Instantly satisfying, but its charms and mysteries will resound for years. [Mar 2022, p.25]

This is good-time instrumental party music that mixes Turkish Psych, South American cumbia, surf-rock and reggae, sometimes with the poise of Khruangbin but more often with the tequila swagger of a Tarantino caper. [Mar 2022, p.31]

There's a relentlessly macabre tension and ultimately savage catharsis to these six songs. [Mar 2022, p.36]

For him a song is no older than the last time it was sung. His fifth album, Good And Green Again is his most thoughtful, his most eloquent, and his most poignant explication of this idea. [Feb 2022]

Delicious desolation. [Mar 2022, p.23]

As with all of Le Bon's projects, the claustrophobic, wonderfully awkward whole is very much her own. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Ants From Up There is often beautiful, but its not an album you can listen to casually. Its relentless emotional pummelling is quite an experience, a rollercoaster ride for the soul that is likely to leave you feeling distinctly and permanently rearranged. [Mar 2022, p.18]

The songs, reworked with producer Patrick Hyland over a three-year period, shapeshift in time to the lyrics. [Mar 2022, p.32]

Yes, they're really that good. [Feb 2022, p.37]

The passion of a precarious life lived by a gospel of poetry and rock’n’roll is, though, undimmed, in music of acoustic intimacy, helped by Kieran Hebden’s spectral guitars and the Webb Sisters’ choral harmonies. [Feb 2022, p.29]

It’s always going to be tough to unequivocally celebrate your hometown when the everyday reality is poverty and disenfranchisement. But as Sadam says, Imarhan’s music aims to bring those issues to wider attention while simultaneously representing the richness of their culture – a feat that Aboogi pulls off with passion, skill and no little style. [Feb 2022, p.30]

It's a cryptic approach, to say the least. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Made for uncertain times, Optimism is funny, clever and elegant, but it’s not a record that seeks approval or constructs a tidy narrative.

Bloodlines and geography figure into every NMAs album, but on Set Sail, Luther and Cody Dickinson make family and setting the conjoined theme. [Mar 2022, p.32]

Songs such as "Don't Want Move" and "Making The Most of It" compellingly frame the narrative, while "First Drum Set" and "Teenage Sequencer" joyously chronicle his escape route out of the alienation. [Mar 2022, p.35]

Amid all this weirdness, the sleek disco banger "The last Dance" stands out like a beacon in a cave, lighting the way towards a more sustainable reinvention. [Feb 2022, p.34]

Mayall enthusiastically opens the door to funk and soul elements. [Feb 2022, p.32]

Sonically, the album has a muted palette, an approach that suits the colourised introversion of Mitchell's writing. even so, there are occasional flashes of illumination. [Mar 2022, p.24]

While her new, synth-led turn can feel a little awkward - the keyboards on "Guardian Angel" overwhelm the tenderness of the song - there are moments, such as the sparks of synth noise on "Hum Menina", that fire her folk songs into another dimension. [Mar 2022, p.28]

While tracks like "Cherokee" take a gently pulsing and melodic groove and expand it into something quietly euphoric, before dipping happily back into quieter, odder moments. [Mar 2022, p.25]

Cobb gives them his distinctively sweltering Southern soul treatment - drenching "In The Garden" with humid electric piano, reimagining "Are You Washed In The Blood?" as the Allman Brothers might have played it. [Mar 2022, p.26]

Extreme Witchcraft snaps and snarls more than usual, but wit, tunes and third-degree self-awareness continue to serve the post-grunge Randy Newman well. [Feb 2022, p.28]

Nothing about their sixth album sounds like business as usual. Refreshed by time spent independently exploring their own musical interests (Ansell electronica and production work; Carter an Americana-inspired solo album) and inspired by true crime documentaries and podcasts, the duo sought to explore the darker side of the human psyche, leaning into haunted house synth lines and gothic horror bass. [Feb 2022, p.25]

Her solo works have generally furnished her extraordinary voice with more obviously congruent vehicles, and Age Of Apathy is no exception. [Feb 2022, p.34]

Wilds will continue to content those eager to brandish their knowledge of Ennio Morricone, Os Mutantes or Jacques Dutronc, but it nonetheless cries out for attention from those looking for more primal, immediate pleasures: beauty, bliss and release. [Feb 2022, p.24]

Pulverising noise is not entirely absent – the sludgy riffs of “The Fallen” growl ominously – but they are largely replaced with more atmospheric explorations, Wata’s gentle vocals and tracks that slow and quieten down to reveal a tender exploration of texture. [Feb 2022, p.26]

The deviations from the general upbeat mood vary - "Louder" is a clunky if well-meaning protest song, but the melancholy piano-led ballad "Marvelous To Me" is a thing of downbeat beauty. [Mar 2022, p.32]

Too often, though, good-not-great tunes can't quite make up for generic song structures and performances that seem to have lost a certain charismatic shine during the downsizing operation. [Feb 2022, p.37]