Michael Franti has fashioned an inclusive pan-global pop, heard here at its most confident and fully formed. [Jul 2014, p.73]

One-paced but classy. [Jul 2014, p.74]

The technology has evolved, but the Plaid Aesthetic remains constant. [Jul 2014, p.78]

Russell was always more super-sessioneer and songwriter than vocalist, and the rasp of advancing years does little for over-familiar pieces like "Fever" and "Georgia On My Mind." Better are more personal favorites like Billy Joel's "New York State Of Mind" and Mose Allison's "Fool's Paradise." [Jul 2014, p.80]

As the album Latin music fans always hoped Santana would make, Corazon doesn't disappoint. [Jul 2014, p.80]

An album bursting with adventure and originality. [Jul 2014, p.83]

It's a record this restless artist can settle into and build on as he continues to mature, because it solves his chronic problems while presenting huim with a newfound sweet spot. [Jul 2014, p.82]

Ultima II Massage is ostentatiously big and frequently clever. [Jul 2014, p.83]

embracing experience in all its prickly incarnations might make for a tricky life but--on this evidence--the pay-off is the creation of ever more beautiful and emotionally engaging music. [Jul 2014, p.72]

There are plenty of deft touches but it's perhaps too knowing to truly connect, to sketchy to reward deep listening. [Jul 2014, p.80]

Sound Mirror pursues a roving brief set to a pop aesthetic. These are compact but restless songs. [Jul 2014, p.81]

Not every track gels, but the duo's easy chemistry never feels like gimmicky contrivance. [Jul 2014, p.81]

Page's notion of what might catch the ear was eccentric, but generally infallible. Duly, these remasters aren't asking you to extend your idea of the Zeppelin canon, but retract it--to realise why the albums have the power and mystery they do. [Jul 2014, p.86]

Page's notion of what might catch the ear was eccentric, but generally infallible. Duly, these remasters aren't asking you to extend your idea of the Zeppelin canon, but retract it--to realise why the albums have the power and mystery they do. [Jul 2014, p.86]

Page's notion of what might catch the ear was eccentric, but generally infallible. Duly, these remasters aren't asking you to extend your idea of the Zeppelin canon, but retract it--to realise why the albums have the power and mystery they do. [Jul 2014, p.86]

Over it all, Vek free-associates with the kind of bland monotony which serves his music--and these times--surprisingly well. [Jul 2014, p.83]

Slender and strange, Await Barbarians once more finds the singer on the back foot, his default position, peering cautiously at the things around him. [Jul 2014, p.81]

It moves at a cracking pace, its 10 concise songs picked clean of fluff and with their sugar content much reduced. [Jul 2014, p.74]

In Conflict feels starkly personal. [Jul 2014, p.77]

There's no seismic shift here, but the differences--and listening rewards--lie in the indeterminate spaces between their sources. [Jul 2014, p.77]

The Nihilist feels like a collision of Gotham's manic energy and the otherworldliness that has permeated Kiwi music from Uncle Tim's Splitz Enz to Lorde. [Jul 2014, p.73]

A Letter Home illustrates that vagaries of sound quality can sometimes enhance the drama of a record, and rarely undermine the potency of a good song. [Jul 2014, p.68]

Johns suggesting a hunger for discovery still resides in us all, and his beautifully considered songs make for an emotive sat-nav. [Jul 2014, p.70]

While the unrelenting energy can be somewhat exhausting, it's hard not to get swept up. [Jul 2014, p.73]

So while Lazaretto may sometimes appear to be a more nakedly emotional collection of songs than we've come to expect from its creator, the contents also rate among his wittiest and his wildest efforts to date. [Jul 2014, p.63]

Strange Friends marks a measured step towards accessibility for one of Britain's most inventive bands. [Jun 2014, p.82]

Emma Jean is mellower, mournful and unimpeachably authentic.... A magnificent piece of work. [Jun 2014, p.76]

Beauty & Ruin falls short as a masterpiece but it quietly lets the handbrake off on Mould's creativity. [Jul 2014, p.79]

At times it can get a little overheated but the pair are more than capable of reining it in when they want to. [Mar 2014, p.85]

We Have Band seldom make things look easy--and sees them achieve a kind of punk-funk perfection, regardless of fashion. [May 2014, p.81]

Runaway's Diary is a record with hugely impressive depth and emotional range. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Howe doubles as the "link" drummer for Amorphous Androgynous and his authentic beats bring the requisite darkness to Shadow. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Nightclubbing is the album that came to define Jones as the complete performer, in her own way, as singer, muse, actress, alien and androgyne. [Jun 2014, p.90]

