The music adds majesty to the industrial primitivism which purports to be the output of the fictional band, Memorial Device, with Pastel ensuring period veracity by revisiting cassettes of his teenage jams. [Jul 2024, p.38]

The pair share a fascination for esoterica and ritual, and it’s this impulse that powers their new collaboration, Jinxed By Being. [Aug 2024, p.40]

“Day 2000 Awake”’s warmth, inspired by parenthood, is perfectly poised too, and if “Poor Symmetry” seats her at a piano in Joni Mitchell mood, the pulsing “My Hands In The Water” recalls Kate Bush’s mature, sumptuous pop. [Jul 2024, p.31]

The new ‘Ultimate’ mixes are an excellent reimagining of the original’s tinny sound, giving a clearer route to Lennon’s voice while ensuring each instrument gets due prominence. Songs like “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)”, “You Are Here” and “Out The Blue” can now take their place among Lennon’s finest. [Aug 2024, p.49]

Travis continue to subtly experiment with their sound, and on this 10th studio set it regularly pays dividends. [Aug 2024, p.40]

Lyrically, the album plunges into some vulnerable and troubling places, but musically it lacks a similar emotional range, instead feeling static and one-note. [Aug 2024, p.31]

The result is a record that confirms … Phenomenal Nature was no fluke. This is the sound of Jenkins hitting her stride – less disembodied than its predecessor, more grounded, its tone ranging from the easy warmth of Tom Petty to the steady discernment of Aimee Mann, via a little Laurie Anderson. [Jul 2024, p.28]

he power of Landless lies in their own exquisitely intertwined four-part vocal harmonies, which add spine-tingling beauty to even the most fatalistic lyric, from an achingly gorgeous rework of traditional Celtic heartbreak lament “Blackwaterside” to the adventurously chosen Slovak-language ballad “Ej Husari”, a radiantly lovely murmuration of swooping, cooing, chirruping voices. [Jul 2024, p.35]

As a standalone soundtrack Evil Does Not Exist is a fine addition to Ishibashi’s singular work – the mood is darker and eerier than her fêted Drive My Car, but it’s the stronger album nonetheless. [Jul 2024, p.33]

[Aug 2024, p.40]

Mono are masters of the emotionally saturated slow build, though they have their own variations on the dark/light dynamic, as in “Reflection”, which moves with a casually graceful swing, and “Holy Winter”, where an upright-piano motif shapes the celestial whole. [Jul 2024, p.38]

Co-producer Alex Goose injects some hip-hop chink and spaghetti-western vistas into the arrangements, goosing the languid rhythms, and the hooky “Time Will Tell” momentarily quells the heartache. But the hopeful notes recede on the closing barroom ballad “The Fool”, as Frazer runs out of words, leaving melancholy piano notes to signal the encroaching dusk. [Jul 2024, p.32]

The result is her most diverse and audacious album to date. What remains rooted in her jazz origins, though, is her voice. [Jul 2024, p.40]

From the stripped-back acoustic touches on “This Will Go On” to the distorted vocals and gritty overdrive guitars of “Leaving Umbrella”, it’s a pleasing yet ever-shifting journey to be taken on. [Jul 2024, p.35]

As is usually the case with archival material of this kind, nothing here is any improvement on the finished product. These tracks are, however, humbling reminders that what we end up hearing as astonishing lightning-in-a-bottle transcendence is very often the result of repetitive, labour-intensive hackwork. [Aug 2024, p.46]

“Right Hand Over My Heart”, an irresistible number with moody Omnichord and synth motifs, and at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, the sinuous “Water Torture”, in which a disgusted Davis addresses his country’s barbarity practised in the name of world order. “Moonlit Kind” closes the set, an existential hymn with an agreeably lazy, Yeasayer-ish groove. [Jul 2024, p.30]

A self-titled collection that ranks among their very best. [Aug 2024, p.39]

Attains new heights of intoxication on reconvening after four years away. [Aug 2024, p.38]

Nathaniel Rateliff fully integrates his parallel identities as exuberant frontman, introspective folkie and perpetuator of rock's sacred texts on South Of Here. [Aug 2024, p.39]

