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]

A lush and ambitious piece of progressive pop music. [Sep 2017, p.38]

The fifth album by the Mo Wac founder's creative collective doesn't quite cut the mustard. [Sep 2017, p.38]

Beautifully moving. [Aug 2017, p.32]

What sets his debut apart from other similar singer-songwriters are the cinematic, electronic textures that he weaves around his work, but also the off-kilter material. [Aug 2017, p.32]

Commendable ambitions, uneven results. [Sep 2017, p.26]

It's an album of songs beautiful on the surface, but with darkness nibbling on all sides. [Sep 2017, p.18]

Like a cross between X-Ray Spex and rage Against The Machine as reinterpreted via US hardcore, there's plentiful anger, but also a hopefulness. [Sep 2017, p.26]

The results is some of the richest, most compelling and least lonely-sounding music of Granduciel's career. [Sep 2017, p.24]

Throughout the album, melodies stop and start like film scores: they change key, tempo, time signatures and even musical genres to suit the flow of the story. [Sep 2017, p.22]

Stein mostly carries an air of pleasant politeness, which rather fails to convey the darkness beneath tales of gambling addicts and bottles of bourbon in the fridge. [Aug 2017, p.38]

A wealth of new material for diehard fans. [Aug 2017, p.46]

Kinder Versions offers up a stormy swell of sound that's intermittently compelling even if Mammut's wilder instincts can seem tethered down by plodding rhythms. [Sep 2017, p.32]

Often, she comes across as heir to songwriters such as Todd Rundgren and Randy Newman--raising a jaded, critical eye to the world. [Sep 2017, p.38]

This is an album dominated by the two remaining Isley Brothers. Ronald Isley's distinctive tenor groan sounds particularly good on slowies such as "Mercy Mercy Me" and Leon Thomas' "Let The Rain Fall On Me." [Sep 2017, p.30]

There's a clutch of self-penned gems, "In The Middle Of It All's" momentous heartache, and some superlative country-soul interpretations, the pinnacle being Dan Penn and Donnie Fritts' "Rainbow Road." [Sep 2017, p.45]

He's louder and stranger than ever, growling his way through 11 songs that mix stomping glam rackets with lumbering. [Sep 2017, p.26]

These smooth edges still cut deep. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Hip Mobility favours digital modernism over analogue nostalgia, yet admits the wonder and romance inevitably in play. [Aug 2017, p.35]

No-one writes with such wince-inducing accuracy about their target audience as their former Beautiful South pairing. [Sep 2017, p.30]

An inspired collection of sonically inventive, discreetly theatrical pop. [May 2017, p.30]

Images abound of betrayal, compromise, opportunities selfishly squandered. But a kind of redemptive enlightenment emerges. [Aug 2017, p.34]

The second half of this compilation, thoughtfully assembled by Gotye's Wally De Backer, features Perrey demonstrating the range of the Ondioline's sonority with 10-second clips of him mimicking a banjo, castanets, oboe and so on, restored from the original acetate. The first half collects 11 of Perrey's more conventional Ondioline compositions from the '50s and '60s. [Aug 2017, p.48]

Purple Rain sounds incrementally more alive. [Sep 2017, p.51]

The warm interaction between Brian and his bandmates on these recordings really does cast a much misunderstood period of The Beach Boys' career in a new light. [Sep 2017, p.44]

As ever, you wish they'd stretch out and jam a bit more in the studio, but this might just be the most satisfying CRB set since 2012's Big Moon Ritual. [Sep 2017, p.37]

He pulls a few originals out of the bag. But it is the sideways eviscerations of "Ol' Man River" and "Over The Rainbow" that resonate the longest. [Sep 2017, p.35]

The music glistens and gleams. ... An intoxicating ride. [Sep 2017, p.34]

It's not the kink in the tail of FTP's impeccably groomed pop that makes them so intriguing, but rather their unembarrassed, first-level readability, which is such that you begin to suspect fiendish subversion. [Sep 2017, p.28]

Fans of Ariel Pink, Sinkane and mild hallucinogens would do well to seek out this eye-opening, vibes-heavy debut by shamanic newcomer Feynman. [Sep 2017, p.26]

Snaith's take on minimal dance music is brighter and more immediate [than his Fabric mix in 2007]. [Sep 2017, p.24]

There's little of the playful invention of 1997's astonishing Fantasma, but imaginative details abound, even at these slower tempos. [Sep 2017, p.24]

Achieves a drifting, beautiful desolation that many of their peers lack. [Sep 2017, p.24]

The result is a disjointed, jarring mix of washy atmospherics, bleary electronics and half-baked songs. [Sep 2017, p.23]

Universal High usually depends more on mood than focus. A little more of the latter and it would be almost perfect. [Aug 2017, p.26]

Take Me Home in particular sounds like a bonus disc to a full album reissue. But they reveal new angles to the Big Star story. [Aug 2017, p.52]

Aching pop-soul bathed in nostalgic warmth of another era. ... Yet Atkins is also possessed of a singular, torchy voice that floods these songs with genuine fervour. [Aug 2017, p.25]

These unfailingly lovely late-night reflections stalk the same territory as the third VU album, Richard Hawley, The Lilac Time, and ballad mode JAMC, moving from the stark intimacy of "Over You" to the narcotic drag of "Waking Up" and Bond theme grandeur of "If The World Is All We Have." [Aug 2017, p.30]

Zauner adds peppier number like "Machinist" and "Road Head" without ever sounding like she's spread too thin. [Aug 2017, p.32]

There are shades of Chvrches in the title track, with its soaring choruses and shimmering soundscapes, while "Bigger Than Love" is The xx with a massive soul injection. [Jul 2017, p.35]