[B.E.D.'s] conversational neo-electroclash ditties are slight but hugely charming. [Jan 2019, p.20]

["Cheyenne" is] keenly observed and beautifully realised, which goes for most everything on Interstate Gospel. [Jan 2019, p.20]

A series of esoteric, danceable, frequently amusing stories about sleeping in gardens, body waxing and Swansea. [Jan 2019, p.19]

Once a songwriter with a deft facility for catchy hooks, his melodies droop under the lethargic tempos, turning his self-deprecation into something like self-absorption. [Jan 2019, p.22]

On their fourth album, all pretense at rootsy authenticity is gone--this is machine-tooled stadium pop, with producer Paul Epworth in the Brian Eno role. [Jan 2019, p.22]

There's no flash and no trash, just reflective, ripe, minor-key ruminations, plenty of melodically burnished guitar playing and Knopfler's voice, which has crusted nicely with age to take on a warm, rich burr. Classy. [Dec 2018, p.27]

There's a fine line between the sincerely wistful and contemplative and the nostalgic and morose, but Merrie Land understands where the borders are and stays within them. [Jan 2019, p.18]

Ghost Forests is a sensual record where the spaces in between the sounds assume a corporeality all their own. [Dec 2018, p.26]

Hendrix's genius really was for compact, tightly honed pop-rock, where his playing could court restraint, embracing a kind of flinty, tensile groove. The psychedelic drift of "Rainy Day, Dream Away" is the highlight; the extra live and demo material will keep fans happy, but adds little of note tot he story. [Dec 2018, p.42]

A fascinating accompaniment to Hollander's book of the same name. ... Superb collection. [Dec 2018, p.46]

The smoother strains of the folk-tinged "Within Each Day" and "If You Are Leaving" make a bigger impression, confidently stepping out from his elder sibling's shadow. [Dec 2018, p.41]

Martin's new stereo mix succeeds, principally through lightness of touch. ... Over 107 tracks, we learn that the making of The White Album was not quite the frigid stand-off that we might have been led to believe. But nor does this glimpse behind the curtain diminish The White Album's mystique. [Dec 2018, p.34]

Goldblum knows his limitations and never sounds out of his depth. ... Good stuff. [Dec 2018, p.25]

Their best, boldest, most unashamedly poptastic album yet. [Dec 2018, p.28]

No frontiers are breached, but Mascis's cracked vocals and melancholic melodic turns only get more affecting with age. [Dec 2018, p.28]

The airy, uncomplicated sound recalls a rural expanse, with St Louis’s hushed confidence guiding the listener through fields and along banks. [Nov 2018, p.33]

The most heart-wrenching selection are a ravaged take on Nirvana's "Stay Away" in which Bradley intuitively taps into Kurt Cobain's roiling anguish, a tonsil-shredding full-band rendition of "Victim Of Love" and the instrumental "Black Velvet," which Brenneck had earmarked for a Bradley vocal he was too weak to sing. [Dec 2018, p.23]

As Gerrard's voice recedes into the silence, we're left with the sense that the hungers for mystery and transcendence this music explores could be as fundamental to us as it was to those who partied so hard so long ago. [Dec 2018, p.32]

It's a delightfully messy set of junkyard bubblegum garage, with Spencer squeezing out a series of choppy grooves while howling largely meaningless slogans against a backdrop of feedback and fuzz. [Dec 2018, p.33]

Too often the music from both sessions provides little more than gauzy atmosphere, lacking the drive and purpose of previous albums. But Cash is a deft singer and evocative songwriter. [Nov 2018, p.25]

A highly evolved exercise in absorption and restraint. [Dec 2018, p.28]

He's a poet of the everyday, finding outsized emotions within these life-sized tableaux. [Dec 2018, p.28]

Yawn is chilly and languid, the 35-year-old's penchant for sudden bursts if guitar noise giving depth and colour tot the Cure-ish gloom around "Recover," "John" and "No One's Trying To Kill You." [Dec 2018, p.30]

No Tourists positively benefits from its echoes of past glories. [Dec 2018, p.30]

An extraordinarily, beautiful, haunting piece of music. [Dec 2018, p.25]

The snarky will hear a reheated Mike Flowers Pops; the wise, a labour of genuine love. Turn on, tune in. [Nov 2018, p.24]

Considered, compassionate and intricate, conceived of equal parts magic and dread, Laws Of Motion works a slow but deep enchantment. [Dec 2018, p.30]

What Negative Capability has for you at its best is just this kind of upending of expectations. [Dec 2018, p.16]

Leonard has whipped another rabbit out of his hat. The surprise is that it's his most conventional release yet. [Dec 2018, p.27]

There's respect but nothing approaching the sort of suffocating reverence that kills so many covers. [Dec 2018, p.22]

Thom Yorke's Suspiria might not be to everyone's taste--but it feel enough, for now. [Dec 2018, p.20]

The result is akin to a John Ford film with an indie soundtrack. [Nov 2018, p.37]

There are jarring moments but Holter's quest to channel the clatter of the universe produces transcendent beauty too. [Nov 2018, p.24]

A beautifully languid collaboration with three members of his Lighthouse band. [Dec 2018, p.23]

An album that can initially feel scatty but is held together by its creator's passion and poise. [Dec 2018, p.28]

It's an austere, difficult listen, but it's frequently thrilling. [Dec 2018, p.33]

Proves that even when their studio work was in the doldrums, REM were never less than a compelling live band. [Dec 2018, p.47]

Allways is as mercurial as it is highly listenable. [Nov 2018, p.26]

There's a fair amount of Fugazi worship on display with track like the churning punk of "Ruptured Line," but the album really flies when the metal influences come to the fore. [Nov 2018, p.]

