A gorgeous confection. [Mar 2015, p.77]

All told, it's an awful a lot to listen to, but the scope is majestic, the ambition outrageous and the music magnificent. [Jun 2015, p.72]

Stamey is at his most persuasive when he keeps its simple. [Jul 2015, p.83]

If anything, this is more consistent and satisfying record, one that emphatically places her at the forefront of modern roots music. [Nov 2015, p.72]

The result is vast and apocalyptic. [Dec 2015, p.81]

With its wild swings between pummelling dirges and more symphonic exercises in doom-mongering, seventh album, The Gospel, evokes the more artistically ambitious but no less menacing likes of Killing Joke and Swans. [Apr 2016, p.69]

Bachman proves himself an extremely resourceful player, as well as a masterful storyteller. [Dec 2016, p.25]

Johannsson's use of vocal manipulation on "Kanguru" and "Ultimatum" add splashes of colour to his full-bodies minimalism, each lingering note loaded with ominous intent. [Jan 2017, p.24]

Shook might not possess the vocal range of kindred spirits Lydia Loveless or Nikki Lane, but she clearly a force to be counted. [May 2018, p.26]

Harrowing subject matter, and yet these raw confessionals have a stark, compelling beauty that ultimately feels bravely defiant. [Jun 2018, p.37]

Unsurprisingly, the comp is most interesting in its lesser-known material found between bigger names. [Aug 2019, p.51]

Britfolk's most adventurous neo-traditionalist takes the surprise quotient to new heights on this conceptual set. [Feb 2020, p.30]

It's a rare thrill to come across a time capsule like Dancing Mogadishu, , particularly when its contents appeals to funk connoisseurs and cultural anthropologists as much as the casual listener. Feb 2020, p.48]

This set traces a downward trajectory toward disco, but every album has its highlights. [Mar 2020, p.47]

Filled to the brim with usual abundance of trademark lyrical zingers, tenacious earworm melodies and stylistic zigzags. [Jun 2020, p.26]

There's a wistful tone to tracks like "Cherry Cola," the folky "I Was Alone" and fine single, "Love Comes In Waves," which attaches an invasive melody to the soft one of surrounding fuzz. [Nov 2020, p.27]

Tim Showalter has channelled his grief after losing loved ones and the agony he endured getting straight into a set of nakedly emotional songs, while producer Kevin Ratterman has erected a reverberant wall of sound to match the scale of his outpourings. [Dec 2021, p.35]

Punk-rock and post-punk templates are smashed as needed by guitarist Mark Bowen and co-producer Kenny Beats. [Dec 2021, p.29]

The project's success can be measured by the extent to which the tunes have been transformed. [Jan 2022, p.21]

A mood of high seriousness pervades, but Spirit Exit’s blend of spirituality and futurism is often transfixing. [Aug 2022, p.25]

Particularly interesting among the demos (and these really are early sketches) is the entertaining “Out In The Country” (banjos, acoustic guitars, an Eagles vibe), which is taken two radically different ways; seeming to show that the band didn’t just have one route out of the perpetual summer of 1964 and into the introspective, soft-rock 1970s, they had several – this one even involving country rock. [Jan 2023, p.28]

Lyrically, relationships dominate, if unconventionally. ... Her effervescent voice like muted Liz Fraser. [Jun 2023, p.32]

O Monolith channels the shapeshifting patterns of Steve Reich and late-period Radiohead to fashion a kind of lush English pastoral that seethes and shimmers at every turn. [Jul 2023, p.34]

The charisma, charm, galvanising dynamism and radical positivity of frontman Bobbie, aka Pascal Robinson-Foster, works better on stage than in the studio; even so, his hilarious takedowns of Marx-quoting armchair revolutionaries and Brexitvoting Top Gear fans reveal a sharp, self-aware wit behind the headbanging polemic. [Apr 2024, p.31]

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]

It’s a decent primer on the culture, but the real treasures are the deep cuts, namely some radical dub remixes of punk also-rans (Generation X’s “Wild Dub”, Angelic Upstarts’ “Different Dub”) and a string of projects from Dennis ‘Blackbeard’ Bovell, including the gloomy skank of 4th Street Orchestra’s “Za-Lon” and Matumbi’s sunny, horn-powered “Point Of View”. [Aug 2024, p.53]

The band's deepest and most accomplished effort yet. [Oct 2024, p.40]

Singer-guitarist Taylor Goldsmith and his drumming brother Griffin laid down Oh Brother’s basic tracks by themselves, and the foregrounding of their live-off-the-floor parts adds to the immediacy of Taylor’s narratives. [Nov 2024, p.33]