They conjure a sequence of absorbing soundtracks for unmade dramas, of which the pick is “Love Changes Everything V”, an intense dialogue between violin and guitar, suggesting My Bloody Valentine reinventing themselves as a folk group. [Jul 2024, p.32]

Fratti delivers some of her most musically and emotionally rich work to date here, her dreamy voice and impressionistic Spanish-language lyrics adding an extra layer of magical realism. [Aug 2024, p.36]

The most affecting songs are the drum-less, spacious, guitar-led numbers: the spartan ragtime of "Boots Of A Soldier", or the wonderfully Tom Waits-ish waltz "The Knowing". [Aug 2024, p.32]

Precious but powerful. [Aug 2024, p.38]

There are moments when the orchestrated bathos feels promising. .... But the lyrical clunkers pile up and ultimately capsize an intriguing venture into sophisti-pop. [Aug 2024, p.39]

Stung! is a detail-rich trip as warm as it is wiggy. [Aug 2024, p.39]

Even if restless shape-shifting sometimes blunts strong melodic ideas, standout tracks like the epic freakout "Cosmo" and the goth-dub inner-space odyssey "Whammy" showcase a small band with big ambitions. [Aug 2024, p.39]

The record is a listen-through winner, but the title track and languid, acoustic closer "John Prine On The Radio" are standouts. [Aug 2024, p.35]

Ghostface is still, occasionally, a force to be reckoned with on the mic. but Set The Tone feels unworthy of his talents. [Aug 2024, p.34]

He sounds distant during "Shy Eyes'" woozy synth-funk, while "Over Your Shoulder" seems to connect his own separation and his mother's divorce in a resolute folk-pop ballad. [Aug 2024, p.31]

Gently irresistible throughout. [Aug 2024, p.31]

Their creative freedom is evident again on their final album. [Aug 2024, p.30]

The most appealing Actress record since Splazsh. [Aug 2024, p.29]

Accompanied by a swinging combo in which double bassist Ferg Ireland, pianist Joe Webb and Giacomo Smith on clarinet/sax are outstanding, she captures Vaughan’s depth of expression with perfect control, but proves she’s more than just a talented imitator by authoritatively stamping her own considerable personality on a stark, radical take on “Inner City Blues”, very different from Vaughan’s 1973 version. [Jul 2024, p.38]

Sometimes a more shadowy affair, with McKiel’s voice on the title track reverberating in what sounds like a deep cave, its woodwind and wriggling bassline emerging from different chambers to establish a Beta Band shuffle. Elsewhere things are dusky rather than dark. [Jun 2024, p.37]

Taking the Rio Grande as a confluence point between Mexico and the American Southwest, it reflects TexiCali’s exuberant sense of musical inclusivity. [Jul 2024, p.34]

Thompson’s writing gives this stellar cast plenty to work with, her wit rising to such meta conceits as “John Grant”, on which John Grant sings of Thompson’s fondness for him, and “Those Damn Roches”, on which Teddy Thompson conveys the tempestuousness of musical dynasties – including his (and his mum’s) own. [Jul 2024, p.39]

Despite the band’s unabashed borrowing, it’s hard to deny a song as huge as “Sweet”; the record’s obvious smarts and dynamic wallop carry it. [Jul 2024, p.31]

His guitar and bass playing are rather more agricultural than his rhythm-keeping but this all adds to the character of his freestyle philosophising. [Jul 2024, p.39]

The peppy “Setting Sun” recalls the guitar jangle of the band’s early days, but for the most part this is a bold and seductive exploration of symphonic pop that relishes pushing envelopes at will. [Jul 2024, p.31]

These essentially dour, '90s synth sounds aren't an obvious nirvana, though, but a wounded vocal sensitivity sometimes suggesting Midlake and Harp's Tim Smith, and deceptively crafted lyrics, add complexity to the prayers for peace. [Jul 2024, p.39]

While the album is rooted in Ennio Morricone’s dusty spaghetti western soundtracks and Daniel Lanois’ high-lonesome ambient, songs like the spacy “El Fantasma” and the kaleidoscopic title track ground their psychedelic drift in the intense chemistry between the two brothers and the way they play off each other supernaturally. [Jun 2024, p.33]

