The addition of EDM and hip-hop elements to the arsenal have a reinvigorating effect. [Dec 2016, p.37]

As ever, it all coalesces around that voice, and its still potent conjuring of beauty and darkness. Timeless music, for heavy times. [Dec 2016, p.34]

Eternally Even affords James the opportunity to take his music to places My Morning Jacket are less likely to inhabit. The result being that his solo albums are rapidly becoming profound statements in themselves, rather than mere sideshows to the main event. [Dec 2016, p.31]

A feelgood record with a troubled soul. [Sep 2016, p.70]

The lighter moments are more endearing. [Dec 2016, p.28]

Exhilarating or jarring, depending on taste. [Dec 2016, p.26]

As ever it's Collins' wonderfully unfussy voice that is the star. [Dec 2016, p.26]

Spanning conflicts from China to Chile, Algeria to Israel, the songs have a shared universality and power that makes up for the way the Anglification process erases cultural context. It works because Moddi's delivery is empathic and superb. [Nov 2016, p.32]

A decade on the formula hasn't change much. [Nov 2016, p.37]

FLOTUS ranks as one of Lambchop's most confounding to date, an album whose form and content are united in intimate, private purpose, but which may well turn out to be one of their best and most accessible. [Dec 2016, p.18]

Of their own material, "Glory" best captures the ensemble in full flight--fluid rhythms, breakneck percussion and melodic patterns--while the sweeping "Remain" foregrounds McCaslin's expressive sax skills. [Dec 2016, p.32]

The charming meld of discordance and melody is displayed throughout, with Rønnenfelt shrieking and hissing above tar-thick bass, piano stabs and guitar. [Dec 2016, p.32]

Often the music sounds aimless in its open-endedness, too uniform in its cruise-control tempos, but the austere, restrained arrangements reinforce the world-weariness of Roberts' vocals, which recall Townes Van Zandt at his most bluesily pensive. [Nov 2016, p.37]

All the usual Madness fixtures are present--the jaunty ska-meets-Motown rhythms, the tricksy chromatic chord changes, the well-crafted narratives. What much of the album lacks is any kind of heart. [Dec 2016, p.32]

Two Vines mostly sticks with the tried-and-true. [Dec 2016, p.26]

Strands is one of Hauschildt's finest efforts, unfolding through a dense fog of ambience and gently bubbling electronics, always staying weird and disobedient enough to offset its new-age tinge. [Dec 2016, p.30]

There's an appealing disjuncture at the heart of this collaboration. [Dec 2016, p.32]

On their third album, this Brighton via London quintet seem to have finally harnessed their Krautrock pulses, shoegazy guitars and MBV distortion to some decent songs. [Dec 2016, p.38]

Their collaborative debut is inventively dippy. [Dec 2016, p.38]

The racket they raise compensates in exuberance what it lacks in subtlety. [Dec 2016, p.37]

Music Must Destroy finds original members Segs Jennings and David Ruffy in reassuringly rude health, bludgeoning their way through a bunch of songs that weld punk and metal. [Dec 2016, p.37]

Overnight is their most ambitious record, as well as their most accomplished. [Dec 2016, p.26]

There's a certain modish charm to the opener, "Lucifer's Dreams," while "Finest Hour" show an aptitude for gentle balladry. Elsewhere, though, sub-Smiths smartarsery abounds. [Dec 2016, p.26]

There's still a noisy edge to the group and some moments do shine, such as the LCD Soundsystem-like "Welcome To Hell" or the sneering "I'm Sick," but largely the album feels a little lost and confused. [Dec 2016, p.26]

When their formula works, like on the Brian-Wilson-joins-Radiohead splendour of "Thousand Thoughts" or the soul-weary, sci-fi lullaby "Blue Faces," they can sound untouchable. The lush, mechanised, bluesy trip-hop of "Driving Nails" and the sub-Underworld shouty gallop of "Stay Tribal" are diverting enough, too. But Archive's blind spot is a fondness for graceless pomp-rock. [Dec 2016, p.23]

Alone is filled with tremendous vocal performances. [Dec 2016, p.24]

Even as Atrocity Exhibition plumbs depths, Brown remains a savvy operator. [Dec 2016, p.25]

The songs are pillowed by vaporous electronic backing that recalls the slow-moving, aquatic drift of Push The Sky Away and the sonic explorations of Cave and Ellis' Minimalist Soundtracks. [Dec 2016, p.26]

An over-produced set of soppy ballads, Eagles-styled soft-rock and cod-disco. Sadly, the once great voice is shot, too. [Dec 2016, p.28]

Not quite essential, but a neat genre exercise. [Dec 2016, p.30]

Lacking only a killer single, Big Box Of Chocolates has a great balance of rockers, ramblers and ballads, giggling throwaways and low-key philosophising. [Dec 2016, p.30]

The absence of imagination here is a tad dispiriting. [Dec 2016, p.30]

On Apricity, Syd Arthur brings a blessedly light touch to their breezy psych. [Dec 2016, p.38]

Admittedly, without seeing the play--which officially opens in London on November 8--the soundtrack feels an incomplete experience. At its most successful, Lazarus finds new ways of presenting well-known songs; an unenviable task for Hey and his seven-piece band.

