Sun Gong is minimal in the extreme, its two sides entirely dedicated to the eerie resonance of an electronically treated gong. [Nov 2017, p.30]

Pere Ubu's punchiest effort since 1998's Pennsylvania. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Singer Joe Casey tacks flattened vocals to songs that move with a bristling crawl and occasionally explode into repressed fury. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Some songs skirt close to new age naivety, cloaked by subtle eco-critical blandishments--but Perhacs' quietly magnetic character and charm wins out, in the end. [Nov 2018, p.35]

Admittedly they hit a few soaring peaks, but none that haven't already been conquered. [Nov 2017, p.39]

Not unpleasant, but not likely to persuade the previously unpersuaded. [Nov 2017, p.39]

Transform a set of ancient griot tunes into something dramatically new. The Kronos crew seem to calibrate each piece exactly right. [Nov 2017, p.36]

It seems he's at peace with trip-hop and his legacy. However, the punky "Dark Days" with Mina Rose and a minimal take on Hole's "Doll Parts" with singer Avalon Lurks suggests he remains restless for what might be over the next smoky horizon. [Nov 2017, p.36]

The industrial-inflected sound Numan has explored since Sacrifice remains a bedrock, but "Bed Of Thorns" and "Pray For The Pain You Serve" realise the concept neatly, blending crunchy synth riffs and brooding choruses with fragments of Arabic melody. [Nov 2017, p.35]

Switchback rhythms and artfully tangled melodies make it hard to pin them down. [Nov 2017, p.35]

Southern Blood is a timeless regional soul album. [Nov 2017, p.31]

Tell The Devil is full of Biblical allusion and attendant questions of sin and atonement, the 70-year-old's conspiratorial drawl framed by low-down grooves and flinty slide-blues. [Nov 2017, p.30]

The nine-piece evoke America's open spaces in a beautiful bluster of feedback and reverb. [Nov 2017, p.28]

It packs plenty of the expected, full-throttle thrills, but there's more interesting, atypical action on winding, low-slung jam "The Sky Is A Neighborhood" and the six-minutes-plus of "Sunday Rain." [Nov 2017, p.26]

Slickness will sometimes tend to blandness here, it's true, but "Memories We Share" and "Black Rainbows" show that there's room for sugary drinks alongside LCD Soundsystem's hard liquor. [Nov 2017, p.26]

Supremely confident as it is poetically singular, it's evidence that BC's vision will see him through the long haul. [Nov 2017, p.24]

A strong set of big band compositions. [Nov 2017, p.23]

A pulsating collection of disco bangers. [Nov 2017, p.23]

Plum feels very much like a landmark in his still-fresh career. [Oct 2017, p.38]

A beautiful paradox of angsty noise and beguiling craft. [Oct 2017, p.40]

These elegant, cosmic soul-jazz excursions are a fine fit for Sumney's extraordinary voice. [Oct 2017, p.40]

Theirs is a shambolic but tuneful take on glam and punk, one in which everyone sings and spunky attitude is more important than production polish. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Their sixth album intersperses passages of barbed attack with atmosphere and nuance. [Oct 2017, p.40]

Hallelujah Anyhow may have been recorded swiftly, but the abandonment is still exquisitely detailed, as every listen to "Domino" reveal further nuance beneath the swagger. [Oct 2017, p.22]

Throughout, her lyrics betray a convincing world-weariness. [Oct 2017, p.24]

Metz, whose fusion of sludgy guitar tone, boiled-down hardcore attitude and smartly sardonic lyricism, if not quite outright throwback, certainly has the quality of a studious tribute. [Oct 2017, p.32]

What is startling is the abundance of new ideas and feeling of renewed vitality on Music For The Age Of Miracles, qualities that make the songs as compelling as any the band have recorded. [Oct 2017, p.34]

The sextet's latest displays a newfound confidence, brokering country-soul, Southern rock and R&B with some panache. [Oct 2017, p.34]

Sparer yet wholly captivating displays of psych-pop iridescence. [Oct 2017, p.37]

Vol. 2 is high-class punk trash, from the rambunctious but melodic "Jumpstarting" to the amphetamine rush of "Mr Nothing Gets Worse." [Oct 2017, p.26]

Vol 1 is reflective and rootsy, all folkish acoustic guitars, from the elegiac melancholy of "End Of The World" to the hushed vulnerability of "Rejection." [Oct 2017, p.26]

The quartet peel back the years on corrosive songs that strike a masterly balance between melody and uppity guitar noise. [Oct 2017, p.26]

[Electric Trim] features conventionally structured songs that underline his country-folk and Americana interests, while amping up the psych-pop and orchestral alt.rock. [Oct 2017, p.36]

As you would expect from a Daptone act--musicianship is uniformly excellent. [Oct 2017, p.24]

Tracks such as "Nihilist Abyss," "Fatal Gift" and "Minefield Of Memory" grapple with the "deceptive deal" of experience, while her elliptical melodies recall Elliott Smith in Figure 8 mode. [Oct 2017, p.30]

