A dynamically nuanced, nine-song set that conjures real-world wonders as convincingly as a doomed voyage to some imagined, far-flung galaxy. [Feb 2015, p.82]

It's all likable, seldom revelatory. [Feb 2015, p.80]

There's nothing revelatory here, but it's good to see Hayes being so productive. [Feb 2015, p.77]

Something more intimate and traditionally crafted, exploring the highs and lows of human interaction. [Feb 2015, p.77]

Restriction certainly has its moments, but you have to wade through a lot of dross to find them. [Feb 2015, p.73]

Wallflower is quintessential adult pop, with solid if predictable selections. [Nov 2014, p.76]

The extra care and attention to production and arrangements has paid off, making Man It Feels Like Space Again as consistently enjoyable as their older albums were unevenly thrilling. [Feb 2015, p.85]

For all the haunting, dislocated atmospheres here, Coombes still has an ear for melodies. [Feb 2015, p.75]

An out-of-time treat. [Feb 2015, p.73]

It's the sense of a nuanced beat group finding their own path beyond Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine that's most compelling. [Feb 2015, p.99]

This lush hybrid of electronica, jazz and modern classical forms is one of the most beautiful accidents in Ripatti's long and prolific career. [Feb 2015, p.84]

The repressive weight of the production creates a micro-climate that's compelling to move through. [Feb 2015, p.83]

Kozelek's latest aims for a similar kind of dolorous charm, plus Spanish guitar, and often succeeds. [Feb 2015, p.80]

Production-wise it tips a brim to the jazzy psych of the Brainfeeder crew, with some very gnarly riffs chopping through the boom-bap. [Feb 2015, p.77]

Nothing Important offers more of idiosyncratic "ritual community music," as he calls it. [Feb 2015, p.75]

A cutting, driving, defiantly hook-happy set (mostly) focused on survival amid America's income-inequality nightmare. [Feb 2015, p.75]

It's a shouty, attitudinal set that connects Ke$ha to Britney Spears and Cyndi Lauper. [Feb 2015, p.75]

Broke is an pleasant surprise. [Feb 2015, p.73]

A very fine record, for sure, but Earle has a nagging habit of stopping just short of the hands-down classic he's capable of. [Feb 2015, p.78]

This is all very impressive stuff. [Feb 2015, p.80]

Throughout, their balance of the tense and clanging with the urgently poppy is impeccable. [Feb 2015, p.76]

What A Terrible World continues to sharpen the band's sound. [Feb 2015, p.81]

Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance feels like a creative rebirth for a band who were beginning to feel like nothing more than the day job. [Feb 2015, p.70]

He's the kind of singer whose voice you instinctively trust. It's a resource that brings continuity to a fifth album touching on greed, death and dogs. [Feb 2015, p.72]

Producer Joe Henry's tribute to that album, 1964's Bitter Tears, reimagines it beautifully. [Nov 2014, p.83]

Mark Nevers, on production, ensures Singer's grave is the lushest Oldham LP since Beware, and "So Far And Here We Are" is a stinging all-new effort. Motives, though, remain even less clear than usual. [Nov 2014, p.71]

While the fuzz-filled punk vibe is still present and correct, there's also a hard rock thread running through Overdrive. [May 2014, p.80]

Lament is a startling, eclectic listen. [Jan 2014, p.72]

Slim Twig's louche theatricality will probably repel as many listeners as it attracts, but life is a cabaret, old chum. [Jan 2015, p.92]

This fine reissue includes remarkably fully formed demos of the entire LP. [Dec 2014, p.89]

The resultant 37-minute piece is atypical of wither band's work, aiming for something more freeform. And meandering.... Still, when it hinges together, Words absolves itself. [Dec 2014, p.80]

While nothing on this best-of collection quite matches the exquisiteness of Grant's solo work, you can still hear him testing the waters and laying the groundwork for what was to come. [Jan 2015, p.87]

An amusing curio, although you're unlikely to listen to it more than once. [Jan 2015, p.75]

They channel their power into free form excursions of an often surprising delicacy. [Jan 2015, p.75]

