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]

Having scampered down the rabbit hole, COA seem hopelessly confused--and all the better for it. [Apr 2017, p.25]

An even richer reward for admirers--since he's never written with such frankness. [Apr 2017, p.32]

2013's Delta Machine saw Ben Hiller help them access their mid-life pain in dark post-dubstep. This stint with James Ford, though, has effected a more overt compromise. [Apr 2017, p.26]

His wavering voice embraces sun-kissed pop on "Always The Right Time," twilight noir on "Leaving California"--and most emotions in between. [Mar 2017, p.28]

The guitars sound grittier, the vocals bolder, the tempos just a bit faster, and her range much broader. [Mar 2017, p.35]

An impressive deepening of Marling's explorations, and a timely testament to change as a positive force. [Apr 2017, p.24]

The overall effect feels arch and a little insubstantial, James Bagshaw's airy vocals adding tot he sense of impermanence. They're best at their most direct. [Apr 2017, p.39]

A vivid storyteller, June approaches traditional music with a similar mix of irreverence and affection. [Apr 2017, p.30]

It's a subtler and darker sibling to The Sophtware Slump or Just Like The Fambly Cat. [Apr 2017, p.30]

His poignant, classically arranged pieces sit surprisingly well alongside more electronic compositions. [Apr 2017, p.37]

Reid's follow-up to 2015's gorgeous debut, Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs, is no less bewitching. [Apr 2017, p.37]

Hyperactively wordy and exquisitely tuneful. [Apr 2017, p.39]

Its cut-and-paste of totalitarian rhythms, shredded human voices and celestial melodies something like an Aphex Twin remix of Hieronymus Bosch. [Apr 2017, p.25]

Feels like the work of a man who's finally found his calling. [Apr 2017, p.28]

A set which is at times whimsical, and frequently dark--sometimes managing to combine these sensations. [Apr 2017, p.39]

Stream-of-consciousness ranting has helped Sleaford Mods develop songwriting which is doubtful, while retaining its intensity. [Apr 2017, p.31]

It's business as usual for The Godfathers. [Mar 2017, p.30]

It would have been much more satisfying had she and Cannon stuck with the style of the songs that bookend the album. [Apr 2017, p.32]

The album's palette feels broad, with electronics switching from twinkling and melodic to antagonistic industrial clangs. [Apr 2017, p.40]

[A] remarkably wise and timely album. [Mar 2017, p.18]

Moments like "Apparent Lushness" are where An Act OF Love becomes a headphones record par excellence. [Mar 2017, p.26]

She embeds her anxious, self-flagellating lyrics in jaunty settings that dynamically replicate garage rock, girl-group pop and doo-wop. [Mar 2017, p.30]

Their 10th studio album might be their best of the new century: 11 songs capturing the reckless dynamic that made these Texans alt.country heroes in the 10th century. [Mar 2017, p.37]

The six tracks are minimalist to the point of vanishing, crafted from gently shimmering electric guitars and murmuring keyboards, while Silberman's soft, high voice, polished like fine silver, delivers a series of quietly emotive haikus. [Mar 2017, p.39]

The jangly, offbeat "Ambulance Chaser" and the pretty, Radiohead-ish acoustic number "Loose Ends" both suggest that Ounsworth has retained some of his old band's arena-filling way with melody. [Apr 2017, p.26]

They recreate the mood and spirit of seriously wiggy space-prog excavations. [Apr 2017, p.35]

Splic[es] savage wit and cynicism with hopefulness. [Apr 2017, p.28]

If art is love, and love is art, then this hyper-stylised, characteristically idiosyncratic break-up album, in the end makes a perfect kind of sense. [Mar 2017, p.36]

The tunes seem to have lost a little of their punch, producer Ken Coomer setting Milia's pale voice against folk-pop arrangements that often feel strangely bloodless. [Mar 2017, p.30]

Savage Times inevitably captures the tenor of its times as the Left Coast watched America turn rightward. [Mar 2017, p.26]

Like Lubomry Melnyk's, Moore's rapid piano-playing creates an appealing haze on "Starwood Choker" and "Form Takes," while his companions augment this with similarly opaque washes of tape delay, spectral drones, bass and woodwind. [Mar 2017, p.25]

Seldom can nostalgia have sounded so fresh on songs such as "Downhearted," "Try" and the exquisite slow burn of the title track. [Mar 2017, p.25]

Wilderness is a logical step for the group, honing their aesthetic, and finding intimate rapture in the peak moments of their carefully crafted songs. [Feb 2017, p.24]

Highway Queen feels like the kind of record that should bump Lane to another level. [Mar 2017, p.28]

The intensity builds so subtly that it's hard to pinpoint when the easygoing chord changes give way to droning menace, but by the time they hit the nine-minute-plus closing reprise of "In Between," the pastoral vibe has been transformed into squalling white noise. [Mar 2017, p.30]

This psych soundworld demands full sensory immersion, but once inside there's much to enjoy. [Mar 2017, p.32]

A former architect, his second album pursues a funky, abstracted techno that, much like the music of his former label boss Actress, has a distinctly London grit. [Mar 2017, p.35]

It's a testament of the savvy of darcy and his producers Ross Gillard and Amy Fort that the new album's experimental passages are very much cut from the same cloth as more obvious crowd-pleasers like "You Felt Comfort," which shares the drive and jangle of "Tall Glass Of Water," and "Saint Germain," a dreamy haze of a song that demonstrates Darcy's gift for melody, absurd turns of phase and more pointed expressions of inner turmoil. [Mar 2017, p.38]

The gentlest Six Organ's outing since 2005's School of The Flower, if not for the menacing rumblings in "Taken By Ascent." Even so, it's more vivid proof of Chasny's ability to create transcendental music free of psych cliches. [Mar 2017, p.39]