Yes, it's largely tuneless, the guitars and drums about as co-ordinated as a set of blindfolded square dancers, but the sisters' naive approach yields endless wonder. [Nov 2016, p.52]

The Ramones, like Warhol or Lichtenstein, were masters of doing one thing brilliantly and repetitively--something reinforced by the second disc of this set, which contains singles and unreleased demos, including tracks that would appear on subsequent albums such as “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl”, “You Should Never Have Opened That Door” and “I Don’t Care” but could easily have fitted on Ramones.

Glimmers of Blonde Redhead's future can be divined throughout Masculin Feminin, whether in Kazu Makin's girlish vocals, or Simone Pace's snaking, restrained drum parts; even in their juvenilia, Blonde Redhead were looking through their own sophisticated, idiosyncratic filter. [Oct 2016, p.49]

It's a punishing and rewarding experience. [Nov 2016, p.28]

This electronic pop set mostly convinces. [Nov 2016, p.31]

This lively debut is full of fertile mash-ups. [Nov 2016, p.23]

It's a thoughtful, profound and intensely beautiful late-blossoming career highlight. [Nov 2016, p.30]

It is this methodical exploration of the ancient and modern that makes Weyes Blood such a seductive proposition, and the ambitious Front Row Seat To Earth--intimate and enveloping, romantic and psychedelic--marks a significant progression in Mering's increasingly impressive career. [Nov 2016, p.38]

It's become a cliche to treat every latter-day Cohen album like a potential swansong but it's hard to imagine a richer, finer or more satisfying finale than this. [Nov 2016, p.18]

Purling Hiss set aside their chaotic brand of psychedelic garage rock in favour of a collection that seems to owe a surprising debt to British New Wave of the late '70s and early '80s. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Despite these potentially dour themes, Running Out Of Love is far from a gloom-fest, couched as it is in disco and '80s-influenced electronica. [Nov 2016, p.35]

The demos for Be Here Now don't reveal much in the way of nuance or additional texture. You have to dig deep to find genuine curios. [Nov 2016, p.51]

"Feedback Delicates" and "L'Quasar" shelter their hooks amid shimmery, heatstroke production; but there's an urgency here, too. [Nov 2016, p.40]

There is a minimalist anti-folk vibe to Dermody's songs. [Nov 2016, p.37]

The mix of baroque pop, prog rock and psychedelia is as bewildering as it is entertaining. [Nov 2016, p.32]

The album title translates as "chameleon butterfly" which sums up the surreal ambience nicely. [Sep 2016, p.74]

A gorgeous neo-Krautrock thump of a record. [Oct 2016, p.31]

A more polished and focused affair that demonstrates the breadth of Duncan's sparkling ability, not to mention his pop chops, while conveying a gorgeous otherworldiness that effortlessly channels peak Cocteau Twins and Radiohead. [Nov 2016, p.26]

It's the interplay between the core duo, and between the American and African influences, that gives Wood/Metal its hypnotic pull. [Nov 2016, p.23]

This is Cretan folk music played with a rock'n'roll intensity that is truly immersive. [Nov 2016, p.36]

Half of a worthy comeback. [Oct 2016, p.25]

Far the best things here are the relatively restrained title track and the acoustic ballad "Die Trying." Elsewhere, it's the stodgy gruel of yore. [Oct 2016, p.37]

The three proper songs are the highlights, though, with the Bacharach-esque title track among the finest Rhys has ever produced. [Nov 2016, p.37]

It is, in fact, a portrait of life’s triumphs and travails, its joys and sorrows rendered in wholly compelling detail.

