I Be Trying sounds as stark and untamed as a field recording, belying the perfectionism with which it was made. [Aug 2021, p.24]

The title is Williams’ name for the world in which her music is set and it’s one where disaster looms large – dark, evocative and minor-key rich; menacing live drums and corkscrew bass hanging heavy in the atmosphere. [Aug 2021, p.33]

Rose City Band’s third album maintains those impeccable vibes of lush country charm, with Earth Trip offering a series of beautiful moments. [Jul 2021, p.33]

Those in thrall to Modest Mouse’s well-honed blend of ramshackle punk-folk and predilection for dispensing off-grid wisdom will find much favour with the latest addition to their canon. [Aug 2021, p.31]

If Grant’s recent output veered toward the unnecessarily quirky, this new record restores focus. It’s as unsettling as 2013’s Pale Green Ghosts and – in its own way – as alert to the shoddy stitching in the stars and stripes as Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys, Phil Ochs’ Rehearsals For Retirement or the queercore of Dicks and MDC. [Jul 2021, p.20]

Home Video is Dacus at her most autobiographical and lyrically direct. [Jul 2021, p.28]

Prove as unflinchingly human as Hammill's own work.[May 2021, p.27]

Blue Weekend is a collection of songs that immediately dazzle, with a relentless array of strong hooks, nestled within a sea of diverse sonic colours. [Aug 2021, p.35]

If Shirushi’s relentless momentum can leave you breathless, it batters its way into real, mutant rock’n’roll thrills. [Aug 2021, p.35]

Path Of Wellness proves Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein haven’t forgotten the empowering, life-giving qualities of rock’n’roll fun. Sleater-Kinney are turning their reunion years into a reaffirmation of the importance of support and solidarity on a private, personal level. [Aug 2021, p.30]

The results are weirdly and pleasingly dislocated. [Aug 2021, p.29]

Purists who flinched when Tame Impala began to morph into a hairier Da¢ Punk may be similarly nonplussed by the sextet’s turn toward blissed-out dance-rock, but everyone else will have a lot of fun. [Aug 2021, p.28]

It’s a wonderfully tactile set, pared back to just fingerpicked guitar and voices, their verité approach welcoming informal chatter and ambient sounds of the surrounding high desert. [Aug 2021, p.28]

The whole thing whispers and swirls with ease, cradling the ears before and after the title track shocks the listener with a pulsating instrumental transmission seemingly beamed from the depths of outer space. [Aug 2021, p.27]

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ricky Medlocke co-writes one song, and most others sound like someone from Skynyrd did. But the best tracks, counterintuitively, are those furthest from Blackberry Smoke’s trademark boogie. [Aug 2021, p.24]

Nothing feels remotely ‘phoned-in’ here. [Aug 2021, p.28]

A notably confident-sounding record. [Aug 2021, p.23]

It’s a story as old as Pet Sounds, but one that bears repeated re-telling. [Jul 2021, p.31]

Peace Or Love is their most cohesive album yet. While it’s not a world away from their previous work, the mood is noticeably more stripped-down and melancholic. ... Kings Of Convenience seem to have discovered the purest essence of the music they create. [Aug 2021, p.26]

Ultimately it’s this balancing between considered atmospheres and rattling noise that gives Present Tense such a sharp bite. [Jun 2021, p.25]

These compact compositions inevitably risk straying into noodling self-indulgence at times. But in general, inspiration trumps masturbation. [Aug 2021, p.33]

Seven songs in 19 minutes feel like a tidy introduction to this contemplative Californian. [Aug 2021, p.21]

This is second-tier Sabbath, arriving at the waning of their imperial phase. But that’s still a formidable prospect. ... Also included is a mostly unheard North American show from 1975 that proves the band were still bringing the goods live, especially on a surging “Children Of The Grave”. [Jul 2021, p.41]

A collection of great intimacy and tenderness, inspired in part by the loss of her father. This is rich, melodic folk. [Jul 2021, p.27]

It's a long, convoluted, tiresome listen. [Jul 2021, p.25]

It’s a big, bolshy set, slightly dated by its industrial-rock dynamics, but there’s no denying the Depeche Mode-ish “Godhead” or (especially) the giallo-ish critique that is “A Woman Destroyed”. [Jul 2021, p.27]

The bulk of the material comes from Crosby, Nash and especially Stills. These include early versions of several tracks that would soon appear on the trio’s own solo albums. ... There are more Stills rarities – “Same Old Song”, “Right On Rock’N’Roll” – and the musician accounts for seven of the eleven songs on the outtakes CD, making this something of a Stills mother lode. Added to these are several completed CSN tracks, complete with the harmonies that brought them together in the first place.

Indispensable, but that’s no surprise.