As steel guitar groans and floats away like dying stars at the close and Raymond bends drones to her will, John Cale's singular Welsh spirit feels near. [Oct 2025, p.32]

Things are really supercharged here by Epworth's electronic touch. It's a highly potent and undeniably successful combination. [Oct 2025, p.24]

Jump Into Life feels like a vital reminder of how the expression of joy can serve as both an act of resistance and a demonstration of resilience. [Jul 2025, p.33]

Smith sees the fragments left behind by an old songwriting mentor - paintings, cups of coffee, the gift of her first guitar - as things to be celebrated, and the same is true of these 10 fragments of herself. [Jul 2025, p.37]

It's all inimitably Sparks. [Jul 2025, p.37]

Fractures sound healed, leaving Sunflower Bean's classicist optimism intact. [Jul 2025, p.37]

"Time" hits hardest, a righteous prayer riding on Stax brass and gospel harmonies toward safe harbour. [Oct 2025, p.28]

Beautifully curated collection. .... It's rare for familiar work to be re-contextualised in such a way that you hear it with new ears. But that's exactly what happens here. [Oct 2025, p.48]

Meticulously crafted, haunted and hypnotic. [Sep 2025, p.31]

The playing is admirably under stated throughout, and the highlights numerous. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Edwards sounds comfortable and confident in this setting, although occasionally she indulges some awkward, first-draft lyrics. [Sep 2025, p.31]

Who Is The Sky? benefits greatly from Byrne's singular perspective as a songwriter. It also shows how much more expressive he continues to become, even here in his eighth decade on Earth. [Oct 2025, p.26]

Like all the best goodbyes, Saint Etienne bow out on top form and affectionate terms. [Sep 2025, p.26]

A flood of captivating images are buoyed along by the rich musical tapestry and a song that's illustrative of the broader mood: uplifting and open-hearted, looking backwards and forwards without blame or trepidation. [Sep 2025, p.22]

Antidepressants is the most unhinged, intoxicating Suede album since Coming Up, and boasts the best first side of a goth album since the Banshees' Juju. [Oct 2025, p.22]

A little like The Strokes of Is This It trying their hand at metronomic Can jams or mesmeric slowcore. And yet melody is key throughout. [Sep 2025, p.33]

You Heartbreaker, You lands like an accusation, with love (and other) songs which draw blood. [Oct 2025, p.23]

Excellent news that Price has re-embraced the old-school virtues that got her noticed in the first place: the rowdy yet droll honky-tonk tear-up, heard here on such Southern soul-infused cuts as "Losing Streak" and "I Just Don't Give A Damn". [Oct 2025, p.31]

The whirl of ideas is intoxicating. .... But there's space for moments of straightforward beauty too. [Sep 2025, p.29]

Only Frozen Sky Anyway is a seriocomic meditation on the absurdity of humanity, unfailingly generous in music and spirit alike. [Oct 2025, p.32]

Take the modulated soundscapes of, say, Terry Riley or Max Richter, add some beats, more warm analogue synth arpeggios and some fuzzy vocals and you've got a close approximation of Gush. [Sep 2025, p.39]

A finely judged set that draws deep from his Texan heritage and that of nearby Louisiana, a favourite teenage haunt of his. [Oct 2025, p.24]

Engaging New Zealanders The Beths masterfully marry muscle and vulnerability here. [Sep 2025, p.28]

Strong on characterful production, writing and lyrical fronts, it's a country-pop tour de force that showcases her insight and humour as she addresses everything from the economic precarity of her homeland to the devastating harm done by body shaming. [Sep 2025, p.29]

There's barely a track above three-minutes as it charges along with spiky intent, bursting with energy. [Sep 2025, p.32]

While the earlier albums had a rich dramatic and conceptual structure, things feel looser thus time round. [Sep 2025, p.39]

Short and sweet, with an alluringly timeless analogue feel. [Oct 2025, p.32]

A set of songs about romantic love, self-love and self-actualisation whose confident arrangements sacrifice none of the intimacy of Duffy's earlier work. [Sep 2025, p.32]