There is surprising range here. [Aug 2017, p.52]

A sweltering sun-baked quality. Lyrically, meanwhile, the concept--of discomfort with technology--comes a little more into focus here. [Aug 2017, p.31]

It is difficult, however, to detect any Latin influence upon what is another collection of lilting, lulling Joni Mitchell Pastiches pitched largely between winsome and the twee. [Aug 2017, p.37]

"Whiskey, Wine And Ham" is the only track that really pops, enlivened by a rare burst of classic Ryderese. Otherwise it's slim pickings from men a long way past their prime. [Aug 2017, p.25]

It's a thrilling start but, after the breathless thrills of the first six songs, things tail off sharply. Still, it's hard to begrudge them. [Aug 2017, p.37]

Kin Sonic is a far more expansively international affair. [Aug 2017, p.32]

The sinewy electric guitar lines and occasionally stodgy songs at times stray into the realm of windy stadium-folk, as blandly generic as Smith's name. When it does cut to the heart of the matter, however, Headlong impresses. [Aug 2017, p.37]

Gangster Star is a light, trippy confection, reinventing R&B with rippling electronics and slippery, Prince-like funk. [Aug 2017, p.31]

Moonshine Freeze is an impressive conduit for their upward trajectory. [Aug 2017, p.36]

Songs are steeped in creeping '90s guitar with ear-catching lyrics, plus a sense of vibrancy that comes from the fact Crutchfield really does have something to say. [Aug 2017, p.38

Throughout, Lawrie's voice is buried so deep in the mix as to be virtually inaudible, like a Mary Chain 7" slowed down to 33rpm. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Every Valley feels far more substantial [than 2015's The Race For Space], as PSB's amorphous brand of prog, motorik and post rock integrates fully with BFI clips and first hand interviews. ... Pathos and fortitude are plentiful. [Aug 2017, p.35]

Too many tracks wrap mildly neurotic musings in self-consciously quirky, deadeningly tasteful, grown-up indie-pop crooning. [Aug 2017, p.25]

[Moses Archuleta's] hazy, lo-fi house jams as Moon Diagrams shoot for dreamy but are mostly just soporific. When he occasionally stirs from his torpor to write a actual song, the results are much more fulfilling. [Aug 2017, p.32]

The new versions of songs are all better than the originals. [Aug 2017, p.45]

The result is sparkling, if substance-free, historical re-enactment. [Aug 2017, p.30]

There is less self-indulgence and more inspired engagement with the album concept on shorter pieces. [Aug 2017, p.30]

Luther and Cody Dickinson strip it back on Prayer For Prayer, recording in a half-dozen American cities and viscerally capturing the widespread unease. [Jul 2017, p.35]

The ex-pat Brit displays an affecting, fluid picking style that at times sounds comfortingly English. [Aug 2017, p.28]

Canadian Colter Wall is just 21, but in delivering his rich imagery of railroads, frauleins and codeine dreams, he sounds closer to 71. [Jul 2017, p.40]

The visual-album version is the trippiest means of experiencing Ernest Greene's third full-length under his Washed Out moniker. Yet the music is sufficiently enthralling on its own. [Aug 2017, p.38]

Some of the most exuberant and immediately engaging music they've ever recorded. [Aug 2017, p.22]

With Pop Makossa, the music's backbone is exposed--the complexity of the genre, bringing together multiple national musics alongside Congolese rumba, highlife, and later, funk and disco, leads to singularly compelling long-form grooves. [Aug 2017, p.51]

Perrett is back, in decent shape, and fully engaged with the world. [Aug 2017, p.18]

Devotees of Crover and his stalwart partner Buzz Osborne--joined here by bassist Steve McDonald-get ample does of both the band's stock-in-trade of gnarly, fuzzy bruisers and demonstrations of its more experimental side on the film soundtrack that comprises the second half. [Aug 2017, p.32]

After three albums, they've learned to speak the same language. [Jul 2017, p.40]

Here is Can, warts and all. [Jul 2017, p.49]

Warmth and easy elegance dominate, yet Korkejian's songs aren't without mood upsets. [Aug 2017, p.25]

The standout tracks reject slick studio polish. [Aug 2017, p.38]

“I Promise,” “Man Of War,” and “Lift” are the most exciting, crucial elements of this deluxe edition. ... [The B-sides are] a perfect counterpart to the three new tracks, and point towards Radiohead's convention-defying next chapter of Kid A and Amnesiac. [Aug 2017, p.44]

"Jelly's" languid R&B and the Latin shuffle of "Moonwalk" will seduce newcomers, while the rest--like Juana Molina's recent Halo--is subtle and endlessly engrossing. [Aug 2017, p.30]

The dynamic, White-produce LP is dominated by wistful yet hooky ballads. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Adams has come up with a captivating set of "sound Paintings" that eschew rock dynamics in favour of slowly shifting abstract patterns in which his guitar is filtered through a polychromatic prism of Tinariwen grooves, Steve Reich pulses, gnawa trance rhythms and droning raga loops. [Aug 2017, p.23]

