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]