Few of these chugging bar-room stompers register as earworms, even after repeated listens. [Oct 2015, p.76]

With a live '70s R&B sound fuelled by flower power and, in "Star Now" and "Satellites," some excellent songs, Bilal is as focused as he's ever been. [Oct 2015, p.73]

[The cover of Jason Isbell's "Dress Blues"] is nevertheless the best thing on Jekyll + Hyde, which plunges to a wretched nadir on "Heavy Is the Head." [Oct 2015, p.73]

The group's formula is undeniably infectious, with giddy, harmony-enriched interplay outshining occasional lapses into spindly scuzz. [Oct 2015, p.73]

Technically, he shows himself to be a better singer than we might have predicted from those early lo-fi recordings, but it all tastes a little sweet. [Oct 2015, p.71]

It's excellent stuff. [Oct 2015, p.75]

While the sugary highs could give Van Dyke Parks an ice cream headache, it's hard to resist a work so clearly besotted with the power of music. [Oct 2015, p.78]

Levi's penchant for cracked-up nursery-rhyme melodies and wry humour elevate what might've been an exercise in wilful primitivism. [Oct 2015, p.80]

After two decades, a band that could easily feel like part of the wallpaper remain hungry to show that you never know what lies beneath. [Oct 2015, p.68]

This is an engaging piece of minimalist minimalism: Steve Reich with a battering ram. [Oct 2015, p.71]

No No No is limited overall, and finds Condon's filigreed production out of step with the minimalist balladeering peers who have flourished in his four-year absence. [Oct 2015, p.71]

Indie slackers Hooten Tennis Club demonstrate some unique charms on their debut album. [Oct 2015, p.77]

While no reinvention, Paper Gods is both entertaining ad typically Duran-esque. [Oct 2015, p.75]

Lydon remains a devout pop modernist. [Oct 2015, p.81]

Turkey is less throwaway than its scrappy, Bandcamp-released predecessors. [Oct 2015, p.78]

Understated and in, places, unfashionable. [Oct 2015, p.83]

Eiesland's emotive vocals and the elegant new wave inspired soundscapes sustain the bittersweet mood even when the songs lack stickiness. [Oct 2015, p.80]

What went Down is their most fully realised yet. [Oct 2015, p.75]

An album of well-crafted discreet songs. [Oct 2015, p.76]

A lugubrious lo-fi treat. [Sep 2015, p.69]

There are moments of genius throughout. [Sep 2015, p.91]

The ornate multitracked chorales retain a heady intensity. [Sep 2015, p.73]

Bad Magic is gloriously genre-defying. [Sep 2015, p.78]

The end result is something that's freaky and funny, as rigorously experimental as it is gleefully entertaining. [Sep 2015, p.82]

It's most persuasive setting is deluxe drive-time melancholia, purring with understated classicism. [Sep 2015, p.69]

Elitism for the People documents Pere Ubu creating their own private musical apocalypse and then forging in to start the world anew. Not a world to be drowned in, but one to treasure. [Sep 2015, p.88]

Frontman Fred Macpherson's pithy musings on London's hipster demi-monde can be excruciating when set against his band's bog-standard stadium churn. [Sep 2015, p.81]

[A] strong final work. [Sep 2015, p.71]

[Black's] bright, clear voice supported by lush soundscape of horns, strings and piano. [Sep 2015, p.81]

Atmospheric, heart-rendering and infused with myriad old souls, Imaginary Man is a richly dramatic, poignant singer-songwriter opus. [Sep 2015, p.71]

The spirit moves zeroes in on [the lines separating faith and hope, optimism and cynicism, and emotioanl carnage] in bare, existential terms... with the ferocity of a soul singer pushed to the edge. [Aug 2015, p.80]

This sombre threesome could use a little humour and warmth, but there is real passion in reverb-drenched, Spector-ish, elemental pastorals like "Rivers" and "Trenches." [Sep 2015, p.80]

The problem comes when you delve beneath the sonic experimentation and listen to Marela's whimpering lyrics--a litany of drippy, desperate neediness. [Sep 2015, p.77]

What becomes clearest from listening to Live At The 12 Bar is the way Jansch's playing manifests a very particular physicality, working to its own internal logic, voice, and six strings running in refined tandem. [Sep 2015, p.92]

These are sighs as much as songs, with Cale's vice rarely wavering into anything more obviously declarative than a half-snarl, half-mumble. [Sep 2015, p.71]

This is essentially the same clutch of B-sides, outtakes and live tracks you'll already own if you shelled out for 2002's Slanted And Enchanted (Luxe and Reduxe) edition, sans the mother album itself. [Sep 2015, p.94]

If the first half of the album doesn't quite fire up with the dame ferocity as its predecessor, fans of Tin Star will be pleased to hear it gathers pace soon after. [Sep 2015, p.72]

The perfect needle, pitched into the red every time. [Sep 2015, p.81]

Stuff is a comforting listen, startlingly consistent in mood and featuring some of Yo La Tengo's most touching moments. [Sep 2015, p.70]

Rarely before have the pair achieved [moments of transcendence and preserving them in amber] with this much grace and finesse. [Sep 2015, p.68]

This Zen archer lets fly with his second straight bulls-eye. [Sep 2015, p.79]

Beneath The Skin is further proof that the Icelandic music movement is a near-unstoppable force. [Aug-Sep 2015, p.79]

River is deeply embedded in a historical continuum. [Jun 2015, p.71]

Back to the future, but intoxicatingly so. [Sep 2015, p.78]

The Trackless Woods is one of those wonderful records that reveals more if itself with each successive play. [Sep 2015, p.74]

His first solo album is more entrancing than anything he's recorded to date. [Aug 2015, p.78]

There's vulnerability in Chapman's lazily charming voice. [Sep 2015, p.78]

There is a tense, troubled air to many of these songs.... But the like of "Plates2" and "Moonbeams" mirror the story of the album by unfurling gloriously into expansive soft-rock vistas. [Aug 2015, p.69]

Fragrant but underpowered 10th LP. [Aug 2015, p.76]

Upbeat, uptempo and clearly a lot of fun to make, Give Up Your Dreams is a funny and infectious record. [Sep 2015, p.80]

Her self-produced Domino debut is an alluring tale of heartbreak and romance, framed by murky electro ballads and scuffed synthwave. [Sep 2015, p.75]

This is something wholly unexpected. [Sep 2015, p.78]

Ultimate Painting may sound like a lot of bands--Real Estate, The Feelies--but they set their own beguiling pace, sounding completely untroubled by the passing of time. [Sep 2015, p.83]

Seldom is the personal married to the political in such an enchanting fashion. [Aug 2015, p.75]

[An] edifying fourth solo album.[Aug 2015, p.78]

In lyric form and musical scale, it was epic.... The discs of "companion audio," often short on revelation, here reveal a moment of sheer anomaly. 10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod is whatever that title may mean, everything the LP is not: a tender piano piece. [Sep 2015, p.93]

The heavier contemporary numbers hint at a fire still burning. [Sep 2015, p.93]

If there is pure genius in this last set of remasters, it is in how Jimmy Page has contrived to turn Coda from a desultory selection of offcuts into an essential purchase. [Sep 2015, p.93]

It's best appreciated not as a legend's lap of honour, but for itself. [Sep 2015, p.75]

Brave and different. [Sep 2015, p.80]

Cool or not, at least they're going for it. [Sep 2015, p.76]

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]