House and Land is first and foremost a vocal album, full of rough-hewn and exquisitely discordant mountain harmonies---like The Carter Family for the 21st century. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Nice, but not quite essential. [Jul 2017, p.40]

Trevor Sensor's very good debut hits its mark. [Aug 2017, p.37]

This is nightmarish stuff--oscillating waves and synth drones hum menacingly,while snatches of piano appear, like daylight at the end of some ancient, subterranean tunnel. [Aug 2017, p.35]

There are some moments her that are mearly shoegaze revisited. But more often than not, Cantu-Ledesma's background in more avant-garde practices helps shake things up. [Aug 2017, p.26]

The band remains essentially the same. ... Back then it was exhilarating. Now it's also a little exhausting. [Aug 2017, p.26]

A concept piece about man's downfall and a planet in ruins, versed in three chapters and dominated by the kind of skull-splitting metal that marked 2014's I'm In Your Mind Fuzz. [Jul 2017, p.32]

An abrasive but soulful post-punk. [Jul 22017, p.23]

Her sophisto-pop range expands with each album, although the winning warmth of her live performances is largely absent here. [Jul 2017, p.35]

Bash & Pop's strong second album. [Aug 2017, p.25]

He signs off with a collection of mostly familiar songs, including three others by Webb, Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice It's All Right," Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" and a sublime version of the Dickey Lee heartbreaker "She Thinks I Still Care." [Aug 2017, p.15]

I'm Not Your Man is a much rowdier navigation of female relationships and sexuality that moves between dark dreampop and post-Belly/Breeders rock, armed with flashing hooks. [Aug 2017, p.30]

There are stormy rockers and stately, fevered ballads. "Music For Love," meanwhile, condenses Sweet's philosophies into one joyous singalong. [Aug 2017, p.38]

It's moodily compelling, rather than electrifying. [Jul 2017, p.39]

Although there are no gaffes here, neither is there much to mark it out from their first. [Jul 2017, p.36]

[His] best collection in more than a decade. ... These songs present an entirely unromaticised, often harrowing portrait of the outlaw genre. [Jul 2017, p.28]

The Nashville Sound sees Isbell swaggering confidently along the rockier edge of his range--as usual--he's at his best on the reflective ballads. [Jul 2017, p.32]

This follow-up is even better [than 2015's Music In Exile], their skittery rhythms making fuller use of R&B grooves, brass and funky licks. [Jul 2017, p.39]

Henriksen's flute-like playing has a uniquely spittled, raspy quality that lends it a rare vulnerability. [Jul 2017, p.30]

These nine tracks find the foursome reworking a suite of folk and roots songs with their trademark chilly decorum, joined by a brace of Nonesuch labelmates. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Everything is buried under a blanket of surface noise, as if these are decaying tapes that have been salvaged form an old building and the highlights math this narrative. [Jun 2017, p.26]

Producer Kwesi Sey has upped the dramatic ante throughout. [Jul 2017, p.25]

A stylistic leap forward. [Jul 2017, p.35]

Goldie strikes a neat balance between exploratory drum programming ad sleek soul. [Jul 2017, p.30]

This off-piste project has turned into a far more substantial, fully realised undertaking. [Jul 2017, p.24]

We'll be lucky if the year yields another headphone album as sumptuous as this one. [Jul 2017, p.30]

The band's core strengths--Loz Colbert's hyperactive drumming, Steve Queralt's incisive basslines, Mark Gardener and Andy Bel's grasp of melody--are all intact. They continue to wear their influences with endearing frankness. [Jul 2017, p.36]

There are no retrospective documentaries or scholarly essays to help unpack one of U2's most conceptually rich works. This cautious, conservative repackage may not diminish the greatness of the original album, but it does sell it short. [Jul 2017, p.46]

Platinum Tips + Ice-Cream sees the duo attack old songs with results both gloriously haphazard and straight-up glorious. [Jul 2017, p.39]

This wired counterpart [to 2016's lush Singing Saw]pays tribute to a New York tat now exists only in the songwriter's head, or his record collection. [Jul 2017, p.35]

As catchy as it is smart. [Jul 2017, p.28]

It's all very pleasant, but somewhat weightless. [Jul 2017, p.26]

His final album--and first since 1979--not only demonstrates the durability of the musical format he pioneered but also proves his indefatigability as an entertainer. [Jul 2017, p.25]

A light summer picnic, not a full meal. [Jul 2017, p.36]

Throughout, tracks like "Love Matters" and "Salt Cleans" keep the oddness in check with some irritatingly catchy pop hooks. [Jul 2017, p.30]

Arguably, they are a little one-paced and some looseness would not have gone amiss--but the candid, striking honest lyrics about sex and love bear the strain. [Jul 2017, p.26]

Ambiguity and intensity is there from the start. [Jul 2017, p.38]

