It's uncomplicated but it achieves a lot, and that's With Animals in a nutshell. [Sep 2018, p.34]

[The songs] all feel very much of a piece thanks to the coherence fostered by Mitski's high but agile voice and wry, self-deprecating humour. [Sep 2018, p.35]

He writes about his rock'n'roll background, but embraces a more straightforward twang that's both poignant and boisterous. [Sep 2018, p.32]

The whole is a total joy, a triumphant demonstration if the virtues of the music celebrated in the rollicking "It Came From The South." [Sep 2018, p.29]

Showcase[s] his deep knowledge of American and British folk music and deft picking style that is sophisticated but never ostentatious. [Aug 2018, p.33]

It's sad to hear all their youthful fizz go flat so soon. [Sep 2018, p.28]

The follow-up comes from a more confident place musically. [Sep 2018, p.31]

This is mature work. It's confident in what it is--and as seems likely, what it will turn into next. [Sep 2018, p.27]

This official release has been ably remixed by Bob Pridden, a roadie at the Fillmore back in ’68. ... Everything is delivered with the muscular sincerity that made The Who such a compelling and memorable live act.

We can enjoy Foxing's prophecies of impending doom, particularly when they're clothed in Animal Collective harmonies, U2 bombast and even avant-garde R&B. [Sep 2018, p.29]

More fully realised than 2014's Season Sun, this second album adheres its predecessor's summery disposition while adding new elements. [Sep 2018, p.30]

It's a joyous set. [Sep 2018, p.35]

A lack of polish--notably on the title track, which features Curl collective member Coby Sey--is part of the appeal, and if "Gladly" plays it very straight, then it's hard to carp at its loved-up optimism. [Sep 2018, p.39]

What unifies these wildly disparate modes [political satirist. self-loathing lothario, celebrity stalker, Cali yacht-rocker, and Nilsson-like romantic crooner] is Baxter's musical sophistication, which puts him closer to the witty elegance of 10cc than the alt.country label he's been slapped with. [Sep 2018, p.26]

Despite the presence of Josh Hager and Jeff Friedl--of Devo's current lineup--ShadowParty never quite eclipse the shadow cast by the band's other two members, Tom Chapman and Phil Cunningham, who bring with them baggage from their New order day jobs. [Sep 2018, p.36]

He's touted as a songwriter's songwriter in Music City, of all places, and the twangy highlights of this album ring true to that accolade. [Sep 2018, p.32]

It's breadth is pleasing, aiming for something more hooky than Factory Floor's typical brief. [Sep 2018, p.30]

To The Sunset suggests that she's not growing ay more inclined to sit still, and is her best yet. [Sep 2018, p.28]

A record varied in tone and rhythm, capturing a band over 35 years in who are experimenting and sounding rejuvenated. [Sep 2018, p.32]

Among The Ghosts is Lucero's most cinematic album. [Sep 2018, p.37]

Nau's real forte flies in gentle melodies that meander beguilingly, sung in a rich and warm baritone that is more Kurt Wagner than Springsteen. [Sep 2018, p.35]

Drum machines clank and scrape, evoking not just early acid house but industrial post-punk and '80s sci-fi soundtracks. ... Yet these potentially abrasive, alien sounds are marshalled into fresh, inviting shapes. [Sep 2018, p.30]

The result is a bold but difficult record, dogged but a little hard to love. [Sep 2018, p.25]

Gate Of Grief is admirably cliche-free and mostly excellent. [Sep 2018, p.39]

The third Cd features interesting but inessential 12in mixes. ... There are diamonds throughout the sprawling set, which also manages to sound cohesive thanks to Lydon's binding, blaring vocals and the atmosphere of managed, jagged chaos. [Sep 2018, p.48]

Nash, his many voices and every credited musician on the album combine in a joyous noise you want to go on as long as one of those versions of "Caravan" Van used to do with The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. [Aug 2018, p.25]

It blasts a path for an album of gentler (but nevertheless raucous) Americana-rock evocation of the likes of Lucero or The Damnwells. [Aug 2018, p.35]

The result is a hushed, spectral delight. [Jul 2018, p.37]

They do it so well. Particularly impressive are the two lengthiest pieces. [Sep 2018, p.29]

Addressing subjects from addiction and gun crime to censorship and obscene over-consumption, the anger is righteous but leavened with the hope of change. [Sep 2018, p.29]

Thirty years later, these songs have lost neither their grandeur nor their menace. A wealth of live tracks, rarities and covers. [Sep 2018, p.47]

The best-kept secret in the Coltrane archive seems to leap between every stage of his career, like a greatest-hits sampler being improvised in real time. [Sep 2018, p.45]

