted lust and giddy pride. [May 2019, p.32]

The familiar tropes of nomadic wrangler life are present--trusty steed, blood-red sunsets--but, refreshingly, the masculine cliches are not. Instead, the country-rocker concentrates on intimacy, tenderness and ambiguity. [May 2019, p.33]

The result is lush, beautifully busy-bodied ambient music with a roomy, lo-fi hiss running underneath, as though they're creating these sounds in a basement somewhere. [May 2019, p.30]

Tracks like "Running" show he can do a decent dreamy R&B ballad, but more interesting are the digitally manipulated sonic collages, or the impressionistic Spanish-language songs. [May 2019, p.29]

The album is a loose concept piece with a watery theme, but it's the infectious melodies and powerful vocals that stand out. [May 2019, p.27]

"Bellevue Bridge Club" lands somewhere between Van Morrison, Richie Havens and--if only thanks to his violin's drones--The Velvet Underground, while "Manifest" is like a sober Townes Van Zandt. [May 2019, p.24]

It's a work of elegant simplicity--a suite of wistful and slightly breathless songs set to dreamy tropical guitar and muted lo-fi beats. [May 2019, p.23]

In the wrong hands this mish-mash could be a colossal disaster, but delivered through the inimitable vocals and presence of Eno Williams, it melds gracefully. [Apr 2019, p.31]

She crafts tightly coiled rock epics with just a few elements, sounding like The Strokes one minute, Liz Phair the next. [Apr 2019, p.39]

As the album proceeds, these simpatico players alternate between swaddling Showalter's introspective songs in downy ambience and dialling up the grandeur, before the Clash-like stomper "Moon Landing," with Jason Isbell blazing on electric guitar, relives the accrued existential torment. [Apr 2019, p.36]

It's real allows the band to stretch their legs a bit, to jam ferociously without looking at the time, to slow things down, to try out a few new tricks. [Apr 2019, p.27]

The sweetness of her voice often masks tough sentiments. [Apr 2019, p.34]

Their reformation record is a surprisingly substantial pleasure. [Apr 2019, p.36]

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie play a whirlwind hits set complete with numerous diversions and wonderfully bathetic between-song anecdotes. [Apr 2019, p.29]

It feels in some ways much more of a post-Lambchop album than FLOTUS. [Apr 2019, p.24]

The result is pulsating electronic music that draws from the spontaneity and invention of free jazz. [Apr 2019, p.30]

By combining focused layers and distinctive styles, The Coathangers have crafted their best record yet. [Apr 2019, p.26]

There are dark undertones--drug references mainly--but Lewis is no moper. [Apr 2019, p.32]

The premise may sound gimmicky and cerebral but the results are mostly playful, poppy and accessible. [Apr 2019, p.32]

Roots Manua's particularly thrilling on the poignant urgent "A Caged Bird," but while "Lessons" suggest the warm post-jazz realms of Tortoise could have explored post TNT, no-one else combines dignified grandeur and soulful romance so effectively. [Apr 2019, p.26]

These 33 minutes are some of Malkmus' finest work; one avenue, then, has now been explored and staked out, but remains pleasingly wild. [Apr 2019, p.35]

The album is most fun when it plays up to the contours of Karen O's idiosyncratic voice. [Apr 2019, p.32]

A dynamic young talent improving with every release. [Apr 2019, p.39]

Donnelly's unselfconscious voice recalls Kate Nash and Lily Allen, but she both angrier and less suited to straight-up pop. [Apr 2019, p.28]

There's a touch of mum-at-the-disco about the dancier numbers, but the sweet acoustica of "Some Kind Of love" and the wispy electronica of the title track still underpin earwormy hooks that won't be denied. [Apr 2019, p.28]

A certain oppressiveness is part of the design, but there are glimpses of beauty here, too. [Apr 2019, p.39

It's impressive the way the trio can seamlessly slip back into the Dead-like country-psych sound that defined the best of their '80s/'90s output. [Apr 2019, p.32]

Her deft piano playing helps release some of the tension in her highwire act. [Apr 2019, p.34]

A collection of songs that are superficially alluring but, bar standout "Morning Comes," rarely captivating. [Apr 2019, p.36]

The best moments of Inferno are tender hymns to everyday pleasures. [Apr 2019, p.29]

Guitars play more of a supporting role, and the tonal shifts suits the band, with Philippakis's voice given much more room to float elegantly through the record, [Apr 2019, p.29]

Arguably Pond's slickest effort so far--a gorgeously nuanced set of damaged synth-funk and curdled power ballads that should finally see off any Grateful Dead comparisons. [Apr 2019, p.20]

It lacks a distinctive identity. [Apr 2019, p.31]

They've expanded on their debut's Goat/Can homage, opting for a rawer sound that leans on funk-charged bass throbs and wildly oscillating synths. [Apr 2019, p.36]

Many of the covers are of recent blues songs, such as Joe Bonamassa's "Distant Lonesome Train," Gary Moore's "The Hurt Inside" or "Evil And Here To Stay" by John Headley, but Mayall is able to locate them firmly within an older blues tradition without ever making them sound like hollow tributes. [Mar 2019, p.30]

Any sense they're simply re-creating the sounds of the past is dispelled from the first notes of opener "Morning in America." ... The band set every song in the present, drawing as much from sampling and turntablism as from old-school soul. [Apr 2019, p.31]

These 12 songs have a resonance that's deep and wide, examining intimate/romantic connections and their power to wound and confuse, as well as relationships in the broader contexts of existential identity and being fused to a genealogical history. [Apr 2019, p.38]

In Keeping it simple, Frawley speaks volumes to the gloriously messy stew of the human psyche. [Mar 2019, p.27]