Even back-porch sketches like "Free" and plaintive instrumental "First Snowfall In Detroit" radiate a warm, freewheeling, unforced beauty. [Jun 2014, p.91]

If Definitely Maybe still sounds pretty much as Noel envisaged, that's certainly to do with the quality of the songs, the delivery and the timing. [Jun 2014, p.95]

Are We There's subtler songs point to a painfully well-honed understanding of what drives and degrades long-term love. [Jun 2014, p.70]

Luke Haines' trilogy of rock follies concludes with this perverse mediation on New York punk. [Jun 2014, p.78]

Global fusion at its most democratic and exhilarating. [May 2014, p.73]

Sequenced into an almost seamless tapestry, most of these tracks flow along in a pleasant but unremarkable vein of propulsive, melodic, Hot Chip-style synth-pop. [Jun 2014, p.83]

It's self-improvised and often raw, but bursting with vim and surprise. [Jun 2014, p.80]

Black Hours knowingly and passionately charts a journey through make songwriting archetypes, from doomed fatalist to well-adjusted realist. [Jun 2014, p.84]

Her second proper LP is a full-on pop-reggae confection. [Jun 2014, p.75]

The promising flourishes of "Burn It Down" and "Explosions" give way to "Meteorites" and "Is This A Breakdown," mediocre indie rock plods. [Jun 2014, p.75]

Overall, Butler's pedestrian appropriation of the clunky beats, tinny handclaps and squelchy vocoder effects of yesteryear sound stale and repetitive. [Jun 2014, p.78]

It's hard-going at times, but "Nolan" and "Soda Fide" are oddly stirring. [Jun 2014, p.78]

A complete rethink has resulted in the most uninhibited and visceral album of her career. [Jun 2014, p.78]

Wrangler's LA Spark is textbook industrial electropop--nothing wildly new but at its best on "Lava Land" and "Space Ace" it's a compelling listen. [Jun 2014, p.85]

It seamlessly blends his classical talents with an avant-garde flair and experimental rock dynamics. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Five long pieces allow for the tussle of improv. [Jun 2014, p.71]

Lighght is a giddy rush where the 38-year-old's innocent pursuits and guilty pleasures collide head on. [Jun 2014, p.79]

The results have fire in the belly and attitude to spare. [Jun 2014, p.78]

Their fourth album is reassuringly familiar. [Jun 2014, p.73]

One to file alongside Second Attention (2006) in Toth's vast and increasingly noteworthy catalogue of cliche-free Americana. [Jun 2014, p.85]

A clutch of the group's best songs are strangely omitted from the setlist, while slower numbers like "Beneath Wild Wings" tend to expose a lack of subtlety. But at full pelt, Howlin Rain are a match for anyone. [May 2014, p.76]

The results, restrained, immersive and quite beautiful. [Jun 2014, p.71]

Aldred's third album as Cherry Ghost is so unashamed in its embrace of the warm croon, the twinkling keyboard, the swelling orchestra and the poignant chorus that its 10 songs might stretch the patience of anyone who wants some jagged edge in their melancholy MOR classicism. [Jun 2014, p.73]

Stripped back to voice and piano, it's difficult not to recall early Kate Bush, but Amos' lyrics maintain a multi-layered depth that is uniquely hers. [Jun 2014, p.71]

There's nothing here that is likely to offend or amaze but it's a classy affair from start to finish. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Mulvey brings virtuosity, intelligence and a lightly experimental agenda to his rich and crafted solo debut. [Jun 2014, p.80]

Martyn's voice has taken a few knocks, but the weathered quality adds character. [May 2014, p.77]

With III, they shift their intense focus on '70s motorik rock, psychedelia and heavy drone to admit furious post-punk, industrio-dub grooves and the odd open space, [Jun 2014, p.72]

The songs are more direct and arrive with a harder edge [than 2012's Blood Speaks]. [May 2014, p.80]

An entertaining oddity which manages to recall both Bobby Gillespie and (late) Julian Cope in its reverence for over-the-top rock'n'roll excess. [May 2014, p.78]

The Mexican duo aren't quite in the Jansch/Renbourne class, but they create memorable tunes full of clever variations of timbre, texture and tone. [May 2014, p.78]

32 years on from Swans' formation, Michael Gira is not only still moving forward, but making some of the albums of his career. [Jun 2014, p.81]

The arrangements are reserved and understated throughout, gently cradling Merchant's strident but intimate voice. [May 2014, p.77]