[It is] distinctive, involving, challenging, accessible, progressive and most other things that continue to be desirable in an indie-rock record, whatever the year. [Jul 2017, p.22]

[A] set of intense and committed songs. [Jul 2017, p.25]

It's genuinely smart, intriguingly playful set that both presses all the right Big Pop buttons and sounds decidedly off-centre. [Jul 2017, p.36]

Defiantly lo-fi production rather hampers the attempts at big-budget symphonic soul, but the clubby bangers such as "It's In The Love" and "She Ran Away" work magnificently. [Jul 2017, p.26]

What these titles lack in detail, the songs themselves quickly fill with lashings of lurid prose. [Jul 2017, p.18]

Guest spots from vocalists Andrea Galaxy and Jessy Lanza make explicit the R&B influence, but the most emotive, intimate moments come when Abdel-Hamid makes her synths sing to themselves. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Motorik grooves underpin the most bracing songs on the band's second effort. [Jul 2017, p.40]

It's a beautifully judged (electronic) psych-pop record that hums with warmth, quiet eccentricity and gentle wryness, recalling Robert Wyatt, '60s French pop and Gruff Rhys' solo fare. [Jul 2017, p.39]

Stanley's "Rosewood Bitters," a slice of swampy country rock with Todd Rundgren on keyboards, is a highlight, along with Dewey Terry's "Sweet As Spring." a gnarly love song with frenetic orchestration. [Jun 2017, p.51]

Cohesive and pleasingly understated, drawing on post-punk, Afro-pop and Talking Heads-style funk-pop, and glued together by Fraiture's gauzy vocals. [May 2017, p.39]

Alt-J enter Kid A territory. The baroque synth pop of "In Cold Blood" and the kinky rockabilly of "Hit Me Like That Snare" are their only concessions to the arena. [Jul 2017, p.25]

Sombre but spellbindingly ethereal nostalgia. [Jun 2017, p.28]

Beneath the edgy smarts there's always been an undercurrent of anxiety, and now they're plunging into choppy emotional waters, minus irony's lifebelt. [Jul 2017, p.26]

As imaginative as his guitar playing can be, Auerbach's vocals can be limited. ... And yet, Auerbach's obvious affections for these touchstones, and for these performers, more than make up for such shortcomings. [Jul 2017, p.34]

A clutch of glistening electronic pop gems. [Jul 2017, p.37]

Over two decades on, in remastered form, these tracks have aged well, retaining their multi-layered, bass-heavy eclecticism, and moving back and forth between gentle melancholia and hands-in-the-air euphoria. [Jun 2017, p.49]

While much of this is somewhat sentimental, notable moments include Michael Kiwanuka and Kevin Morby's respective takes on the standards "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" and "I Only Have Eyes For You." [Jun 2017, p.26]

It doesn't all work ... but a guest appearance on voice from singer-songwriter Barbara Manning kicks things into the next gear. [Jul 2017, p.30]

Accompanying all this is Giles Martin's newly mixed stereo version inspired by the original mono. It means everything is fuller and better balanced. ... The Beatles never worked with such unified purpose again, but what this Pepper boxset captures is the fun, intense, playful ferment; the triumph, in other words. [Jul 2017, p.42]

There's soulful opulence to "Sister Goodbye," a sultry tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the deathless country-soul of "No 5 Hurricane" reeks with old-school Southern charm, and the sweltering funk of "Sunrise" and the title track sound like lost Muscle Shoals gems. [Jun 2017, p.23]

Intriguing album. ... Lyrically, the prevailing atmosphere is reflective. [Jun 2017, p.28]

Bowlcut romantics will swoon for twinkly samba "Saveoursmiles" and "Love Me 'Til My Heart Stops" on his 10th LP, but as wistfulness gives way to despondency on "Rust" and an anguished take on West Side Story's "Somewhere," Stewart's idiosyncratic path feels like an increasingly lonely one. [Jul 2017, p.25]

Recorded partially outdoors, Resin Pockets' sometimes rough and rustic nature belies the grace and beauty in Jones' deceptively causal songs. [Jul 2017, p.26]

There's an exotic, silk-road feel to her [singer Barbora Patkova's] spectral ululations, often delivered in her native language, that work brilliantly on the seven-minute title track, but can feel samey across a full album. [Jul 2017, p.30]

The highlight is the lengthy Elvin Jones tribute that opens the album---an expansive Afro-tinged big band upgrade of a piece originally recorded with Jim Keltner. [Jun 2017, p.38]

The film and its astutely assembled soundtrack didn't just ride grunge's momentum, it pumped up the volume by capturing the scene in context. [Jun 2017, p.51]

Dion's unknown recordings are a lavish tour de force of folk-into-rock and blues-into pop. [Jul 2017, p.50]

Restraint is the key, the luminous harmonies of Rachel and Becky Unthank, backed by Adrian McNally's minimal piano and the discreet textures of violinist Niopha Keegan, spotlighting the wistful poignancy at the heart of these delicate compositions. [Jul 2017, p.40]