A power-pop potpourri that falls between the Beatlesque formalism of Cotton Mather and the eruptive emotionality of Car Seat Headrest. [Mar 2019, p.34]

An inspired makeover. [Mar 2019, p.30]

Attempts to blend leftfield electronica, Broadway balladeering and voguish trap beats are technically impressive but stretch his minimal melodies to [the] breaking point. [Apr 2019, p.26]

An unexpectedly impressive comeback. [Apr 2019, p.32]

A meaty, confident comeback. [Apr 2019, p.34]

If Better Oblivion Community Center has a recurring flaw, it's a reluctance to hit these higher gears more often, the best of BOCC, however, both earns its place in Oberst's already formidable canon, and further confirms Bridgers as an artist likely to assemble one. [Apr 2019, p.37]

The second [disc], using poems and letters from World War I, is almost unbearably poignant at times. [Apr 2019, p.39]

[Susan] Tedeschi breaks free from those Bonnie Raitt comparisons that have long dogged her. [Apr 2019, p.39]

Songs packed with macabre humour, melodic contortion and gruesome discord. [Mar 2019, p.27]

Royal Trux remain unique, one of a kind: still going wrong like a hydrogen bomb.[Mar 2019, p.36]

Wildly ambitious in its melding of industrial bombast, free-jazz skronk, horror-film atmospherics and psych freakouts. [Mar 2019, p.34]

This fifth studio release is no less diverse, hitting hardest with the Woody Guthrie-alluding title track, a raging blast of rap-hop that addresses prejudice and intolerance in the Trump era. More frequently, though, Clark immerses himself in funk and soul. [Mar 2019, p.26]

A set of one-take, fragile musings, predominantly for acoustic guitar and voice. [Mar 2019, p.23]

Bingham embellishes the arrangements with Exile-style female backing vocals and country-skronk raucousness. ... The reflective moments pack a wallop as well. [Mar 2019, p.24]

Her second LP as Du Blonde plays it two ways: first with unremarkable, lunging dynamics and fuzz-caked riffs, then in a leaner and more soulful style, wit nods to prog and '70s folk-pop songcraft. Tha latter is more convincing and a better fit for her great voice and brutally honest lyrics. [Mar 2019, p.27]

The spoken-word pieces court tweeness, but Yorkston's delivery keeps things the right side of mawkish. [Mar 2019, p.37]

Cathartic in its honesty but no less depressing for that. [Mar 2019, p.33]

A family of songs that are strikingly evocative, but never overwrought. [Mar 2019, p.25]

A meaty maximalist feast, richer and riper than its predecessor. [Mar 2019, p.27]

In his own quiet way, Texas Piano Man finds Ellis maintaining a degree of reckless abandon in his creative life. [Mar 2019, p.26]

A collection of unabashedly hooky '80s-informed rock songs. [Mar 2019, p.30]

Tiersen now explores their middle ground without any hint of compromise. ... All ends well. [Mar 2019, p.37]

There's a sense of spacious freedom to these dozen songs. ... Gorgeous. [Mar 2019, p.34]

While the singles "Until The Fire" and "The Animals" are satisfyingly sleek and sinister, Lady tron seem most energised when they head deep into the darkness in the starkly Numan-ist "Paper Highways" and "Deadzone." [Mar 2019, p.29]

Producer Ed Stasium keeps the production crisp, melodic and controlled. [Mar 2019, p.30]

All The Young Droogs plots a grotty course through its age, but finds something joyful and heroic at the bottom of the bargain bucket. [Mar 2019, p.38]

Despite convoluted explanations about their relationship with nature, these compositions are surprisingly straightforward, with "Everyone Sleeps" and "Hands In The Anthill" almost primly formal. [Mar 2019, p.29]

An absorbing, illbient record magisterial in its power but minimal in execution, it works best as a set piece. [Mar 2019, p.27]

Breezy and agreeable though it all is, it mostly reminds how nice it would be to hear something new of The Lemonheads' own. [Mar 2019, p.30]

Sympathetic rock collaborators have written fine new Mavis albums in her spirit, and her gigs are exhilarating revival meetings for her friend Martin Luther King's mission. Focusing on those new songs, these 79th-birthday recordings don't quite capture that fervour. [Mar 2019, p. 34]

Why You So Crazy is the sound of a group that--reasonably, at this point--discern no reason to start being anything other than themselves, and is accordingly laced with trademark Americana, stomping glam, droll boogie and the occasional addled aberration. [Feb 2019, p.26]

It's generally a thoughtful collection: stripped back so as to not stamp on the originals. [Mar 2019, p.27]

Tip Of The Sphere represents McCombs' practised skill as a shaper of his own world, with pride in his craft, a deep respect for tradition and the drive to refresh it via his own, idiosyncratic iteration. [Mar 2019, p.18]

Lucinda Williams' version of Gentry's iconic "Ode To Billie Joe" leaves much to be desired but. ... Overall, this one's worth it. [Mar 2019, p.30]

A glowering inferno. [Mar 2019, p.24]

Pratt doesn't recreate the lo-fi sound of her previous records so much as she elaborates on it. [Mar 2019, p.32]

It's a new direction, one stretched fairly thin across nine similar tracks, but at least he's escaped that old echo chamber. [Mar 2019, p.32]

There's nothing eruptive here: effects-drenched guitars, synths and electronics conjure a hushed, hypnotic ebb and flow that's bleakly comforting if over familiar. [Mar 2019, p.34]

"The Look You Gave (Jerry)" feels plucked from an '80s synth-pop record. The album manages to avoid nostalgia however, instead offering the pair's own doomy electronic voyage into the uncertainties of the future. [Mar 2019, p.24]

Restraint didn't run in the family, perhaps, but a flair for interpretation did. [Mar 2019, p.30]