O’Rourke mastered, and in some cases remastered, all the music and it sounds appropriately fantastic. .... There’s a real narrative sense that their story has come full circle, but naturally it’s presented in this abstracted way, intentionally sequenced to feel like a film presenting flashbacks, in Grubbs’ view. [Jun 2024, p.40]

It's a lovely record: McCartney is typically chipper, the song selection outstanding and the sound fabulous. [Jul 2024, p.52]

Morton's naive delivery gives "Purple Yellow" the poignancy of Portishead, and UB40's Ali Campbell popping up on "Broxtowe Girl" feels like a fever dream. [Jul 2024, p.38]

This luxuriant collection is one of Moby's most consistently inviting and uplifting in years. [Jul 2024, p.38]

The Quebecois duo channel Suicide's proto-punk minimalism on the charming, drum Machine-driven "L'ile Aux Bleuets" and take rhythmic cues from Stereolab on English language ode to simpler times "Parc De Beauvoir" - while album standout "Le Fei" is four minutes of giddy, childlike joy. [Jul 2024, p.31]

Although it's an album that demands immersion, Butler does allow himself to - musically - cut loose, wielding his guitar with trademark flair on "Pretty D" and "Living The Dream". [Jun 2024, p.30]

Overly indebted to its inspirations - among them Ghetts, Stormzy and The Streets - it may be, but the stroppy "I Bhfiacha Linne" and "Rhino Ket", a moody techno/dancehall hybrid, are hard to deny. [Jun 2024, p.36]

He returns in double-quick time with more selections from his 80-song lockdown splurge, but this time in a gentler, almost uplifting mood. .... Radical optimism rather suits him. [Jul 2024, p.31]

He's best on matters of the heart: "Father" is a spectral journey to a lost 1970s of family intimacy and may be the most affecting song yet in a catalog stuffed with heartbreakers. [Jul 2024, p.32]

The finished work is a smorgasbord of all of their best bits. [Jun 2024, p.34]

There's an appealing innocence to their songs about the daily joys and troubles of tribal life, and the overall effect is as charming as it is arresting. [Jul 2024, p.41]

Throughout his three-decade career, E has brought a hushed beauty to the act of staring into the abyss, and his use of space on EELS TIME! (all caps for added irony) makes this lonely guy seem that much more lost in space. [Jul 2024, p.32]

Only a couple of tracks into Bonny Light Horseman’s third album, it’s clear this is something special. Beauty erupts from the vocal harmonies of Eric Johnson and Anais Mitchell, who lift the Technicolor folk-rock of “Lover Take It Easy” into something close to heaven. And then it keeps getting better. [Jun 2024, p.29]

Swamp Dogg shows how music can speak truth to power on the ballad “Songs To Sing” and rousing “Rise Up”, which features that rarity in bluegrass: a face-melting electric guitar solo, courtesy of Vernon Reid. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Their largely extemporised debut traverses free jazz, drone, spiritual music and experimental rock, establishing moods from contemplative to panicky and eruptive. [Jun 2024, p.29]

This third album is their richest and strongest to date. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Bandleader/pianist Bill Payne opted for an album of blues covers, making the jobs of replacement guitarist/ singer Scott Sharrard (who played a similar role with Gregg Allman) and drummer Tony Leone less daunting. The rejigged Feats perform their modest mission masterfully. [Jun 2024, p.36]

They’re back in the studio together, finding profundity in the commonplace, from a cheap cup of coffee to watching an infant’s first steps, on nine songs which range from the acoustic balladry of “Never Apart”, with its banjo and folk harmonies, to the scorching cowpunk of “Love Of AGirl”, via the classic country-rock of “Country Kid” and the plaintive melancholia of “2020 Regret”. [Jun 2024, p.29]

There’s avintage, spooked quality to the dreamlike “Woke Up And No Feet” and “What Doesn’t Work What Does” as she layers and edits her vocals, filling in gaps with piano and guitar, to create ahighly alluring portrait. [Jun 2024, p.30]

His gruff grumble suits the narrator’s weary stoicism, and not for the last time on this album, those gnarled fingers wring flamenco flavoured miracles from the fretboard of that battered, antique Martin. [Jun 2024, p.28]

Their trademarked scuffed jangle sparkles on the likes of “Pine For You”, and such downbeat cuts as “Rifled Through” demonstrate that none of their facility for the lachrymose epic has ebbed since “Taillights Fade”. [Jun 2024, p.29]