Everything is carefully weighted and considered, the minimal arrangements helping to foreground these inner lives with poetic candour and convincing detail. [Nov 2016, p.32]

Utopia Defeated justifies the hype. [Nov 2016, p.26]

Jones displays a fluid keyboard touch and nuanced vocals, not unlike Diana Krall's recordings. [Nov 2016, p.31]

[A] profound, funny, intricate album. [Sep 2016, p.63]

A sturdy, touching arrival. [Nov 2016, p.31]

Smash The System is looser, punchier, a surrealist pop masterpiece. [Nov 2016, p.28]

It has its moments. [Nov 2016, p.39]

The resulting album is a homage that feels and sounds fresh. [Nov 2016, p.26]

Marten now has an appealingly gentle voice and an intuitive feel for melody. [Nov 2016, p.32]

The bland, fist-punching positivity of "Hole In My Soul" and "Parachute" are pitched somewhere between Cold Play and The Killers, but occasionally the reinvention works. [Nov 2016, p.31]

The result is a playful and moving return to themes like the battle of the sexes, and love lost in a blur of alcohol. [Oct 2016, p.37]

This first solo release in 10 years finds him in majestic form. [Nov 2016, p.40]

The most prismatic Hiss Golden Messenger record to date, one that ranges confidently from the folk shuffle of "Say It Like You Mean It" to the taut rural funk off "Like A Mirror Loves A Hammer." [Nov 2016, p.22]

Over time, however, a fondness for arpeggios becomes as predictable as island life. [Nov 2016, p.39]

It's just a lovely collection of songs, in which the serenity of voice and understatement of band create a humane intimacy rather than anything more mystical. [Oct 2016, p.32]

Surreal humour, suave style and deluxe Europop make for a potent comeback. [Nov 2016, p.40]

Whatever it is that keeps him singing still packs a potent emotional punch. [Oct 2016, p.35]

Revolution Radio, happily, shares more with the zestier (and earlier) likes of Nimrod. [Nov 2016, p.28]

Though Requiem doesn't quite match the free-flowing intensity of some of Goat's earlier work, it's continually enriched by a fervent sense of joy and abandon, and an infectious eagerness to get lost in music. [Nov 2016, p.28]

An album that's both sad and angry, thoughtful and impassioned, and desperate for America to escape its chequered past. [Nov 2016, p.18]

Unhurried passages of string melodies dominate, but often underpinned by unsettling notes of cello and bursts of shortwave radio as he explores the myth of Orpheus' escape from the underworld. [Oct 2016, p.32]

Physicalist feels like a heavyweight statement. [Nov 2016, p.26]

This audio companion to Springsteen's upcoming autobiography serves as a decent best-of. [Nov 2016, p.52]

Young Americans is one monster hit album, but stripped of "Fame," the record's pre-Lennon form as The Gouster makes an immersive, alternate take on Bowie's Sigma sessions. [Nov 2016, p.49]

The second album is a little more groove-oriented than the trio's 2014 debut LA Spark. [Nov 2016, p.40]

Simple, unforced piano ballads sit besides florid pop singles. [Nov 2016, p.37]

The trio [is] on reassuringly unpredictable form. [Oct 2016, p.40]

The Mood is subdued but cavalier, more of a mixtape. [Nov 2016, p.24]

The sprawling haziness still lingers, but the songs are sharper and studded with guests. [Nov 2016, p.24]

The sound is brighter and bolder. [Nov 2016, p.26]

[Producer Blake Mills] deftly applied his gift for song-serving ornamentation and transformed sluggish Dawes into an aggressively inventive band. [Nov 2016, p.26]

The spartan tracks without drums, backed only by clumsy piano, remain highly effective. [Nov 2016, p.31]

"Dandy," a fond-but-smart homage to Bowie that channels the spirit of "All The Young Dudes" with unashamed nostalgia. It's the standout track on his first album of new songs in six years--but there's plenty else here that's worth hearing, too. [Nov 2016, p.31]

This is bold, imaginative, and, on occasion, deliciously strange. [Nov 2016, p.32]

No-one would argue this is the equal of his '70s production heyday, but he remains indefatigable in his energies. [Nov 2016, p.35]

It's the usual earnestly proficient, blandly yearning fare, every song a Hallmark valentine set to a John Lewis Christmas advertisement. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Peyroux's smoky, Holiday-esque voice has seldom sounded finer as the trio's jazzy ambience is lent a wonderful natural reverb by the vaulting acoustics. [Nov 2016, p.35]

Russian Circles display a welcome eagerness to cut to the chase whether they're crafting gentler soundscapes like "Overboard" or hurtling through the doomy mathcore of "Vorel." [Nov 2016, p.37]

Sea Of Noise feels not just formally but emotionally authentic. [Nov 2016, p.39]

Argentinian rockers Los Enanitos Verdes turn "Travelin' Band" into a turbocharged burst of bilingual tropical rockabilly, and Spanish singing star Bunbury adds a thrilling salsa dance workout to "Corre Por La Jungla." [Nov 2016, p.40]