An album of beautiful songs that sound like something you might get from an unusually upbeat Leonard Cohen. [Nov 2024, p.43]

Despite the obvious threads, songs as good as “Nullspace” and “Soonish” transcend any cynicism, and you’re left bathing in a welcome optimism. [Dec 2024, p.35]

It is difficult to argue, however, that the second batch of Pixies records have been as thick on quality. It’s a trend that The Night The Zombies Came does little to buck – though the spectacular surf-psychedelia of “Motoroller” could have made Bossanova, and the glorious thrash of “Oyster Beds” snuck onto Trompe Le Monde. [Dec 2024, p.37]

There are writing collaborations with the likes of the Chemical Brothers on the beautifully woozy and remarkably tender “Ballad (The End)”, which further serves to hit home the increasing breadth, scope and versatility Owens possesses in her far-reaching electronic compositions. [Nov 2024, p.41]

A record that pivots around like the Minutemen; delivered with a verve that comes with a clarity of identity. [Dec 2024, p.36]

Sitting somewhere between alt.rock, indie-pop and a singer-songwriter album, it’s a neat balancing act that feels personal and intimate yet also sonically ambitious. [Dec 2024, p.37]

Bleed is more about wayward drift than some of The Necks’s most-loved albums, like 1999’s Hanging Gardens, but there’s tenderness in its seeming austerity, and beauty in its chill. [Nov 2024, p.40]

Loaded with guests, from Slash to Tom Morello, it’s no-frills hard rock which, while occasionally a little dated and clichéd, still has plenty of fizz to it. [Nov 2024, p.40]

The likes of “D&T”, “Alice” and the cheekily titled “A Gaslight Anthem” are destined to inspire sessions of air-punching by anyone who still believes a life might be saved by three chords, the truth and a glass of the good stuff. [Nov 2024, p.37]

While Songs Of A Lost World is not as angry as Pornography or as claustrophobic as Disintegration, it instead possesses an immersive, graceful beauty and more energy than you might expect. [Dec 2024, p.113]

Seun Kuti leaves no doubt as to who wears the crown on six songs that exude enormous confidence. [Oct 2024, p.37]

While nowadays one might be tempted instead to call this ‘post-jazz’. Nonetheless, perhaps the best way to think of Butterss’ work is as simply ‘jazz plus’. It’s suitably inclusive and ultimately most reflective of her sweeping ambitions. [Nov 2024, p.32]

With synths foregrounded for their texture and percussion a feature, they’ve shifted orientation without losing their identity. [Nov 2024, p.34]

The darkness of his vision remains unmatched. [Oct 2024, p.36]

While the songs sometimes get swallowed up in the maelstrom, Ackermann’s unit proves more than capable of manifesting a sort of grotty malevolence rarely heard since Killing Joke’s imperial phase. [Nov 2024, p.41]

Frequently offers moments of joy. A wider range of live musicians – harp, clarinet, violin, vocal ensemble – give songs like “Collect Color” and “Big Dipper” room to breathe and lend sparser, more electronic-based tracks like “Violetlight” and “Heartwood” a sense of intimacy by comparison. [Nov 2024, p.37]

It’s material that’s fascinating just as much for what it tells us about pop culture as it does Lou Reed, from a time where pop and rock hadn’t become overly codified and nobody exactly knew what music teenagers would fall for. [Nov 2024, p.55]

Tracks like “Our Hometown Boy” and “Chrome Mess” stand out, all high-chiming happy-sad harmonies and fuzzed-up bubblegum psych-pop jangle, but a richly flavoured, wonky-fringed, charmingly sloppy-slouchy mood shapes the whole album. [Nov 2024, p.37]

Combines Richard’s quietly soulful voice with sparse soundscapes in even more affecting style. [Nov 2024, p.41]

Doubling down on the Deadhead-to-Lagos sound of “Frisco Beaver” may mean fewer surprises but the band’s loyal herd will no doubt savour the greater prominence of keyboard-driven freakouts and the greater fullness of grooves like the one that powers the mighty “Ouroboros”. [Nov 2024, p.36]

Their first LP is an imaginative amalgam of electronic pop, avant noise, psych-folk, freeform jazz and kosmische on a panoramic scale, which both delights and surprises. [Oct 2024, p.37]

So full of imagination and life-enhancing radiance that you could wallow in their fragrance all day. [Nov 2024, p.43]

This companion volume of archives gives us an opportunity to hear the roads not taken, the hesitations, to feel the jeopardy at each artistic crossroads and experience the risk and wonder of the journey anew. Across seven hours, six discs and 98 tracks, this is an astonishing bounty. [Nov 2024, p.44]

The band shift tempos and settings constantly, veering into the space rock of Tangerine Dream and the kosmische jams of Can. In these juxtapositions between styles, Blood Incantation find an operatic drama as big as all outer space. [Oct 2024, p.33]

He writes evocatively about his home state of Texas, which lends these songs a vivid backdrop. [Nov 2024, p.31]

With the band showing no loss of force or focus, the latest is another essential if discomfiting listen. [Nov 2024, p.36]

Honey finds Snaith embrace sampling and AI vocal processing to refine a sound that pops with possibility. [Nov 2024, p.34]

The outpouring of creativity is exciting: but where this clearing-out of the songwriting archives leaves The Smile now is anyone’s guess.