Diamond Jubilee feels like the work of an artist operating at the peak of their powers who is able to harness and crystallise all that potency and charge into a record that, on the surface, should be far too large, messy and stretched out to contain such a cohesive body of work. [Jul 2024, p.36]

Her songs feel so neatly woven that they deny all attempts to tease them apart. Listening to Night Reign, you mostly find yourself focusing on Aftab’s voice – a rich and smoky thing, gentle and open-hearted on “Whiskey”, reaching back through the centuries on “Na Gul”. But it also shows she has a keen eye for a collaborator. [Jul 2024, p.29]

His ninth album rests on his strengths. His balladeer’s voice is a steadying comfort on “Heavy Rain”, adding subtle Orbison shivers on “I’ll Never Get Over You”. Duane Eddy-like twangs judder through murder ballad “Two For His Heels”, and a guitar solo scorches “Deep Space”. The album’s beating heart, though, is “People”, a supernal acoustic tribute to Sheffield. [Jun 2024, p.33]

The melodies are uniformly strong, the guitar playing never less than stunning: This is top-quality Thompson. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Crowded House’s eighth studio release ticks all the expected boxes. Pitch-perfect harmonies and inventive chord sequences abound. .... Where it falls short, perhaps, is the absence of the full-blooded radio-friendly hits of old, although the shuffling “All That I Can Ever Own” is a close cousin to 1993’s “Distant Sun”. [Jun 2024, p.32]

These are distressed, in-limbo songs. Their unlikely latter-day alliance with Dave Fridmann adds poignantly lavish flourishes and echoing space-age keyboards to the dead-end punk tattoo of “I Don’t Fucking Know What I’m Gunna Do” and monotone monologue and suffocating synths of “Nothing/Everything”. [Jul 2024, p.35]

If the meandering electronic maelstroms of “Letter To My Daughter” and “Waking Up” don’t have the melodic hooks to gain the same traction, there’s a bewitching feel to it all that endures nonetheless. [Jun 2024, p.29]

The lullaby-like psych of “Side By Side” and the more insistent rhythms of Amama’s title track are both enriched by the avidly experimental bent. Even better are the summery “(Alone In) Brussels” and “Dust Bunny”, which sound like they could be long-forgotten yé-yé hits gone warped and frayed after too long in the sun. [Jul 2024, p.32]

Jess Hickie-Kallenbach’s woozy, bluesy, melismatic moans, Finlay Clark’s detuned guitar crackles and David Kennedy’s scrambled action-painting drums can become a little unrelenting over the long haul. But standout tracks like the combustible, centrifugal “Silver Grit Passes Thru My Teeth” and the brooding, tempo-twisting “M M M” reward patient listeners with hypnotic intensity and off-kilter beauty. [Jul 2024, p.39]

This is perhaps her most conventional release. [Jul 2024, p.39]

Hyperdrama boasts the same kind of air-punching swagger and imaginative ambition that made Random Access Memories so inescapable. It also benefits from a similarly formidable guestlist. [Jul 2024, p.35]

“Poppies” is an aching, Beatle-esque waking dream, half-heard car radio for company, prime Aimee Mann a comparison. Cleveland’s distorted electric guitar, cool, Stereolab-like synth glides and dub Ethio-jazz further colour the scene. [Jul 2024, p.35]

Noel Gallagher, who has been writing with Weller since 22 Dreams, co-pens one of the best songs he’s put his name to in a while: a stomping piece of glammy punk called “Jumble Queen”. .... Elsewhere, Weller’s own songs are also beautifully enhanced by other collaborators. [Jul 2024, p.24]

Producer Aaron Dessner’s quick working pace and embrace of imperfection have helped deliver a rawer set of songs written when Atwell was weaning herself off antidepressants and feared feeling’s return. [Jun 2024, p.29]

It's a beautiful-sounding record with tracks like "Somber The Drums" and "Everyone Out" providing moments of tender poppy beauty amid the general sense of decay. [Jun 2024, p.32]

“MC Mambo” by the mixed-heritage German-Ghanaian collective Pepper, Onion, Ginger Salt is aborderline novelty quasirap number that oozes wonky DIY charm, like much of this uneven but absorbing collection. [Jun 2024, p.50]