Magazine 13 flits between Art OF Noise preset chintz, serene Vangelis miniatures and serrated Knife-like techno primitivism with such aplomb that it's tempting to view this as either a very good inside joke or striking outsider art. [Jan 2015, p.67]

The results are by turns atmospheric, deeply odd, funky and wistful, but never less than superb. [Nov 2014, p.84]

Chubbed Up+ feels like a bit of a stopgap between this year's Divide And Exit and a new album scheduled for early next year, but it nonetheless has much to recommend it. [Jan 2015, p.92]

It's a culture manifest in Alpha Mike Foxtrot: encyclopaedic. loving, droll, emotionally candid, often adventurous, but never really as alienating or difficult as the legends might suggest. [Jan 2015, p.90]

It's a giddily emotive affair, primarily slow and sensual. [Jan 2015, p.86]

This four-CD box demonstrates Bedhead to be a band incapable of missteps. [Jan 2015, p.86]

Dripping with raw emotion, Tim Wheeler's solo debut is a moving memorial to his father George. [Jan 2015, p.79]

It's all very polite and reserved. [Jan 2015, p.79]

Rhythm is even more thrilling than the latter's recent Nikki Nack. [Jan 2015, p.78]

Those who like a little light and humour in their rock--or, indeed, an acknowledgement of the last 25 years of popular music--may find themselves unmoved. [Jan 2015, p.78]

Highlights dim somewhat, though, with the earnest and/or bombastic originals on the album's second half. [Jan 2015, p.78]

The crystalline sweetness of Jones' voice belies the dark melancholy that underpins songs such as "Sad Kid" and "Nobody Dies." [Jan 2015, p.78]

The Inevitable End is a bittersweet triumph. [Jan 2015, p.76]

Kykeon combines that knowledge [of Greek folk music] with freewheeling homeland psych. [Jan 2015, p.76]

Here he takes four songs from each album and adds a trio of covers to demonstrate their strengths, recasting them as campfire acoustic ditties. This allows some of their lyrical directness to shine through. [Jan 2015, p.76]

It is impressive on a technical level. [Jan 2015, p.76]

A first half of pop-punk nuggets.... The second half, though, is more reflective and psychedelic although still in thrall to Big Star and Teenage Fanclub. [Jan 2015, p.75]

It's less derivative than some current house revivalists, and perfect wallpaper for independent coffee shops, but you can't really get down to such studiousness. [Jan 2015, p.74]

Whether flirting with doo wop, mixing psych and a cappella gospel or channeling John Cage via TV On The Radio it charms at every turn. [Jan 2015, p.74]

Sea Island feels comfortable, perhaps a little overly so, though there are plenty of lovely moments. [Jan 2015, p.74]

Tame Impala/Pond and Unknown Mortal Orchestra are kindred spirits, but it's KG's hyperactive tendencies that distinguish them. [Jan 2015, p.74]

Much here feels underdeveloped. [Jan 2015, p.71]

Depending on your mood or generosity, these are either indulgently doleful or movingly ascetic in their dutiful repetitions--worth investigating either way. [Jan 2015, p.71]

An elegant, sculpted electronica that's cerebral of construction but robust enough to beat a dance floor into life. [Jan 2015, p.69]

Monuments To An Elegy constitutes an unexpected return to form. [Jan 2015, p.66]

Parallel Memories is, in places, almost too minimal.... But Mitchell's softness of touch leads to some moving moments. [Jan 2015, p.75]

Even at 25 years remove, Doolittle's lively morsels still taste startling fresh. [Jan 2015, p.89]

Not so much a last will and testament. More a case of business as usual, for as long as he still can.

