The more spacious likes of "Comanche Moon" and "Life Song" suggest an ambition to nail a headline spot at the UFO Club, which may not boast much novelty a half-century after the fact, but can still elicit a contact high. [Jun 2017, p.23]

The resulting appearances from the likes of Calexico, Mark Knopfler, Carrie Rodriguez and David Lindley are subtle and empathetic, blending easily into Brown's spare, atmospheric Americana. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Concrete Desert is a seductive set-piece. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Kelly's craftsmanship ensures Untouchable is a deeply satisfying 32 minutes. [Jun 2017, p.24]

Death Peak takes you on a journey of sorts. [Jun 2017, p.26]

Entirely self-written and beautifully realised, Americana is a deeply satisfying reminder that Davies remains a songwriter with a huge reach, but few equals. [Jun 2017, p.29]

Despite moments of discordance, as on "Narkopop 1," Gas continues to provide, for the most part, analgesic relief. [Jun 2017, p.30]

What once seemed an aesthetic springboard for the band to make truly great music now seems rather like retreading old ground. [Jun 2017, p.33]

Not for the first time, their presentation is inspired but the material can fall a little flat. [Jun 2017, p.37]

This follow-up to their 2014 debut blends antique-sounding folk tracks with glossier electronic numbers including "Die Young," which cocoons premature death in pretty harmonies, and "Kick Jump Twist," about the quest for instant fame. [Jun 2017, p.38]

Love Is Love really takes off when the brass comes out. [Jun 2017, p.38]

This second collection consistently zips along, taking in one exceptional single and a clutch of songs that mostly resemble overdriven outtakes from Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express (high praise). [May 2017, p.37]

The Last Rider is another warm collection of bittersweet pop songs, alternately wistful and playful, freighted with memories of time and place. [May 2017, p.39]

The lonesome trumpet-flecked "Sand," an easy-swinging "Laugh" and "Cali," with its late summer-in-Laurel Canyon vibe, prove this is no one-note set. [May 2017, p.35]

Gnod explore a cacophonous avant-garde rock music with elements of Swans, Spacemen 3 and country folk The Fall swirling in its DNA. [May 2017, p.30]

There may be too much on Electric Lines--including Jess Mills, American nwo R&B upstart Daniel Wilson and an uncharacteristically low energy Taylor on the title track. [May 2017, p.30]

Presley's righteous fury and mordant wit burn even brighter on this follow-up. [May 2017, p.28]

Kidal sounds like a high tide. [May 2017, p.40]

The expansively layered arrangements here are a testament to a bolder ambition than the acoustic troubadour shtick that once defined him. [May 2017, p.37]

[A] sumptuous, immensely pleasurable throwback album. [May 2017, p.25]

Too often, Belong manages the almost interesting feat of sounding both overcooked and half-baked. [May 2017, p.39]

Happyness gets more interesting when they dig deeper into rock history. [May 2017, p.32]

An album characterised by comically overwrought anthems and production-line lyrics. [May 2017, p.26]

The buttery groove of "Serotonin Rushes" and "Swoon" suggests F&Y are at the top of their idiosyncratic game. [May 2017, p.30]

Without notable emotional heft, however, the identikit cool and sub-Lana Del Rey poses prove wearisome, the cloying artifice insubstantial. [May 2017, p.39]

The belated follow-up is a massive upgrade. [May 2017, p.26]

Adios expands on 2014's The No-Hit Wonder by incorporating heaps of soul, a pinch of sprightly folk and swampy blues. [May 2017, p.25]

Canyons Of My Mind amply confirms the considerable promise Combs has previously displayed. [May 2017, p.26]

It's Pollard in excelsis. [May 2017, p.32]

It's a svelte, consummately accomplished change, although Burnett's reliably polished, sometimes even laidback, settings allow plenty of room for grit and sweat. [Apr 2017, p.32]

Their 10th album in 25 years underlines their skill at combining heavy guitar solos with gauzy pop melodies and blizzards of noise. [Apr 2017, p.25]

Here, the likes of "Call Upon The Fire" and "Commanche Moon" continue to mines, as, say Earth do, a folk essence of melody and lore. [Apr 2017, p.23]

The results are stiff at times, the LP overlong, but Branch's country songwriting sounds all the more compelling and idiosyncratic in this setting. [May 2017, p.25]

They've mastered the basics, but still have miles to go. [May 2017, p.26]