Wasteland retains a wilful catchiness. [Dec 2018, p.33]

The fuzz-rock of "Just A Fool" is transformed into a clawhammer-guitar folk ballad; the punky glam of "You Get To Rome" and the space rock of "Yes To Everything" both become ragtime ditties; the heads-down rocker "All In Your Head" and the stadium-sized "No Secrets" become pretty ballads, with some lovely Joni Mitchell-ish chord changes. [Dec 2018, p.27]

The gravity of his subject matter finds a contrast in Swift's playful musical settings. [Dec 2018, p.33]

The eclectically banging result is an invigorating circuit-workout through righteous rage, swinging from livid EDM beats with Steve Aoki and Rise Against's Tim McIlrath, to furious rap with Big Boi, Killer Mike and Bassnectar. [Nov 2018, p.28]

His homespun take on soft rock and '80s Continental pop balances languid dreaminess with a subtle virtuosity. [Dec 2018, p.27]

This Swedish quartet's second album often recalls a mid-90s Matador Records release. [Dec 2018, p.25]

They've proved here that they're more than capable of escaping from, or expanding on, that familiar sound. [Dec 2018, p.24]

Assured, yes, but there's very little rebellion here. [Dec 2018, p.23]

From dive-bar romps to plaintive reflection, this is his strongest collection for some time. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Broken Politics is a thoughtful, reflective record that twines the political and the person. [Nov 2018, p.26]

The sound of Ono gravely warbling "Imagine" at the close of Warzone may invite more ridicule from longtime haters. But believers in her musical vision will deem it very much of a piece with the boldness that marks these new renditions of many of her most furious songs. [Nov 2018, p.34]

The shuffling piano and accented horns coalesce in the simple wishes of "Dreamin'," while "Ancient Past" finds Parker, toying with time and memory, savouring every moment. [Nov 2018, p.34]

The LPs collected here lack the punch of his previous efforts. But they do have their charms. ... Most revealing are two live LPs, from '83 and '87, that show an artist reconsidering his old hits--and his old selves--for new fans. [Nov 2018, p.45]

It is a cornucopia of delights for audiophiles and there are more than enough quirks and insights to make it invaluable to even the most causal Lennon fan. [Nov 2018, p.46]

This second album tips a stetson to the neglected Western heritage of his native country, from the stark beauty of "Saskatchewan In 1881" to the deliciously luminous cover of Wilf Carter's "Calgary Round-Up." [Nov 2018, p.37]

Genres glom together in unlikely combinations, split and mutate via myriad effects, yet this set is pop to its core, nodding to everyone from Bowie, Byrne and Carl Craig to Arthur Russel and Wire on its way to off-centre intrigue. [Nov 2018, p.27]

However eccentric and laidback his expression, it's as masterfully distinctive as that of any auteur. [Nov 2018, p.35]

The synth reveries outstay their welcome, but the sense is of a great talent whose early solo work vented a lifetime's pain and outrage now experimenting and recalibrating. [Nov 2018, p.30]

At times ethereal and romantic, at others eerie and queasy, it's completely different, but equally worthy, addition to this autheur's overlooked and original canon. [Nov 2018, p.18]

This equally fine sophomore effort sees Burch take a few steps into the present. [Nov 2018, p.25]

An album of tremendous humour and empathy, less a comeback than a considered continuation of an unprecedented career. [Nov 2018, p.22]

For The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon, the original scally mystic has orchestrated a selection of old songs with a missionary zeal. [Nov 2018, p.27]

Notably louder than Hersh's other solo records, if it evokes anything else in her canon it's throwing Muses' furious, fabulous 1992 album Red Heaven, "Loud Mouth" and "LAX" being especially elemental eruptions. [Nov 2018, p.30]

The record plods along nicely but often drifts into forgetful or nostalgic territory, with the fuzzed-up growl of the guitars recalling the bygone mid-90s indie-rock boom. [Nov 2018, p.37]

Kikagaku Moyo sound more assured than ever on this fourth album. [Nov 2018, p.32]

Animal Companionship is a more sombre affair than it initially sounds as Ashworth uses animal love as a lens through which to dissect heartbreak and loss, broken lives and creeping morality. [Nov 2018, p.23]

Butler performs the same job that Trevor Horn did with Belle & Sebastian--adding a widescreen pop ambition to McIntyre's flinty personal tales. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Remastering these original recordings not only unmoors these songs from that particular era in rock history but also sharpens the band's attack and showcases each player's contribution to Adam's House cat's unruly sound. [Nov 2018, p.45]