SOPHIE effortlessly crosses detailed, quartz-like avant-garde production with pop's unapologetic, dizzying sugar rush. [Sep 2018, p.39]

"Shock Out" and "Money Machine" are straightforward exercises in the sort of hellfire dancehall The Bug does so well, but there's a restraint here too, best seen in the haunted heartbroken "War." [Sep 2018, p.35]

Included here are three variants on tracks Lynch used in Twin Peaks Series 3, plus another 18 instrumentals whose translucent synths and pent-up melodrama slot very much into the show's aesthetic. [Sep 2018, p.29]

Sober and joyful. [Sep 2018, p.29]

Too often the crossover strategy mires these songs in the most banal cliches of dream pop and arena grunge. [Sep 2018, p.29]

The Bees' oddball genre-hopping is still evident. [Sep 2018, p.24]

If you lost touch with Cowboy Junkies some time ago, perhaps taking their unhurried grandeur for granted, All That Reckoning presents a brave, beautiful and timely opportunity to pick up the thread. [Sep 2018, p.24]

Joy is both surer and sillier than Hair. [Aug 2018, p.33]

The sonic ambition is admirable. [Aug 2018, p.28]

To be fair, there’s an element of You Never Were Much Of A Dancer that feels a little like an index of possibilities, as though Raymond’s setting out what she can do: future albums will, hopefully, be yet more coherent, more conceptually thoroughgoing. But for a first album, it also feels stunningly confident, in full possession of its art. Guitar soli is in very good hands here indeed.

"High Roller" and "Medina" are laidback and elegant, blessed with Wu's dazzling, twinkling keyboard runs. But "Broken Theme" adds a note of challenge. [Jun 2018, p.37]

This discreet sense of procession is very much in keeping with Staples' MO on Arrhythmia, be it via the loops and beats of "A New Real" or the hushed calm of the exquisite "Memories Of Love." [Aug 2018, p.35]

Ackamoor's vision of fusing free-jazz blowing, African tribal grooves and spiritual black-consciousness musings remains unwavering. [Jun 2018, p.23]

It's nuanced "noise" that packs a hefty emotional punch. [Aug 2018, p.24]

Throughout the record there's a thoughtful restraint tot he compositions, swerving back and forth between quiet euphoria and shell-shocked dystopia. [Aug 2018, p.30]

Lamp Lit Prose is another outstanding chapter in what is shaping up to be one of the great 21st-century musical odysseys. [Aug 2018, p.29]

Each track has been precision-tooled for playlist perfection but even here the sheer class of "Rendezvous" and "Karma" shine through. [Aug 2018, p.35]

Sculptor is the strongest and most assured record of their career. The songs dig deep emotionally--but critically their aesthetics are well-balanced, the voice and instruments perfectly calibrated. [Aug 2018, p.18]

[A] chilled collection both soothing and intoxicating. [Jul 2018, p.30]

Nervy and noisy, Sixth House ranks alongside their best albums. [Aug 2018, p.33]

Hardly Electronic comprises 14 impeccably jangling, harmonic pastiches of Bacharach, McCartney and Free Design, with only Sasha Bell's sardonic vocals striking a welcome sour note. [Aug 2018, p.27]

At the fluttering heart of this 10th album is the voice of Karen Peris. Her phrasing and tonal glides are as distinctive as those of Victoria Williams or Iris DeMent. [Aug 2018, p.28]

Their fourth album is a quietly audacious work, careful but not cautious, an expansive blend of woozy country, skewed folk and cracked torch songs. [Aug 2018, p.30]

The five instrumental tracks are luminescent master classes in intuitive ensemble playing, too, Lloyd's sax as lyrical as Williams' poetry and matched by the inventiveness of the Marvels. [Aug 2018, p.30]

Purring, pulsing and bathed in neon, this might actually be their essential release. [Aug 2018, p.35]

Everything here remains personal, but it is also a cooler proposition. There's a degree of studio craft and narrative control here that Davies has never bettered. [Aug 2018, p.22]

The African-influenced essence of the record carries it along with grace but ultimately this is about celebrating the potential of the riff as rhythm. [Aug 2018, p.28]

He stretches out into these songs, inhabiting them comfortably and casually, almost always finding a way to make the familiar sound fresh. [Aug 2018, p.32]

The ballads are typically wry and pretty, however, especially the Christopher Cross-alike "Crack The Case," through "Feed The Fire" might have benefited from more rigorous editing. [Aug 2018, p.26]

It feels like Albarn in transit, both physically and mentally. [Aug 2018, p.27]

What felt like daydream ideas in maturation then have been shaped into trly rounded songs now.[ Jul 2018, p.30]

