Turner delivers his self-empowerment anthems with the crunch and earnestness of Billy Bragg or The Levellers. All this bombast gets a little wearying after a while, though. [Sep 2015, p.83]

The Derbyshire trio bring a pleasing experimentalism to their second LP. [Aug 2015, p.75]

Though Abyss' quieter moments are plenty chilling,m Wolfe's brand of anguish best suceeds when she's out to do serious damage. [Sep 2015, p.83]

The formula remains potent. [Aug 2015, p.71]

[A] ravishing debut album. [Sep 2015, p.73]

The rich jangles of this fifth album [is] a notable career high. [Sep 2015, p.71]

Throughout All tense Now Lax the trio engage in a deep sensory confusion, with pieces appearing and then disappearing as though you're fleetingly tuning in on their wavelength, divining a moment from endless, shrouded recording sessions. [Sep 2015, p.76]

Challenging, sure--but when it comes together, as on Kenny Loggins-sampling "Your Choice," exhilarating also. [Sep 2015, p.80]

The production can sound derivative, but when Younge is on inspired form. [Sep 2015, p.75]

Atheist's Cornea fares best when shooting for extremes. [Sep 2015, p.73]

What could be esoteric electronica is lifted by Davis' creamy, often harmonised baritone voice. [Sep 2015, p.72]

Evening is appropriately darker and, for the first half, more ambient, with sublime, subtle vocals. Radiant stuff. [Sep 2015, p.73]

An enduring tenacity runs through Works For Tomorrow, one of the best and feistiest entries in their catalogue. [Sep 2015, p.73]

Jaunty and beholden to fuzz, White Reaper comes on like Kentucky's answer to Supergrass on this charming debut, crammed with short melodic powerpop gems. [Sep 2015, p.83]

They're at their best when they dial down the melodrama. [Sep 2015, p.77]

There are plenty of good ideas here, but plenty of bad ones, too. [Sep 2015, p.77]

[A] LP of sophisticated soul songs built around her exquisite vocals. [Sep 2015, p.76]

An instantly likable, energetic pop set stacked with guitars; his easy voice shot through with enquiry and regret. [Sep 2015, p.75]

Even on stopgap releases like this relatively repetitive mini-album, DeMarco's lysergic balladry and hangdog puppy love have an unbeatable effortlessness. [Sep 2015, p.72]

The Most Lamentable Tragedy feels like a quintessentially modern album, a scintillating examination of mania and neurosis that uses the history of rock'n'roll as mere stage dressing for its bravura performance. [Sep 2015, p.65]

Donovan's songs are still queerly wired, taking unexpected detours, blasting out into destructo-guitar solos, stomping T. Rex blues, and drenching acoustic guitar in slapback echo and ghostly vox. [Aug 2015, p.77]

Williams frustrates and delights in equal measure. [Aug 2015, p.83]

It works because Souleyman has never been a purist, instead perfecting a kind of global fusion that is slamming and mesmeric rather than naff. [Aug 2015, p.80]

There's not much here that departs from the blueprint Cobain establishment. Still, though, it's an undeniably exciting listen. [Aug 2015, p.80]

Four crisply recorded shows.... A super-funky artefact. [Aug 2015, p.94]

Time is squeezed and stretched in new ways, exotic timbres are distilled on the spot, and this freeform funk still scorches the air. [Aug 2015, p.91]

Perhaps inevitably, it's female voices that fare best. [Aug 2015, p.81]

Most of these songs remain too simple to bear the weight if their fuller, more conventional arrangements. As a result, St. Catherine often feels stodgy. [Aug 2015, p.73]

The weed doesn't seem to have dented Stone's vocal prowess, however, and the pop-reggae vibe isn't necessarily unpleasant. [Aug 2015, p.80]

Their choice of covers is pretty eclectic, from Sade to Spiritualized via obscure '70s rocker Unicorn. They're best when more animated. [Aug 2015, p.76]

It shuns the cliches of oceanic atmospherics. [Aug 2015, p.73]

There's a new muscularity to Pete O'Hanlon's basslines, while guitarist Josh McClorey employs a broader range of techniques to stretch the band's sound. [Aug 2015, p.81]