If that means she sometimes leans into apparently clichéd sentiments on “Keep Calm Carry On”, “Do Or Die”, the Buddhism-evoking “Om Shanti Om” or even her gossamer-soft cover of Dire Straits’ “Why Worry”, her whispery vocal style, often accompanied by plucked acoustic guitar and understated strings, still captivates. [Jun 2024, p.30]

Enchanting. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Lives Outgrown is a quite different prospect to Gibbons' previous work - more intimate, more personal, coloured by the grief and goodbyes se has weathered in recent years. But it is still possible to find a thread that runs from here to Out Of Season, and back to Portishead. [Jun 2024, p.23]

If it can feel a little hermetic, he’s at his best on the Eno-ish lullaby “First Responder”, where strings and lap steel drift in like a summer breeze. [Jun 2024, p.39]

On their second outing, these three peripatetic musicians pick up more or less where they left off on their 2022 debut. This is no bad thing. [Jun 2024, p.27]

The result is a highly engaging, emotionally rich debut, where defiant working-class pride anthems like “Dig!” jostle for space alongside the soaring urban blues confessional “This Here Ain’t Water” and the joyously puerile playground chant “Shithouse”. [Jun 2024, p.29]

As LaFarge tells it, Rhumba Country is partly the tunes he hummed to himself while reaping and sowing. Fine tunes they are as well. [May 2024, p.35]

The results range from flights of lysergic beauty on “Rainbow Ball”, “Split Screen” and “Seen” to a burst of jagged, early-days energy on “Nothing To Do”. For the first time in ages, they’re not overthinking it. [Jun 2024, p.36]

This is a stark and often moving listen, setting her coldly operatic voice against a backdrop of billowing modern classical and wintry electronics. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Arab Strap songs mostly have a strong, vinegary flavour, and this is abracingly sour album over the long haul. The relentless misanthropic grind can drag in places. But as ever, Moffat’s withering scorn is sweetened by beautiful poetry, tender emotion and self-aware, bruise-black humour. [May 2024, p.36]

At its best, like the gorgeous, nine-minute “Round The World”, his bittersweet sound feels like the work of an art-music auteur. [May 2024, p.30]

So how does that chaos translate into making music in your fifties? With greater depth and variety, it would appear. [Jun 2024, p.36]

What strikes you is the sheer variety of styles and textures that Keenan and Cargill were playing around with. It’s a shimmering patchwork of ideas and moments, some more realised than others, some beautiful, some stark. .... Spell Blanket is a glimpse at what might have been. A memory of the future. [May 2024, p.42]

This merging of hypnotic rhythms with pulsing electro is apparent throughout, especially on squelchy tracks like "Got To Be Who U Are", and the result is a potent fusion. [Jun 2024, p.36]

Tracyanne Campbell still writes exquisite songs that don’t sacrifice melancholy for cleverness, and the band still provide smart arrangements that nod to country, Motown, Brill Building pop and other distinctly American sounds. [May 2024, p.32]

A cresting, rolling record of complexity and depth. [May 2024, p.24]

Ranging from explosive Afro-funk workouts by Petelo Vicka et Son Nzazi and Les Bantous de la Capitale to more psych-influenced stunners by Abeti et Les Redoutables and Zaiko Langa Langa, these rediscoveries are thrilling enough for Congo Funk! to deserve a place next to African Scream Contest among Analog Africa’s most indispensable collections. [May 2024, p.53]

Despite remarkable playing and energy that charges through much of this record, it’s also contemplative, varied and tender at times, with the gentle sway of tracks like “Takoba” hitting as hard as the noise and fury of “Sousoume Tamachek”. [May 2024, p.38]

The LP opens with “My Golden Years”, a delectable mélange of Harrisonian 12-string riffs, Wilsonian harmonies and layer-cake hooks, and reaches its apex with the glorious Beach Boys homage “In The Eyes Of The Girl”, with Sean Ono Lennon co-producing and playing bass. [Jun 2024, p.35]

Jazz remains the root of his sound, with Washington’s saxophone as bold and vibrant as ever. But the grand orchestral sweep of albums past is pared back, replaced by adeeper engagement with hip-hop, funk and soul. [May 2024, p.41]