These songs have an impressive vehemency, whether showcasing uncanny AI balladry on Soul With Me, industrial wall-of-sound on Speak To Me and People Are Good, electro-pop dissociation on My Favourite Stranger, or hydraulically pumped Brel-drama on Don't Say You Love Me. [May 2023, p.85]

If it wasn’t for a couple of unfortunate lulls and longueurs, the odd dubious creative choice, it could easily look Norman Fucking Rockwell in the eye. [May 2023, p.85}

With many of Paisley's songs dealing with people struggling between places, timeframes or lovers, such unforced, reflective songwriting deftly grounds these unsteady experiences, an arrangement that simply works. [Apr 2023, p.85]

Predictable, perhaps, to mention Torrini's compatriot Bjork. ... Ultimately, though, RTS charts its own path. [Apr 2023, p.91]

There are featureless patches, bits of white-box real-estate that need a little more character, but there's always something intriguing around V's corners. [Apr 2023, p.89]

It’s another uniquely memorable record, encapsulating its creator’s restless spirit. [Apr 2023, p.86]

CookUp highlights Gendel's daring interpretative strengths. [Apr 2023, p.87]

What was initially a singular vision varies intriguingly. ... although ultimately the pick of albums 19 and 20 could have offered something without any filler. [Mar 2023, p.92]

[Bonnie Bloomgarden's] brings formidable, shamanic energy to California Mountain Shake, Magic Powers and Sunday, her untamed vocals on the latter conjuring a young Maria Mckee. [Apr 2023, p.88]

If their creative missteps in the past two decades have generally been caused by their twin determinations to keep up with modern pop and relentlessly pursue music that works in stadia, then here they’ve cut themselves free from all of that. Ultimately, it may be a watershed moment. By stripping it all back down, in some ways, they’re bigger. [Apr 2023, p.84]

Milk For Flowers sound wide awake; gloriously alive. [Apr 2023, p.89]

Occasionally it's dull - but the mood's upbeat where it once was ominous. [Apr 2023, p.83]

Manzanita mostly shimmers obliquely with light and spells. [Apr 2023, p.90]

That's a lot of black power in every sense and edition. And this time, you can get up and dance on the grass all you want. [Apr 2023, p.92]

Inventive, reactive, but hauntingly untethered, there's no doubt UK Grim comes from a very bad place. [Apr 2023, p.85]

There’s something about this mix of scrawling guitars, frank lyricism and brazen dub that is a joyfully empowering inversion of the girl group sound. [Mar 2023, p.87]

It's arguable that Morrison and his smooth, jazzy pards skew a tad too good-natured - more of OG '50s skiffle's rough bite would not have gone amiss. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Thematically, Radical Romantics can be seen as a mellow follow-up to the angrier, gender-politics-driven Plunge. Instead, it celebrates self-exploration. [Apr 2023, p.88]

[Painted From Memory is] a beauty. ... [Taken From Life is] a treasure trove within a set that defines how well collaborations can work. [Apr 2023, p.94]

WOW's melodies and motifs are pretty with a dash of strange. ... But Kate NV remains thrillingly individual. [Apr 2023, p.89]

This is an inspired set that reveals new ways of hearing pop classics. [Mar 2023, p.84]

All and all, a winning, beats-driven combination of the personal and the universal. [Apr 2023, p.82]

If the default mode of these simmering barroom confessionals is a certain existential weariness, they're nonetheless dispatched with substance and soul. [Mar 2023, p.90]

The nonpareil group's best record in exactly a decade. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Her fiercest offering since 1996's landmark The Way I Should, and a long overdue follow-up to that album's righteous ire. [Apr 2023, p.83]

These 10 tracks showcase Brewis's beautifully expressive singing and, in the waltz-time jazz of Start Over, deep empathy. [Mar 2023, p.91]

This is no holding exercise. Instead, think beautifully conceived curio. [Apr 2023, p.85]

Tracks such as the thunderous Six-Pack or The Fall Of Paul might clang with dissonant noise or pinball off into a riot of machine gun rhythms, but it's generally not at the expense of songs that a festival crowd could bellow back at them. [Apr 2023, p.83]