Array 1 hints at unfinished business, picking up almost where A Gilded Eternity left off. [Aug 2015, p.76]

Born In The Echoes feels a bit Chemical Brothers by numbers. [Aug 2015, p.72]

Their syrupy soft-rock instrumentals, here in abundance, stacked like fluffy breakfast pancakes, are moreishly, but the gimmick wear thin pretty quickly. [Aug 2015, p.78]

A deft patchwork of stories and impressions largely drawn from first-hand experience. [Aug 2015, p.72]

There's rich melodies buried in many of these tracks. [Aug 2015, p.73]

There's something of the teenage Laura Marking about Rachel Sermanni. [Aug 2015, p.78]

Something More Than Free finds Isbell sounding surer of himself, as a songwriter and a man. [Aug 2015, p.79]

Like all perfumes, its impact fades. [Aug 2015, p.71]

This is a wild and dirty, devotional trip that peaks with the shrieking, delay-warped minutes that constitute closer "E Shra." [Jul 2015, p.84]

In places she sounds surprisingly like Andrea Corr, but she;s a winningly melodic songwriter. [Aug 2015, p.78]

Williamson is good at painting Hogarthian grotesques in a few brushstrokes. [Aug 2015, p.70]

Currents may be equally exhilarating to any listener willing to adjust to Tame Impala's new paradigm. [Aug 2015, p.65]

While Winfield's pompous lyrics and over-earnest tone sometimes grate, the supple disco-funk of "Sparks" shows definite promise. [Aug 2015, p.81]

It's a rather bloodless and oddly dated set. [Aug 2015, p.76]

His sax-heavy third solo album blows its own horn. [Aug 2015, p.75]

On Subculture, The Selecter's dismay at the world is as powerful as ever. [Jul 2015, p.81]

It's not only Jones' most absorbing album since 1997's beats-drenched Ghostyhead, but a record that crowns her career, not as an end but as a culmination. [Jul 2015, p.85]

A rich, nuanced, fantastically enjoyable album that understands great music is often the product of a historical continuum rather than radical innovation, and which saves its best trick 'til last. [Aug 2015, p.82]

Sassy power ballads such as "Before I Sleep," "Sweet Love Of Mine" and "Not Good Enough" sit somewhat uneasily between Celine Dion and Stevie Nivcks. Yet as the album progresses, there's just enough to retain the interest of former fans. [Aug 2015, p.83]

Ten Songs keeps his audacious past and redemptive present in balance. [Aug 2015, p.89]

It feels as if this album is only half the intended project. It's a strong half, fortunately. [Aug 2015, p.81]

Rich with amped-up fiddles, mandolins, accordions and harmonies, it's vibrant, hook-laden and addictive. [Aug 2015, p.77]

A confident debut, a record that is greater still than the sum of its impressive parts. [Jul 2015, p.74]

The breadth is a big part of the charm. [Jul 2015, p.83]

Weirdly wonderful. [Jul 2015, p.78]

The overall vibe is naturally more intimate than before. [Aug 2015, p.81]

Bad Love takes a less romantic view of life, but sonically, the retro filter is still very much on. [Aug 2015, p.81]

The effects are over-stylised, however, rendering her impressive vocals precocious, ad the uniformly mid-paced tempos can become wearying. [Aug 2015, p.80]

Lott croons plaintive lyrics over weaponised sci-fi soundscapes fizzing with post-dubstep beats, bleeps and electro-classical string flourishes. [Aug 2015, p.80]

The new songs are equally striking, ranging from sensual lullabies to strident protest, delivered with a righteous spiritual and political conviction in a muscular voice full of spit and pungency. [Aug 2015, p.78]

Each [track] is assembled like an audio drama, starting with static noises and amusing spoken-word fragments before frequent musical plot changes. [Aug 2015, p.77]

The cartoonish skank of "Too Original" is business as usual, but Peace Is The Mission is often reflective. [Aug 2015, p.76]

Rachel grimes continues to make challenging, tense music. [Aug 2015, p.75]

Glasper steps into the spotlight, less ostentatiously [than Kamasi Washington's The Epic], with a live trio album. [Aug 2015, p.75]