Animating even the slowest songs on the album is a sense of play and possibility, the realisation that these musicians can shake off the dust and still surprise us. [May 2017, p.36]

Kirk's fondness for gloomier realms prevails, especially in his noteworthy wordplay and on the ominously noisy title track. [May 2017, p.40]

Not so much a fusion as a cross-cultural collision. [May 2017, p.40]

A record that yields a procession of hidden treasures. [May 2017, p.38]

Although What If's nine instrumental tracks are heavily rhythmic, this is a refreshingly gridless and affecting music, with serrated clicks and muted arpeggios wandering organically in and out of time. [Apr 2017, p.30]

Bunker Funk runs along more heavily rhythmic lines, without sacrificing a single joule of energy. [May 2017, p.26]

These three sprawling tracks were recorded in the pair's Bushwick apartment, but boast both breadth and startling virtuosity, sparkling guitar-drums jams blown wide with reverb. [May 2017, p.40]

Hitchcock sounds more energised and vibrant than he has in decades. [May 2017, p.31]

A satisfactorily dramatic return. [May 2017, p.30]

Age seems to have deepened his poetic faculties, these rootsy narratives scarred by experience, but all the richer for it. Crowell's best since The Houston Kid. [Apr 2017, p.26]

There's nothing quite as genuinely exciting as [the title track's] Aphex-meets-Bee-Gees disco, but its unorthodox elements are sprinkled across the album. [May 2017, p.32]

Unsurprisingly, after nearly 30 years their hang-loose attitude is now tempered with a little socio-political reflection, although "Black Eyes"--a stomping, sown-dirty homage to hedonism--is a standout. [May 2017, p.25]

Patchily exhilarating, but the blasts lack freshness. [Apr 2017, p.25]

[Hames] combines the stately emotionalism of '60s torch singers with the all-caps exuberance of a particularly sharp garage-rock band and the eloquent twang of late-period Replacements. [Apr 2017, p.30]

Undertow resembles free jazz noiseniks let loose in a junkyard, cooking up a mood of creeping dread with radioactive electronics. [Apr 2017, p.40]

Not everything works on this bloated 18-tracker, but enough hits the target. [May 2017, p.35]

Overall, it's a long, strange ride, and Joshua judges ruefully. [May 2017, p.18]

The default setting for Venn's debut album is a kind of punky Krautrock, all finger-bleeding ostinato basslines and hypnotic beats wreathed in doomy electronics. [Apr 2017, p.40]

For all its easy charms, Triplicate labours its point to the brink of overkill. After five albums' worth of croon toons, this feels like a fat full stop on a fascinating chapter. [May 2017, p.22]

"Horns Surround Me" and "Feel You" may lack the intricately orchestrated arrangements of their recorded incarnations, but they're no less thoughtful. [Apr 2017, p.32]

What is new is the extensive use for the first time of the Kora, a lyrical embellishment that slots dreamily into the melodic elegance of the classic Baobab shuffle. It's good to have them back. [May 2017, p.37]

Touching new folk-rock compositions sit alongside spirited arrangements of trad songs and sturdy instrumentals. [May 2017, p.26]

"Forever & A Day" sounds suspiciously like a love song, "Sleep On The Wing" has one of those gorgeous Colin Newman vocal performances. Otherwise, it's ominous thrum, insistent rumble and circular tunes that hide menace beneath their logic. [May 2017, p.40]

You Had Me At Goodbye finds her experimenting with musical form, be it on chamber-folk eulogy "When The Roses Bloom Again," "Windmill Crusader's" skittish electro-pop or the droll "Antiseptic Greeting." There are moments of minimal charm here, too. [Apr 2017, p.26]

As a metaphor for modern accelerationism, it's slyly provocative. [Apr 2017, p.37]

Its high-beam intensity and near relentless drive triumphing over the niggling familiarity of some songs. [May 2017, p.30]

The band maintain their impeccable standards for muscular riffage and structural sophistication while still making the occasional flourish that further confirms their shame-free allegiance to prog. [May 2017, p.35]

Mental Illness is as elegantly dark as a wrought iron gate. [May 2017, p.35]

Bewitching. [May 2017, p.30]

A generous and expansive set of sensual pop. [Apr 2017, p.39]

This version has been remixed and remastered to beef up the sound and integrate Chris Cornell's glorious vocals more fully into the songs. ... Six demos, recorded on eight-track the previous year, give a good idea if where the band were coming from. [May 2017, p.52]

