They stew in the rich absurdity of it all, and offer a collection that rings of the band’s tendency toward Southern-gothic neo-noir, but with frequent punctuations of light. [July 2022, p.32]

Raggedly glorious covers of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” and Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up” rate as major highlights along with the live debut of Tattoo You’s “Worried About You” and a blistering take on “Hot Stuff” that amply demonstrates the liberating effects of the band’s temporary escape from baseball stadiums and hippodromes. [Jul 2022, p.44]

The album is a deeply textural listen, led by Leaneagh’s impressive voice. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Her sixth, co-produced by Jonathan Wilson, executes no radical stylistic swerve but neither are its 10 songs of a single type. Rather, they’re a balancing of country – here are echoes of Tammy, Emmylou and Lee Hazlewood – and torch song (kd lang, Roy Orbison), with the odd flourish of cocktail-lounge melancholy (a la Badalamenti) and classic, MGM-style orchestrations. [Jul 2022, p.28]

There’s a new sense of maturity, even kindness, starting with “More Power”, a song of odd, regretful sentiments, reputedly addressed to Noel and full of family references. ... Songs mostly remain Frankenstein stitch-ups, though: Jeff Lynne’s softly simulated psychon the Threetles’ “Real Love” seems the production template, when not mixed for terrace power, minus tunes. [Jun 2022, p.26]

Cruel Country is the rare album that throws everything that came before it into sharp relief – a small miracle for a band 30 years into its run. [Jul 2022, p.22]

It’s a little stiff and metronomic in places, working more as a calling card to Hollywood than a standalone album. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Past Life Regression is a perfect distillation of Quever’s aesthetic – 10 hook-filled tracks that bring to mind vintage Paisley Underground excursions, Barrett-era Floyd and jangly C86 moods. [Jul 2022, p.31]

As thrilling as it is unexpected. [Jul 2022, p.30]

Vincent Belorgey’s obsession with buffed-up synths and corny lyrics earnestly sung (“Reborn” by Romuald, “Renegade” by Cautious Clay) does pay off, but the air-tight production and endless cascade of saccharine arpeggios – plus a lovesick Sébastien Tellier pining on “Goodbye” – lays on thick the sentimental shtick. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Feels more like a refreshment, refinement or even fulfilment of Radiohead core principals, rather than an extracurricular dalliance. [Jul 2022, p.24]

Closer "Underdog", a stripped-back self-portrait of a striver still "trying hard [to] leave a mark", provides an intimate coda to Harwood's depiction of his teeming inner world, a hermetically sealed ocean of emotion. [Jul 2022, p.27]

The result, unsurprisingly, is a downbeat, ruminative affair. [Jul 2022, p.31]

An album that feels charged by forward momentum while also embracing the comforting pulse of a locked groove. [Jul 2022, p.31]

A reflection on memory and transience amid which his deadpan drawl is frequently draped in incongruous but effective orchestral splendour, while Finn’s character sketches are as deft as ever. [Jun 2022, p.26]

The 76-year-old virtuoso is at his most poignantly expressive on the album's inward-turned, stripped-back blues ballads. [Jul 2022, p.34]

Backed by a 15-piece band plus horn section, they delivered a spirited set of classic blues, R&B and gospel that concluded with “The Weight”, which Staples and Helm had first performed together at The Last Waltz in 1976 at the start of their 35-year friendship. [Jun 2022, p.33]

While the tempo and patterns vary, with “I” featuring Christer Bothén on the six-string donso n’goni, the vibe is pleasingly uniform, with a boundless feel akin to Neu!’s “Hallogallo”. [Jun 2022, p.23]

With This Is A Photograph, he offers the wisest and most assured rendering of the Middle American vision he’s been honing of late, one where Dylan-esque anti-singing narrates impassioned, earnest and earthen tales of family, place, love and heroes, and a crack band shakes the rafters. [Jun 2022, p.32]

A “Time Of The Season”-like Latin groove powers standout “It Ain’t Over”, syncopated by percussionist Sam Bacco, whose tambourine and shakers are the album’s secret sauce. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Taken on their own merits, Royce Hall and Dorothy Chandler are prime examples of Young in early ’71 … but maybe we can move on to other territory now? [Jun 2022, p.43]

This is their best set of songs since the band’s sex-crazed 2004 debut, continuing some of the debt-to-the-’80s feel of 2014’s Get Back on homage-paying tracks like “Nikki Go Sudden” and “Swollen Maps”. [Jun 2022, p.31]

It’s an affirmation of their relationship and personal and creative identities in an(other) electronic-soul set with muted beats and a meditative, rather than impassioned bent, though no less righteous for that. [Jun 2022, p.29]

It’s a unique performance, with a wealth of rarely played material. ... The Bottom Line bootleg was the kind of listening experience that turned casual fans into obsessives. Now remastered and officially part of Neil’s ongoing saga, its seductive power remains undimmed. [Jun 2022, p.43]

Dorothy Chandler is the one to get; the 8+-minute “Sugar Mountain”, with numerous spoken-word digressions, is Neil at his most hilariously droll. [Jun 2022, p.43]

We’ve Been Going... is above all an incredible sounding record. Across its 10 tracks, it incorporates the Jupiter synths and saturnine beats of Remind Me Tomorrow and the stark, swooning strum of her early records to create truly a cosmic dynamic range, from the softest whisper to the most desolate scream. [Jun 2022, p.18]

Far from a series of intimidatingly empty spaces, Endless Rooms is more like RBCF’s shared mind palace, a place rich with experiences and emotion in which they’re stretching their creative legs, throwing open door after door and rushing eagerly through, to play. [Jun 2022, p.22]

While these dozen faithfully and fabulously Soft Cell-ish songs do not stint on paranoid foreboding, they are buoyed by an undimmed pop instinct and Almond’s waspish wit. [Apr 2022, p.35]