Like most albums by reformed bands, it reminds you what you liked without opening up an essential new chapter. [Apr 2015, p.84]

Shadow Of The Sun includes strong takes on the familiar Johnson Schtick of Spacemen 3 throb and ambulatory guitar solos. [Apr 2015, p.80]

Plays Chris And Cosey, more than justifies its existence. [Mar 2015, p.73]

Hardly radical, then, but the familiarity breeds contentment. [Mar 2015, p.72]

There remains the faintest hint of gothic romance, a kind of Dead Can Dance Class. But you are likely to slip off trying to locate any kind of edge. [Apr 2015, p.83]

All in all, A Thousand Miles is a diverting curio, but no substitute for the original. [Apr 2015, p.78]

Ten dark and lovely reasons why love hurts. [Apr 2015, p.84]

Nite Fields' debut album is a far grittier prospect than the neon-lit, 1980s-flavoured spelling of their name suggests, thanks largely to its predominant mood of nocturnal gloom. [Apr 2015, p.81]

McMurtry's flair for the cinematic shines brighter than ever. [Apr 2015, p.78]

Entirely unoriginal, but the sort of thing that, 55 years after it was invented, it's still hard to get enough of. [Apr 2015, p.77]

The intricacies and frustrations of relationships dominate, while the arrangements are kept crisp and simple. [Apr 2015, p.76]

Old friendships contribute to the good vibes, and an atmosphere that's at once rambunctious and exploratory. [Apr 2015, p.76]

Bursting with good ideas, albeit often self-defeating in its kaleidoscopic complexity, much of Aureate Gloom sounds like the great psychedelic retro-glam rock opera that Graham Coxon might one day compose. [Apr 2015, p.81]

Rebel heart almost gets the balance right, but at 19 tracks, most in the industrial party-pop style of cheeseball producers Diplo and Avicii, there's simply too much going on. [Apr 2015, p.78]

"The Right Stuff" is carried along by a nifty percussive shuffle and lovely layered brass that make you wish the entire album carried their production imprint. [Apr 2015, p.76]

The album endures as a bequest to the bogglement of the ages. [Mar 2015, p.95]

[An] atmospheric and generally likeable debut LP. [Mar 2015, p.76]

As history lessons goes, it's a lively one. [Mar 2015, p.81]

It's never a challenging listen, evoking distant, blinking skyscrapers, buzzing streetlights and echoes of the previous night's warehouse rave. [Mar 2015, p.78]

For the first half of The Republic he extracts effervescent hisses and trills from his gear, fashioning a fragrant if unremarkable video score, while in the final section he lets loose, relatively speaking. [Mar 2015, p.80]

The most striking thing about Citizen Zombie is how young and naive and happy it all sounds. [Mar 2015, p.74]

EarthEE feels both comfortingly familiar and thrillingly alien, without striving too hard to be either. [Mar 2015, p.83]

The album captures both Matthew Houck's heartbreaking delivery--rendered even more gorgeously cracked by the strain of live performance--and the sinewy charm of his backing band. [Mar 2015, p.80]

A lucid and accomplished departure. [Mar 2015, p.76]

Pierson's first outing without Fred Schneider and co is produced to sound immaculately (and blandly) like 1980s American new Wave pop; enough to make "Love Shack" seem cutting edge. [Mar 2015, p.80]

More heartmelter than skullsplitter--but just as ruinous. [Mar 2015, p.73]

It lives and dies on its guest vocalists: female MC Tink shines on "Wanna Party," as does grime veteran Riko Dan on "Speng." Elsewhere, a reliance on drab Auto-Tune crooning can drag. [Mar 2015, p.76]

Songhoy Blues take the fusion of West African desert rhythms and rock'n'roll a further step down the road trodden so thrillingly by Tinariwen. [Mar 2015, p.81]

The trio [Badbadnotgood] create nuanced, immersive contexts for the rapper's narratives: occasionally dialed in, at times surprising. [Mar 2015, p.71]

Probably the closest anyone has come to capturing the 40-year-old virgin spirit of the seminal Modern Lovers album. [Mar 2015, p.84]

