Heavy though it is, the songwriting remains remarkably light and agile. [Mar 2024, p.88]

A mesmerising return. [Mar 2024, p.90]

For all its filigree detail, Spring Eternal is a big philosophically questing record, a velvet glove hiding a death-like grip. [Mar 2024, p.90]

For all the heartache, Blu Wav is surprisingly uplifting, transcendent, even.[Feb 2024, p.85]

There are 808s and sensory synths galore, but it's the powerful message and those voices - tough soulful leads and contrastingly sweet gospel harmonies - that hold sway here. [Mar 2024, p.87]

Allied to keening, reedy vocals and sophisticated hooks, these songs deliver a truly impressive debut. [Mar 2024, p.88]

It's over in a flash, an exhilarating fairground ride you won't want to disembark. [Mar 2024, p.88]

Its aim is true, uplifting and yes, mighty persuasive. [Mar 2024, p.80]

The works-in-progress disc of this handsome reissue package gives an even starker impression of a man rummaging joyfully through the studio toy box, now slapping down an instinctively lively drum beat, now jumping on a synth he’s only just plugged in, and rolling with it.

Her ability to dominate a room with minimal musical movement is astonishing; this record lowers the temperature, heightens the sense, slows down life, frame by frame. [Mar 2024, p.85]

She's still drawn to the edges like a death's-head moth to an inferno, but once you are in Wolfe's distinctive headspace, it's easy to believe they are her comfort zone, and maybe even yours. [Mar 2025, p.85]

Rendered with a delicate, impressionistic touch, Phasor's dreamlike entreaties cut far deeper than predecessor Far In's lockdown ruminations. [Mar 2024, p.90]

What Now is no less discursive, plundering so many styles that it might instead be called What Next. But working with co-producer Shawn Everett in a series of top-tier Nashville hubs, Howard makes it cohere not only through the prayer bowls that clang and drone between tracks but also through the way she captures the wild vacillations of falling in and out of something that’s possibly good and potentially terrible. [Mar 2024, p.84]

But, for all the technical proficiency, there's a sense of nobody ushing themselves too hard. [Mar 2024, p.91]

Tapir!'s considerable world-building skills impress, even if seven-minute closer Mountain Song seems a little directionless. [Feb 2024, p.88]

[Producer Daniel Boyle] strikes a crisp specious groove somewhere between dubstep and '90s digi-dub, for Perry to voice croakily alongside co-vocalists. [Mar 2024, p.82]

There's a full band, a string section Swarmatron and brass. Reassuringly, the songs are strong enough to carry the new load. [Mar 2024, p.85]

It's an LP of insight and empathy. [Mar 2024, p.82]

It may make for a rollercoaster musical ride, but it's utterly thrilling. [Mar 2024, p.88]

After the initial shock, the pair's songwriting smarts cuts through persuasively, alongside strong messaging about acknowledging your needs and vulnerabilities. [Feb 2024, p.88]

This double LP has sonic coherence across 65 minutes of taut, sinewy but ever-unpredictable compositions, with a subtly altered sound palette. [Feb 2024, p.86]

Rhys’s melodies stay with you, and his wordplay is as pleasingly idiosyncratic as ever. [Feb 2024, p.89]

The resulting sound is high-contrast, with graceful melodic resolutions, slippery pitch-bends and experiments with form. Curios that hit at once, but can also withstand lengthy unravelling. [Mar 2024, p.91]

Lurching guitar, chiming piano and stabs of overdubbed choral harmony are combined with vocals that swing from sweetly intimate to dry and flippant. [Mar 2024, p.89]

There's no doubt Mackenzie Scott never stops moving here, switching between gothic sway, grungy stomp and electro-pop gyration, but it can make it hard to catch her eye in a meaningful way. [Mar 2024, p.86]

Green Day are admirably assured, honest, and funny on Saviors. [Mar 2024, p.82]

Beneath the Day-Glo surface, Chemtrails rage away. [Jan 2024, p.89]

New ground is not broken, but happily, neither are they. [Jan 2024, p.86]