The best parts of An American Treasure are the snapshots of a less self-straitened Petty. [Nov 2018, p.48]

["Around The Horn"] inflates over a final few minutes into something uniquely epic. ... Lyrically, it's pretty baffling where "These Rocks," one of the albums' standout tracks, is the most openly confessional song Houck has written, set to a churchy musical swell, congregational and healing, the sound of a lifetime burden lifted by love. [Nov 2018, p.28]

It's an invitation to peer into the hidden spaces of an extraordinary modern songwriter, where calm and quiet moments prompt superlative work. [Nov 2018, p.32]

The set has both strength and a lean, lustrous beauty. [Nov 2018, p.26]

The routine comparisons with Terry Riley/Steve Reich/Michael Nyman all apply, but there's something more mystical and elemental at work, too, with echoes of the Third Ear Band and Comus. [Oct 2018, p.27]

Haunting late-career contemplation. [Nov 2018, p.37]

There's variety like never before: bludgeoning tech-punk, disco beats and Screamadelica-era Primal Scream eruptions. That it exists is exhausting; that it works is extraordinary. [Nov 2018, p.29]

The Norwegian band's seventh album evokes the storms and swells of mid-period Bad Seeds and Crime & The City Solution. [Oct 2018, p.23]

The lyrical content from MCs B-Real and Sen Dog is fairly rote, but a widened sonic palette keep things interesting. [Nov 2018, p.27]

She achieves something close to eerie synthesis of avant-classical art song and Throbbing Gristle-worthy brutalism that three-quarters of TG themselves created on their 2012 tribute to Nico's Desertshore. [Nov 2018, p.29]

Too many songs sport frumpier styles. [Nov 2018, p.34]

Blood Red Roses is as stylistically varied as its predecessors. [Nov 2018, p.37]

Her faintly punch-drunk voice sometimes sounds just a kilojoule of energy (or lack thereof) from uninterested, but just as often she's as winsomely weary as she is vulnerable, and the impeccably stylish decoration seals our seduction. [Nov 2018, p.25]

Its fuggy electronics and lyrical non sequiturs not giving up their secrets easily. Still, a few moments stand out. [Nov 2018, p.32]

It's beautifully eerie. [Oct 2018, p.30]

Konoyo draws inspiration from Tokyo Gaksu, players of gagaku, a Japaneses classical music. You can discern this in the gentle drones and fluting of the opening "This Life," but it's soon all transformed by the producer--as it is on the fizzing "Keyed Out" or the lovely "Mother Earth Phase"--to the subordinate role in Hecker's rather more epic sonic drama. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Pigs x7 are a band that appreciate a bit of theatre. There is plenty of that going on in this second album, along with a whole bunch of heavenly riffs. [Nov 2018, p.34]

It's business as usual, but a welcome return nonetheless. [Nov 2018, p.32]

It's the low-key moments--the astral jazz of "There Was Always Water;" the clunky, piano-led "Back For Me;" the dubby "How Far Is Spaced-Out?"--that hit home emotionally. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Batt's orchestral arrangements as the band revisit classics such as "Quark..." and "Psychic Power" are surprisingly effective, even majestic in places. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Although his take lacks Bob's iconoclasm, there's something deeply reassuring about his laid back schmooze on abiding classics such as "Night And Day" and "Fly Me To The Moon." [Nov 2018, p.34]

They're back on form, with tow long, lovely drone-outs, buzzing and huffing around an eternal monochord, and "Atropos," a gorgeous, deep, cosmic country comedown. [Nov 2018, p.30]

Helm seems constrained within the immaculate settings, only intimating the emotional lift-off the material yearns for. She makes a deeper connection with the newly penned "Heaven's Holding Me," delivering the LP's most heartfelt, uplifting performance. [Nov 2018, p.30]

None of these fall too far from the ZZ Top tree, defined by crashing riffs and a raunchy sense of humour. [Nov 2018, p.29]

Haiku Salut deepen and widen their electro-pastoral sound on this mostly sublime third album. [Nov 2018, p.30]

A follow-up that is more knowing and nuanced, although the expansive dance grooves remain uninhibited. [Nov 2018, p.32]

Their best for a while. ... An extended, uncharacteristically rocking release. [Nov 2018, p.34]

It's all done with a wry, matter-of-fact wit rather than self-pitying sadness, and the spirit and sound of Pulp hang over much of the album. [Nov 2018, p.37]

Overall it's a box-ticking collection unlikely to broaden her mainstream fanbase. [Nov 2018, p.37]

The joyously unhinged waltz "Better In My Day" is an amusing piss-take of nostalgic bigotry; while Bernholz's whispered vocals on tracks like "Hobby Horse" come with an undercurrent of menace. [Nov 2018, p.29]

Beyond some odd interjections, like the junglist mania that ruptures the middle of "Divide Now," here Willner does his usual, glorious thing. [Nov 2018, p.29]