Rich and evocative, The Race For Space is the sound of two young men gazing heavenwards and dreaming. [Mar 2015, p.80]

It's beautifully played, and Earle's songs are respectful of their heritage while (mostly) sufficiently confident and idiosyncratic to transcend pastiche. It's just difficult to believe this is the best imaginable use of Earle's time and talent. [Mar 2015, p.72]

Preposterous on first listen, more utterly beguiling with each repeat. [Mar 2015, p.71]

Occasional interludes--echoing number recitations; bumbling English voices on crackly wax cylinders---feel integral, while smart Julian House artwork completes the package. [Feb 2015, p.71]

Dying is at once a queasy and exhilarating listen, made more unnerving still by the lyrical fragments about addiction, insomnia and depression that emerge from their clamour. [Mar 2015, p.

Mostly, though, it reasserts Bishop's status as wide-ranging guitar master, gently amused by any such assumptions of grandeur. [Mar 2015, p.71]

The results are fascinating. [Feb 2015, p.78]

Samba Toure's fourth album in five years rocks as hard as any African record we've heard. [Mar 2015, p.83]

[A] slight tendency toward wishy-washiness is kept at bay through deft deployment of collaborators. [Mar 2015, p.81]

He chucks deep vocal house and astral UK bass, with the title track crucially offsetting a tendency to overly tasteful restraint. [Feb 2015, p.73]

A few underpowered, slate-grey instrumentals miss the mark, but the gorgeously warped "Tied And Bound" comes close to the alien beauty of Mica Levi's sonically extreme soundtrack work. [Mar 2015, p.84]

It's an album of two halves, with "Rock And Roll Again" summarising a scene-setting opening hand that focuses on good-time, AC/DC-worshiping rockers. A shade more subtlety comes late on. [Mar 2015, p.72]

There's a gauche Hollyoaks vibe to sentimental moments "Sailing" and "Wild West," but otherwise this is a handsome debut. [Mar 2015, p.72]

Heavy Love is a supremely self-confident record. [Mar 2015, p.85]

The exceptionally well-curated material is all drawn from women singers--if not always women writers--and does a fine job of placing Giddens at the nexus of a multiplicity of traditions. [Mar 2015, p.79]

In The Pink Of Condition is very much Evans' own. [Mar 2015, p.77]

What Peace lack in originality, they make up for in charm. [Mar 2015, p.80]

The rest of Mount The Air is tentative by comparison [to "Magpie"]; stylish, and extremely skillful, but a bit too much arr and not enough trad. [Mar 2015, p.68]

There's nothing fake about the purgatorial narrative of songs such as "Nobody Knows My Trouble" and "My Diamond Is Too Rough." [Feb 2015, p.74]

This is a melancholic album, but a determined, thoughtful one. [Mar 2015, p.80]

The likes of "Born Disco; Died Heavy Metal" and a jitterbugging "New York Minutes" are revealed to be much more robust tunes than was initially obvious. [Mar 2015, p.73]

The albums keep coming, with little stylistic variation, nor significant lapse in quality. [Feb 2015, p.87]

Modern Nature is close to classic Charlatans--no mean feat after their recent tribulation. [Feb 2015, p.74]

The beauty of the album is that it draws its charm from the natural collision of styles. [Feb 2015, p.74]

It's yet another display of excellence from an artist in consummate control of his art. [Feb 2015, p.82]

[John Tejada] maintains his penchant for melancholic, Detroit-inspired tech-house better suited to the home than club environment. [Feb 2015, p.84]

[The Hexadic System] sounds complicated, but primarily this is a guitar record. [Mar 2015, p.81]

Glass Riffer dials back the bold orchestrations of 2012's America in favour of a rapturous electronic pop with Deacon's voice pushed upfront. [Mar 2015, p.75]

The album's hard-slapping boom bap, laced with confident social realist flow, could only ever have come from New York. [Mar 2015, p.71]

You long for a bit more of the ardour of "Fine Squad." [Mar 2015, p.73]

[A] strong second album. [Mar 2015, p.73]

An uninspired outfit played into a corner. [Mar 2015, p.73]

An album of fierce ambition and undeniable charm. [Mar 2015, p.80]