His self-deprecating humour and goofball vocals leaven these dark songs about mortality, confusion and alienation, lending both levity and gravity to the staticky guitar riffs and soaring choruses. [Aug 2018, p.28]

There's a lot going on but Georgopoulos makes it all feel unhurried and effortless. [Aug 2018, p.24]

It's an album that takes pleasure in its capacity to quietly, seductively surprise. [Aug 2018, p.28]

This is the rare jazz record that feels equipped to venture outside the genre's familiar borders and engage with the wider world. [Jul 2018, p.29]

Their strongest and most coherent records. [Jul 2018, p.28]

Parish's songs, alternately folksy, swampy and lonesome, are sometimes fleeting, capturing moments in the ether and preserving them in amber. [Jul 2018, p.33]

Watson's snarky humour prevents anything from feeling too weighty. [Aug 2018, p.35]

There's still a mumblecore sulkiness to Jordan's delivery that drags some songs down, but on tracks like the fingerpicking marvel "Let's Find Out" and "Deep Sea," she finds a distinctive voice all her own. [Aug 2018, p.33]

Generally the result is kind of Stars In Their Eyes Amy Winehouse. [Aug 2018, p.33]

Each track comes shrouded in glitchy systems noise and Eno-esque ambient drones. The best moments maintain Howard's way with a melody. [Aug 2018, p.28]

Here is transcendent refuge from the storm. [Aug 2018, p.26]

Things get chewier with "Tax To Your Head," as the trip gets a little heavier--musically as well as lyrically--eventually leading to gorgeous love song "Waitin'" and the pensive "Sitting On The First Rock From The Sun." [Aug 2018, p.24]

That quest to explore her true colors is tenderly juxtaposed with some grand arrangements--woodwind, strings, marching drums--that bring to mind Minnie Riperton, Bond themes and '40s Disney movies. [Aug 2018, p.24]

It's not revolutionary, but there's not a duff track to be found. [Aug 2018, p.24]

Where once were "chat-up lines and stairwells" ("Take Me There"), beige luxury apartments now stand. [Jul 2018, p.24]

Lovely, languid melodies disguise bleak sentiments on Erin Rae's solo debut. [Jul 2018, p.34]

The invigorating Downey to Lubbock, a record that speaks to both a lifetime of shared experience and the music that inspired them in the first place. [Jul 2018, p.26]

This post-genre approach allows them to take cumbia, mambo, porro, carnival music and ceremonial song, and mash it together in unpredictable and deeply psychedelic ways. [May 2018, p.35]

The choices on Dock Of The Bay Sessions suggest an artist who was refining his songwriting, someone concentrating more on character development. [Jul 2018, p.38]

A lovingly rendered family portrait. [Jul 2018, p.37]

A set pf ripe and mature songs that reflect poetically upon insecurity, sacrifice, pride and hubris. [May 2018, p.27]

Arthur stacks his vocals throughout, while his arching guitars, concussive programmed drums and resounding handclaps interlock with Buck's springy rhythm beds. [Jul 2018, p.24]

It might be best to appreciate Call The Comet as a sublime soundtrack, possibly the most atmospheric, widescreen guitar album you'll hear all year. [Jul 2018, p.25]

A strange, rich and global journey in sound--lasting just 37 minutes, Bon Voyage begs to be put on again, each listen revealing more of the myriad ideas that make up its weird majesty. [Jul 2018, p.22]

[He] appears to relish the chance to have some fun and revist classic Dr Feelgood licks. [Jul 2018, p.30]

Exceeding his early promise, Vynehall has produced a richly original debut to rank alongside his musical heroes, from Gavin Bryars to My Bloody Valentine to Aphex Twin. [Jul 2018, p.37]

The results are funkier than anything Byrne or Eno might have imagined almost 40 years ago. [Jul 2018, p.30]

For chunks of the album there's an unshakable feeling of familiarity. [Jul 2018, p.27]

Ghostly, atmospheric, intense, Colt is an impressive, if somewhat remote, debut. [Jul 2018, p.37]

Ghostly, atmospheric, intense, Colt is an impressive, if somewhat remote, debut. [Jul 2018, p.37]

Feels like the moment where the pair's music pulls into focus. [Jul 2018, p.37]

It's entirely addictive--one fix and you're hooked. [Jul 2018, p.36]

[African Scream Contest's] successor is every bit as thrilling, extending its remit to cover the years from 1963-1980 and thus offering a more diverse range of cross-cultural fusion. [Jul 2018, p.49]

Highlights--there are many. ... Masterful. [Jul 2018, p.28]

It mines familiar-enough influences. ... There's a sonic freshness, though, abetted by wizardy analogue production tricks of Daptone head engineer Wayne Gordon. [Jul 2018, p.34]