The Jayhawks provide a diverse, autumnal foundation that amps up when needed. Stace's deceptively winsome voice, meanwhile, delves deep into memories, dreams, relationships and life's absurdities. [Mar 2017, p.40]

He's at his best on the more downbeat moments. [Apr 2017, p.35]

All are delivered with a raw and earthy folk spirit that eschews prettiness, laced with electric guitar tropes of which Richard Thompson would be proud. [May 2017, p.28]

Overwhelming and beautiful. [May 2017, p.35]

They're as seductive as when they first saw light, with "Arthur" capturing the aquatic oddness of Russell's finest productions. [May 2017, p.36]

A complex, powerful crossover record that still manages to feel awesomely authentic. ... The English-and French-lanugae cuts are less successful. [Apr 2017, p.25]

A rare rock record with the rage, urgency, wit and shattering of complacency usually found in grime. [Apr 2017, p.32]

An album filled with similarly delicious moments. [Apr 2017, p.22]

Not every track is killer, but even the filler fascinates.

His avuncular, keep-it-moving approach prevents things from getting too deep. [Apr 2017, p.39]

The few weak moments on their third album stray into rambling hippy-busker terrain. But standout tracks, like the fuzzy0warm collective singalong "Friendship (is a Small Boat in a Storm)" and Right Off The Back," sound like relics of some lost jam session between Curtis Mayfield and Carlos Santana. [Apr 2017, p.25]

Finn maintains his novelist's eye for detail throughout. [Apr 2017, p.28]

Interplanetary Class Classics smears Saoudi's nihilistic euphoria across throbbing new-wave and singalong Glitter Band boogie. [Apr 2017, p.35]

The Haze is a good go at [spontaneity and sense of fun], maintaining the propulsion while tying songs to sharp pop hooks. [Apr 2017, p.37]

A stodgy production job from Patrick Carney of The Black Keys means his songs tend to blur into one. [Apr 2017, p.26]

Cinderland is undeniably, suitably eerie. [Apr 2017, p.30]

This self-produced fourth still has many charms. [Apr 2017, p.39]

A star in the making. [Apr 2017, p.37]

Their gem-like guitar pop songs start meandering a little. Altogether, though, In Mind feels like a collective exhale. [Apr 2017, p.37]

The expanded palette, majoring on warm, Dylanesque waltzes and rolling country-rock, brings out the colours of the songs even if, at 17 tracks, it trades in the focused intensity of Ruminations for something looser. [Apr 2017, p.35]

Mayall proves that playing the blues is seemingly impervious to age. [Apr 2017, p.35]

Condition sits somewhere between the two [previous albums Dying and Dead], obscuring lovely melodies with disjointed electronica on deliberately self-destructive tracks like "Dissolve," the willowy "Colour Me Out" and "Coping Mechanism." [Apr 2017, p.39]

Segarra is skilled at identifying the shifting goalposts that immigrants have to live by, and staring past them. [Apr 2017, p.18]

Hot Thoughts finds Spoon at the peak of their considerable powers, their ninth album effortlessly unfolding and revealing its mysteries as they cement their place in the firmament of undeniably great rock bands. [Apr 2017, p.34]

Aged 85 and in grave health, Scott's superlative countertenor was weakening, but his expressive gifts are unerring. [Mar 2017, p.39]

If anything, Damage And Joy underscores the Mary Chain's strengths. [Apr 2017, p.36]

A mixture of original songs, among them the propulsive title track, and covers, each of which are given a richly visceral makeover by massed female voices. [Apr 2017, p.26]

Swans' Michael Gira and Douglas J. McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb sound very much at home. ... Elsewhere, more experimental link-ups slow the tempo, but create some intriguing collisions. [Apr 2017, p.23]

An occasionally frustrating listen, but never a dull one. [Apr 2017, p.28]

It's Macve's self-assurance and rounded expression that impress- that and her voice, a Lustrous and powerful instrument with a yodelling swoop that she wisely never overworks. [Apr 2017, p.32]

A set of atmospheric trance-like improvs that touches only tangentially on conventional song structures. [Mar 2017, p.32]

Recording at home, [lends] Moh Llean its rougher edge. [Apr 2017, p.40]

Ibibio Sound Machine barely need drums to weave their polyrhythmic magic. [Apr 2017, p.32]