Novelist Michael Chabon's lyrics fail to illuminate the theme, while the music settles for tasteful reverence. [Mar 2015, p.81]

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and Jack White outclass the flat cap and braces brigade. [Mar 2015, p.84]

The band generally favour simplicity and great hooks on this fine second album. [Mar 2015, p.84]

In his communions with nature, Elverum continues the American tradition of Whitman, Thoreau or Emerson, immersing himself in hymns to the land. [Mar 2015, p.78]

Just about every song is not what it seems. [Mar 2015, p.78]

From The Very Depths is unreconstructed but brutally effective. [Mar 2015, p.84]

Its muted feel is accented by folk-blues tones that rarely break out of a shuffle, enlivened only by some buzzing electric guitar cameos by guests including Johnny Depp and Bob Mould. [Mar 2015, p.84]

"Drips" hovers between Hot Chip and late-period XTC, while the meticulous detail of "Babymaking" and "Don't Sit Back (Frankie Said)" recall lost studio gems like Rosie Vela's Walter Beck-helmed Zazu. [Mar 2015, p.75]

The result is a little pick 'n' mix, but the delivery is great and songwriting assured. [Mar 2015, p.77]

Presley has a wry, modern take on country music. [Mar 2015, p.81]

These immersive, synth-driven compositions may never match the brooding atmosphere of the filmmaker's early scores like Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13, but still have much to commend. [Mar 2015, p.73]

Some of these pieces are more like performance art works than songs. [Feb 2015, p.83]

This score for the new Hawkings biopic is an effective series of piano-based miniatures sweetened with strings and harp. [Feb 2015, p.79]

On their fifth full-length, they've got looser and groovier, and it suits them. [Mar 2015, p.75]

Two Gallants can swagger and rage like The Black Keys, but they can also find moments of ambient bliss to complement songs of helplessness and regret. [Mar 2015, p.82]

Worthy is a far bolder and more satisfying selection [than Thankful n' Thoughtful]. [Mar 2015, p.77]

An album as strange as it is compelling. [Mar 2015, p.77]

Timelessly scented, you can almost smell the joss sticks. [Mar 2015, p.76]

Not one original note, but big fun for feedback fetishists. [Mar 2015, p.69]

Co-produced again with Jonathan Wilson, the album bristles with richness and bespoke detail. [Mar 2015, p.70]

As a celebration of classic songcraft, it is as sincere as any of Dylan's many forays into traditional American roots idioms. [Mar 2015, p.65]

Their take on the genre [is] sharply observed and utterly sincere. [Feb 2015, p.83]

It's neither pastiche nor parody, corralling '60s psychedelia, prog, Indian ragas, country rock, '50s lounge music and Javanese campursari into his vision. [Feb 2015, p.79]

It's an inspired rather than gimmicky conceit. [Feb 2015, p.71]

His debut album reworks traditional material, much of it obscure, yet sounding familiar thanks to the vibrancy of playing, notably from William Tyler on guitar. [Feb 2015, p.78]

Fear Trending is a fully realised album which stands equal to anything this consistently inventive band have done thus far. [Feb 2015, p.82]

It's a risky move [a change in sound] that has nonetheless reaped rewards. [Feb 2015, p.77]

10 Futures propulsive blend of soul-pop and electronica sees him indulging a more experimental side, making it a satisfying proposition all round. [Feb 2015, p.73]

They've unleashed the rock monster within. [Feb 2015, p.87]

Their best work moves beyond pastiche into broader sonic terrain. [Feb 2015, p.82]

It is ambitious music, even compared with Big Inner and it also sounds rich with potential. [Feb 2015, p.67]

The Musicianship is on point, the recoding crystal clear. But as a listener, it feels difficult to penetrate the album's inky darkness, and you suspect they like it that way. [Feb 2015, p.77]

A confident take on sleek, horn-powered Philly soul with a hunt of garage muscle. [Feb 2015, p.78]

A paucity of strong tunes remains his Achilles heel, but no-one else does wasted decadence with such persuasive panache. [Feb 2015, p.80]

These are new songs that sound like the old songs, the kind you might treasure 'til your vinyl is pockmarked and warped. [Feb 2015, p.86]