There's a certain wonky charm to the title track, but elsewhere Creation is too clean and clearly aimed at a Radio 2 demographic to be much more than background noise. [Jul 2014, p.78]

An album of unexpected depth and originality. [Oct 2014, p.68]

This album is heavy because it's dense with detail. [Jan 2015, p.63]

In terms of unreleased material, the motherlode is the two-disc Live at The Matrix set, recorded on November 26 and 27, 1968 at the San Francisco venue. Of the 18 songs here, 10 are previously unreleased.... All are comprehensively bested by the 36-minute version of "Sister Ray." [Jan 2015, p.81]

Band Leader David Moore's piano lines are more definable, tinkling through the serene textures in a way that recalls Hans-Joachim Roedelius. [Nov 2014, p.71]

This electronica-centred return focuses on the power of love. [Oct 2014, p.74]

Palme finds Arnalds staking a strong claim to territory as uniquely precious as Dory Previn's. [Oct 2014, p.67]

While at times her guitar rages filthily. She branched out lyrically too. [Oct 2014, p.79]

As bootlegs from the period have shown, there's a good three hours of stuff out there from these and the so-called "Brown Star Sessions" for Clear Spot. On the fourth disc here, you can find the pick of it. [Dec 2014, p.85]

This set is a good primer for Cooder’s soundtrack work.

A bold take on martial oldie "We Want War" brings a fire and brimstone that the more sombre Field Of reeds material conspicuously lacks. [Dec 2014, p.81]

For Godard, it bridged punk and his Tony Bennett phase, with the band sporting knock-off Fred Perrys at the height of goth gloom-mongering. [Nov 2014, p.75]

The intent is admirable even if too many of the songs feel flimsy and pedestrian. [Dec 2014, p.81]

While the calibre of artists lining up to pay tribute to Macca on this two-disc set is undeniably impressive, there's little in the way of surprises when it comes to execution. [Dec 2014, p.83]

First Demo captures the band's first flush of creativity. [Dec 2014, p.91]

It ends up being a more nuanced guide to the Thompsons' flawed but just-about functioning dynamic, divorces, remarriages and all. [Dec 2014, p.82]

It doesn't always comes off, but there are plenty of inspiring moments. [Dec 2014, p.81]

The faster Avonmore goes, the better it sounds. [Dec 2014, p.70]

It can be hard to spot any difference, so instead bathe om the spare beauty of "Ode To The Morning Sky," the scrumptious "Womb Of Time" or the wise, glowering "Weird Woman." [Nov 2014, p.83]

Tunde Adebimpe's gorgeous voice guarantees quasi-spiritual uplift even in their more obvious moments, but there are a couple of wild cards. [Dec 2014, p.81]

There is unlikely to be a more distinctive album released this year, simply because so few artists would dare put out anything so gleefully deranged. [Dec 2014, p.74]

Only the most devoted Apple Scruff could truly love Extra Texture, or its two immediate predecessors, now. Wonderwall Music, however, documents an innocent optimism that will always be worth a listen.

Striped of the visual element, what remains here is sparkling Nordic synth-pop, uplifting and accessible, but increasingly conventional. [Dec 2014, p.77]

Aside from the pleasantly Britpoppy "50,000 Kilowatts" and "Drown All The Witches," This is fast, fun, and full of piss and vinegar than one might expect from such seasoned campaigners. [Dec 2014, p.71]

This reissue eschews context and explanation to let their catalogue stand as its won defiant rock monolith, And as it should. [Dec 2014, p.93]

Incrementally, Yorke's resilient gifts come into focus. [Dec 2014, p.83]

A substantive whomp on the butt to typical Nashville superficialities. [Dec 2014, p.83]

Skip the sanctimonious turns by vegan singer-songwriters and there's enough here to make it worthwhile. [Dec 2014, p.83]

The quality varies but certainly hits the mark here and there. [Dec 2014, p.81]

Things get increasingly glum and disenchanted as the album grinds towards the cop-out of "The Troubles." [Dec 2014, p.81]

Fragmented and diffuse, Wyatt's second official album is occasionally guilty of being merely decorative. [Dec 2014, p.81]

No One Is Lost does what Stars do: uplifting songs with catchy hooks and gorgeous arrangements. [Dec 2014, p.80]

At 32 minutes, the album doesn't hang about, but offers in that time Shellac's signature intensity and repetition. [Dec 2014, p.80]

More often Big Music reanimates the band's founding spirit of adventure. [Dec 2014, p.80]

We find their extreme metal interspersed with more reflective moments. [Dec 2014, p.80]

Night Surfer is a swashbuckling set of blasted guitars and rootsy grooves. [Dec 2014, p.80]