Here, the Southern rock template of Modern Blues is embellished with loops and 1970s soul stylings. The mood is up. [Oct 2017, p.40]

Lurking beneath the placid surface is an undertow, subtly stirring the songs and arrangements. [Oct 2017, p.32]

Affairs of the heart dominate Batmanglij's lyrics which, when combined with his unfeasibly Christmassy production across all 15 tracks, tends to leave the listener gasping for air. [Oct 2017, p.39]

Though jangly sounds abound on the 71 songs collected here (so much so that there's an inevitable degree of twee fatigue), the contents demonstrate a shift away from the original shambling scenesters' distaste for displays of ambition, and a new eagerness to grab hold of the brass ring that The Smiths had surrendered to other contenders. [Aug 2017, p.50]

Coltrane, Eno and Metheny are touchstones, but Shabason's abstraction is sensual, his language emotional. [Sep 2017, p.37]

"Remembering" and "In Your Hands" are full of gorgeous, African-influenced harmonies. In fact, Mulvey's arrangements are generally more ambitious. [Oct 2017, p.35]

Forced Witness is a lovely album of '80s-ish pop, using synth and sax to find the space between Springsteen and the Bunnymen. [Sep 2017, p.24]

An audacious vault into Depeche Mode and U2 territory. [Oct 2017, p.30]

Most of the original tunes on this self-titled debut are formulaic, slogan-heavy jams that rest too heavily on past glories. [Oct 2017, p.36]

McCartney straps on the bass for two tracks, adding very little to generic rockers typical of the album as a whole. [Oct 2017, p.40]

VanGaalen's clear talent as a producer and arranger still shines through in even the less spectacular moments. [Oct 2017, p.40]

It's gorgeously detailed stuff, though often most compelling when those details end up fogged-out and hazy. [Aug 2017, p.28]

While groups like Thee Silver Mt Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor overegg everything, Moss works a far more thoughtful, nuanced seam. [Jul 2017, p.34]

Great riffs and an inherent grooviness keep Terminal gripping throughout. [Aug 2017, p.26]

Orbit sees their shared musical predilections slide furthrr into focus. [Sep 2017, p.32]

Categorisable, but mostly excellent. [Oct 2017, p.35]

Forsyth's imperative to find new possibilities from a classic format shines through. [Sep 2017, p.28]

A cast of colourful characters liven up Butler's familiar mix of Chicago muscle and diva house. [Oct 2017, p.30]

Trad ballads, Americana and well-chosen contemporary folk covers mix with smart original compositions sung in a plaintive voice, while his virtuoso finger-piking is augmented by splashes of electric in a style clearly modeled on Richard Thompson. [Oct 2017, p.39]

After "Waiting," a disarmingly soulful duet with Noah Cyrus, the LP gets darker and more resonant. [Oct 2017, p.24]

The songs' operatic grandeur evokes the music of Dead Can Dance and Diamanda Galas at its most epic-scaled. [Oct 2017, p.40]

On her band's follow-up to its 2014 self-titled debut, Rankin returns to that comfort zone with largely engaging results. [Oct 2017, p.24]

Hinson's latest is a tear-soaked concept album that's distinguished by the sheer magnetic beauty of the music. [Oct 2017, p.30]

Mountain Moves is a brilliantly executed synthesis of tag-averse weirdness, orchestral pop and easy grooves, stuffed with earworms and whimsy-free. [Oct 2017, p.26]

It's refreshing to hear Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey challenging themselves as OMD enjoy their Indian Summer--"La Mitrailleuse" blends gunfire and military drums--even if the results mostly end up as blue-eyed Kraftwerkian pop. [Oct 2017, p.36]

Synths and drum machines dominate, courtesy of Epworth and producer Thom Monahan, lending Elytral a seemly patina of '80s dark-pop. [Oct 2017, p.26]

American Dream is a triumph, then, and possibly LCD Soundsystem's finest album so far. [Oct 2017, p.18]

Sundfor's first for Bella Union suffers from an occasional excess of affectations, her melismatic vocal style an acquired taste. Fortunately, she's best at her most intimate, this sixth collection's dominate quality. [Sep 2017, p.38]

Portico's rejuvenated quartet status brings with it more of the jazz-influenced stylings that first made their name, [Oct 2017, p.36]

[Swim Inside The Moon] consists primarily of intricately constructed acoustic guitar lines and De Augustine's soft, high whisper of a voice. [Sep 2017, p.26]

Here you'll find the French cool of Ruth's "Polaroid/Roman/Photo," the glacial "Romantic" by Sweden's Cosmic Overdose as well as the gorgeous minimalism of "NY NY" by Dutch musician Truus De Groot. [Sep 2017, p.52]