If the acoustic backdrop sometime slacks texture, there are no such qualms with the songwriting that demonstrates a novelist's eye for detail. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Seven Dials seamlessly weaves many of the best elements of Frame's past into a work of consummate craftsmanship which also references the likes of Steely Dan, The Cure, The Beatles, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. [Jun 2014, p.68]

The likes of "Minimum Wage" and "Too Much Not Enough" sound like a youth-club band who've simultaneously overdosed on Haribo and the Gang Of Four, which is both preposterous and admirable behavior from people in their thirties. [Jun 2014, p.71]

A subtle, unshowy set it may be, but Toumani & Sidiki shows that this particular family affair will endure... perhaps for another 70 generations. [May 2014, p.75]

The Streets' Original Pirate Material crossbred with The Fall's Grotesque, it's nasty and brutish, but mercifully short. [Jun 2014, p.83]

Too busy with ideas for its own good. [Jun 2014, p.76]

Evans' descendent Gruff Rhys has immortalised his journey with a saga in documentary, book, app and CD form. Rhys has a talent for presenting such material with the right mix of pathos and play. [Jun 2014, p.82]

An engaging distillation of Weiss' rumbustious style that locks the listener into a groove and doesn't let go. [Jun 2014, p.74]

The album's highlight comes when "I See You" wiggles free of its '90s indie-disco mooring and shoots at the moon; Luminous could have done with a few more of those moments. [Jun 2014, p.78]

Disappointingly, F&M's fifth album reinforces the trio's constant strength and weaknesses. [Jun 2014, p.78]

The best moments tend to come where the reggae is at its most full-on. [Jun 2014, p.80]

Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck were "on" before they recorded their debut album, but are now very much "off," a situation which adds a fraught edge to the woozy Sky Swimming. [Jun 2014, p.76]

Unexpectedly exhilarating. [Jun 2014, p.79]

You'd struggle to find a more affecting ode to the selfishness of love than this. [Jun 2014, p.80]

The Way is a terrific, club-attuned set that renders them barely recognizable. [Jun 2014, p.83]

It may seem churlish to identify one reunion as especially cynical, but recent Pixies activities have felt notably artless--a situation emphasised by Indie Cindy. [Jun 2014, p.82]

This study of youthful misadventures gives the 97's ample opportunity to re-immerse themselves in the punk-fuelled exuberance they brought to the alt-country movement two decades ago. [Jun 2014, p.82]

Vocalist Tim Kinsella strikes an intriguing balance between raw emotion and lyrical enigma. [Jun 2014, p.82]

The straightforward rap tracks merely show up his generically braggadocio lyricism and deflated hook, using charmless trap cliche and bringing out the leaden, smoke-headed worst in the likes of Action Bronson, Mac Miller and Ab-Soul. [Jun 2014, p.78]

Its hard-edged synth-punk is grittier and harsher this time around, perhaps their best collection since 2001's Danse Macabre.

22-year old singer and songwriter Dylan Baldi still sounds like an angst-wracked teen. [Jun 2014, p.73]

An entirely ravishing aesthetic experience. [Jun 2014, p.76]

Plenty of mouth, then, but lacking in trousers. [Jun 2014, p.69]

If El Camino was the Keys' catchiest album. Turn Blue turns out to be their sneakiest, subtlest and most seductive. [Jun 2014, p.65]

There are enough moments of mercurial brilliance on May Your Marry Rich to suggest that the core duo of former student buddies Ryan Hendrix and Nick Turner are finally on to something. [Apr 2014, p.71]

The overall effect is both dark and playful. [May 2014, p.74]

They've lost none of the vigour of second (and last) album, 1988's Woodenfoot Cops On The Highway. [Mar 2014, p.85]

Shriek is a sustained act of seduction, a deftly conjoined conjuring of song, rhythm and mood. [May 2014, p.83]

Gone, for the most part, are the aching ballads in favour of identikit stadium rock epics somewhere between Simple Minds and Coldplay, overlain with '90s dance beats. [May 2014, p.73]

This is an album that twitchily turns away from a pat genre tag. [May 2014, p.81]

While a talking blues about baseball cards edges into geekville, "To The Veterans Committee," a sunshine pop supreme, might have you singing the praises of Dale Murphy without even knowing who he is. [May 2014, p.69]

There's no doubting To Kill A King's musicianship, nor their potential to be absolutely massive, but singer Ralph Pelleymounter's mid-Atlantic drawl is as irksome as the abundant lyrical truisms. [Apr 2013, p.79]