The effects are over-stylised, however, rendering her impressive vocals precocious, ad the uniformly mid-paced tempos can become wearying. [Aug 2015, p.80]

Lott croons plaintive lyrics over weaponised sci-fi soundscapes fizzing with post-dubstep beats, bleeps and electro-classical string flourishes. [Aug 2015, p.80]

The new songs are equally striking, ranging from sensual lullabies to strident protest, delivered with a righteous spiritual and political conviction in a muscular voice full of spit and pungency. [Aug 2015, p.78]

Each [track] is assembled like an audio drama, starting with static noises and amusing spoken-word fragments before frequent musical plot changes. [Aug 2015, p.77]

The cartoonish skank of "Too Original" is business as usual, but Peace Is The Mission is often reflective. [Aug 2015, p.76]

Rachel grimes continues to make challenging, tense music. [Aug 2015, p.75]

Glasper steps into the spotlight, less ostentatiously [than Kamasi Washington's The Epic], with a live trio album. [Aug 2015, p.75]

Their tendency to overthink and squeeze every drop of pleasure from their work does them few favors, particularly when they showcase such innovative songcraft on a record like Get To Heaven. [Aug 2015, p.73]

It's indeed a thrilling blast. [Aug 2015, p.72]

Dreamy of atmosphere, and often screwed of tempo. [Aug 2015, p.71]

The Monsanto Years is occasionally rambling, frequently sentimental and sometimes moving. [Aug 2015, p.68]

HudMo has toned down the high contrast and adopted a softer, soul/R&B-pop style. [Jul 2015, p.77]

His vocal lines are often so casually intoned that they mingle imperceptibly with those of his back-up singer Suad Khalifa, over gently pulsing twilight liaisons that yearn to be a little more sophisticated than they actually are. [Jul 2015, p.77]

Wyman and his band soon settle into a series of mid-tempo songs whose predictable arrangements are matched by bland lyrics and a voice that sounds like it would much rather be someplace else. [Jul 2015, p.84]

There's some filler among three hours of material but the instrumentals are staggering, pulsating pieces that breathe life into soul-jazz. [Jul 2015, p.84]

Tightly wound--easygoing but uptight; the work of a man still striving for a modest kind of perfection. And--not for the first time--with Still he has almost achieved it. [Jul 2015, p.65]

The band's second album features a few middling faux-Europop numbers, but the best are real growers. [Jul 2015, p.71]

It's all accessible as the countryside, with a sweeping sense of the arcadian. [Jul 2015, p.76]

Their inspiration occasionally wanes. [Jul 2015, p.81]

Musgraves' willingness to address a life built on knotty contradictions give her songs resonance far beyond Golden's borders. [Jul 2015, p.82]

Fashions change, but Baird's music remains gorgeous, harbouring a kind of still magic without resorting to self-consciously wyrd affectations. [Jul 2015, p.71]

There's both [commitment and respect] in spades on Coming Home, a throwback album that's also blessed with modesty. [Jul 2015, p.74]

There's not much room for originality in the tiny space he stakes out between Petty, Chilton and Westerberg, but thanks to Cumming's easy charm and gift for simple , classic hooks, the likes of "Workin' It Out" and "Total Darkness" feel like old friends. [Jul 2015, p.73]

Its vision of pop is deeply hermetic, caught between quiet pastoral rapture and urban resignation, Cracknell's voice a siren of sweetened melancholy. [Jul 2015, p.73]

Accomplished rather than exciting. [Jul 2015, p.83]

There's a Jekyll and Hyde quality to Wolf Alice's debut that gently reels you in with its gossamer folk pop and lilting indie-pop before it going for the jugular with savage bursts of psycho-grunge guitars. [Jul 2015, p.84]

He's a little too old to be playing the lecherous pick-up merchant on tracks like "Tight Tones;" but the lovesick swing of "The Old Man And The Beer" rather suits him. [Jul 2015, p.83]

On this luminous nine-song LP, Souther adheres to the old adage--leave them wanting more. [Jun 2015, p.81]