Their tendency to overthink and squeeze every drop of pleasure from their work does them few favors, particularly when they showcase such innovative songcraft on a record like Get To Heaven. [Aug 2015, p.73]

It's indeed a thrilling blast. [Aug 2015, p.72]

Dreamy of atmosphere, and often screwed of tempo. [Aug 2015, p.71]

The Monsanto Years is occasionally rambling, frequently sentimental and sometimes moving. [Aug 2015, p.68]

HudMo has toned down the high contrast and adopted a softer, soul/R&B-pop style. [Jul 2015, p.77]

His vocal lines are often so casually intoned that they mingle imperceptibly with those of his back-up singer Suad Khalifa, over gently pulsing twilight liaisons that yearn to be a little more sophisticated than they actually are. [Jul 2015, p.77]

Wyman and his band soon settle into a series of mid-tempo songs whose predictable arrangements are matched by bland lyrics and a voice that sounds like it would much rather be someplace else. [Jul 2015, p.84]

There's some filler among three hours of material but the instrumentals are staggering, pulsating pieces that breathe life into soul-jazz. [Jul 2015, p.84]

Tightly wound--easygoing but uptight; the work of a man still striving for a modest kind of perfection. And--not for the first time--with Still he has almost achieved it. [Jul 2015, p.65]

The band's second album features a few middling faux-Europop numbers, but the best are real growers. [Jul 2015, p.71]

It's all accessible as the countryside, with a sweeping sense of the arcadian. [Jul 2015, p.76]

Their inspiration occasionally wanes. [Jul 2015, p.81]

Musgraves' willingness to address a life built on knotty contradictions give her songs resonance far beyond Golden's borders. [Jul 2015, p.82]

Fashions change, but Baird's music remains gorgeous, harbouring a kind of still magic without resorting to self-consciously wyrd affectations. [Jul 2015, p.71]

There's both [commitment and respect] in spades on Coming Home, a throwback album that's also blessed with modesty. [Jul 2015, p.74]

There's not much room for originality in the tiny space he stakes out between Petty, Chilton and Westerberg, but thanks to Cumming's easy charm and gift for simple , classic hooks, the likes of "Workin' It Out" and "Total Darkness" feel like old friends. [Jul 2015, p.73]

Its vision of pop is deeply hermetic, caught between quiet pastoral rapture and urban resignation, Cracknell's voice a siren of sweetened melancholy. [Jul 2015, p.73]

Accomplished rather than exciting. [Jul 2015, p.83]

There's a Jekyll and Hyde quality to Wolf Alice's debut that gently reels you in with its gossamer folk pop and lilting indie-pop before it going for the jugular with savage bursts of psycho-grunge guitars. [Jul 2015, p.84]

He's a little too old to be playing the lecherous pick-up merchant on tracks like "Tight Tones;" but the lovesick swing of "The Old Man And The Beer" rather suits him. [Jul 2015, p.83]

On this luminous nine-song LP, Souther adheres to the old adage--leave them wanting more. [Jun 2015, p.81]

The Acorn remain elusive. [Jul 2015, p.69]

Submerged are the country/folk ramblings of 2012's Arrow, replaced with a challenging density. [Jul 2015, p.77]

Moroder's first album in 30 years consists largely of generic pop-dance. [Jul 2015, p.80]

Stamey is at his most persuasive when he keeps its simple. [Jul 2015, p.83]

If their third album is perhaps not quite as austere as previous offerings like 2012's Clay Class, it;s still like sticking a quarter-inch jack into a George Foreman grill. [Jul 2015, p.81]

File under Banal Guru Pop. [Jul 2015, p.78]

A sort of desolate twang predominates. [May 2015, p.76]

The impressive Alternative Light Source sees Barnes picking up, with a snarl, where the pair left off. [Jul 2015, p.78]

Fernandez's tunes have an endearing air of fragility. [Jul 2015, p.75]

Their fondness for 17-minute improvisations demand a certain stamina, but there's a strung-out beauty to Infinity Machines that eases you in gently. [May 2015, p.73]

The Los Angeles MC-producer hasn't yet made a definitive record. Cherry Bomb isn't it either, but its chaos is invigorating. [Jul 2015, p.83]