Often, the more oblique voices speak loudest from Manchester Mekons' pop-prog punk collectivism, through Durutti Column's moist-eyed melancholy, World Of Twist's epic pop oddness, to classic British hip-hop from Ruthless Rap Assassins. [Sep 2017, p.53]

An aquatic, slow-moving work, rich with melancholic atmosphere. [Oct 2017, p.35]

There are occasional moments of poppy levity, like the energetic "Feel Like I Wanna Stay," but otherwise this has an impressive heft. [Sep 2017, p.26]

Another furious, frenetic collection of lurching tear-ups. [Oct 2017, p.28]

A neat sampler of MacKay's unshowy virtuosity, at once brisk and mellow. [Jun 2017, p.33]

These are songs all at once cavernous and claustrophobic, substantially assembled from gloomy electronica and echoing drums, all of which provides an appropriate backdrop to a rich voice appealingly laced with melancholy. [Oct 2017, p.30]

"Despierta," released in October 2016 as part of the 30 Days, 30 Songs projects aimed at hindering Donald Trump's campaign. If that did not quite work out, their LP does. [Oct 2017, p.26]

It's an unalloyed treat. [Sep 2017, p.38]

A couple thin tracks aside, Exile is a richly layered sonic feast slathered in alluringly discordant noises. [Sep 2017, p.26]

A sort of gothy folktronica dominates songs like "Yes Men" and "Out The Way," with shades of PJ Harvey on the acerbic title track about refugees, while the crawling jutter of "2016" captures the dislocating agony of experiencing personal anxiety while "there's a fascist in the White House." [Sep 2017, p.37]

For shredheads, there's urgent opener "The Static God," while the superb "Animated Violence" alternates between the album's twin moods of sustained guitar menace and reflective percussive ambience. [Sep 2017, p.35]

Mogwai are still exploring the push-pull dynamics of soft and harsh and slow and fast with almost bewilderingly pleasing results. [Oct 2017, p.35]

There are poppy moments--the churning "What Have You Done For Me," and deceptively tranquil "Dead At The Wheel"--but otherwise the Jarman brothers have restrained their more melodic instincts to create sludgy monsters like "Year Of Hate" and storming closer "Broken Arrow." [Oct 2017, p.26]

Though other songs don't escape the inevitable air of redundancy, Gibbard's facsimiles retain all the originals' love and warmth. [Oct 2017, p.28]

Beast Epic is laidback and monochromatic but enlivened by its discourse. [Oct 2017, p.32]

May has a knack for hooks and titles. [Oct 2017, p.32]

Miserable but magnificent. [Oct 2017, p.39]

The Maels' spectrum of tried-and-true on Sparks Album No 25 is wide and rich enough to provide no end of delights. [Oct 2017, p.39]

The intimacies of David Briggs' production and the pure strength of the songs suggest an album that, with a few overdubs and a bit more polish could have worked as that desperately anticipated follow-up to Harvest. ... Pride of place, though, goes to the two unreleased tracks {Give Me Strength and Hawaii]. [Oct 2017, p.

Richter's own work sits as comfortably alongside these as Schubert and Rachmaninov, and there are further contributions from Low and Rachels, as well as Bach, and, inevitably, Steve Reich. [Oct 2017, p.52]

Avant-folk with a thin glaze of psychedelia and gurgles of electronica on songs that draw their charm from the contrast between Dyble's crisp enunciation and vaguely experimental settings. [Sep 2017, p.26]

Their voices blend beautifully, especially on Dylan's title track and Jason Isbell's "The Color Of A Cloudy Day," but they caterwaul awkwardly on an unintentionally silly version of Nirvana's "Lithium." [Sep 2017, p.32]

Dark Days And Canapes feels both bleaker and more robust than [earlier works]. [Sep 2017, p.28]

Kelly has lost none of his facility for wry lyricism or deadpan melody. [Sep 2017, p.32]

While Like Clockwork sometimes felt a little leaden, Villains flies by. [Sep 2017, p.31]

That old-time, good-time vibe can occasionally dip into hokeyness, as the album title signals, but slow numbers like "Lindsey Button" and "Put 'Em Up Solid" are where the group excels. [Sep 2017, p.28]

This is a holiday fling of a record. Chilled and tempting as a beachside mojito--and just as potent. [Sep 2017, p.30]

Acoustic guitar features, alongside synths, samples and field recordings, but for all their adventurism, these songs have structure. Still, diversity rules. [Sep 2017, p.32]

A Boy From Tupelo is ultimately a necessary and revealing addition to Presley's vast catalogue, one that spins a fascinating yarn about a pimply kid who transformed into something unprecedented: a rock star. [Sep 2017, p.50]

It largely manages to avoid vapid repetition and provides plenty of charm and promise for the future. [Sep 2017, p.37]

He's gone full pastoral, the birdsong and countryside imagery matching the dreamy, sunny major-sevenths. [Sep 2017, p.30]

"Give Me Love" and "Last Time" may articulate different relationship stages, but are euphoric in their own ways. [Sep 2017, p.35]