What remarkable about the Roxy recordings, though, is the focus an power of the Santa Monica Flyers. ... The live performances a few days later are more robust, without diminishing the wired ambience. [Jun 2018, p.103]

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]

As complex, compelling, and at times unsettling a record as Cale has unleashed since 1982's Music For A New Society. [Oct 2003, p.105]

A collaboration where each sulphurous element perfectly complements the others. [Jan 2022, p.90]

Every inch of tape had emotional or melodic purpose. [Nov 2011, p.109]

While production high jinks threaten to override shapeshifting songs like Neon and Angst, the delicate balance between Ellery's lithe effectual voice and Skye's layered abstractions continues to confound expectations in singular skew-whiff fashion. [Oct 2022, p.89]

Choosing favourites is almost futile with so much scintillating brilliance on offer.

Behind the parachute silk and dry ice, the smoke and mirrors, stands a record in high emotional definition, its outline becoming sharper by the second. [Nov 2019, p.92]

A bold sequel whose charms unravel further with each listen. [Oct 2022, p.84]

[The 50 outtakes] are not fore the casual listener.... The big find is the rambunctious Mardi Gras party-style I Shall Sing, a small 1974 hit for Art Garfunkel but never released by Morrison until now; Van unsurprisingly give the tune a more soulful treatment. [Nov 2013, p.98]

Even if purists find the whole baroque confection too much, they will have to admit there's never been a record quite like this. [May 2015, p.99]

[The remix disc] does a decent job of contextualising Leftism's legacy. But it's the originals that still burn with rare incandescence. [Jun 2017, p.100]

The likes of Strange Quiet, wit its pretty, pointillist synths and wobbly drones, the stately crystal guitar-flecked Capsule, or the tremulous, opalescent Under The Moon, serve to deepen the original album's strange, wonderstruct mood. [Aug 2019, p.108]

At times it's all too much, but Christinzio knows how to burn without crashing. [May 2020, p.88]

Haunted and intimate, Balfe's deep brogue ultimately salvages hope from the wreckage. [May 2021, p.83]

Packed with urgency, edge and scope, it's light years ahead of the competition. [Apr 2022, p.89]

Melusine retains the intellectual curiosity of Salvant's jittery, questing catalogue. [May 2023, p.86]

Black Bayou is surely the album Finley was put on Earth to create, filled with stories only he could tell. [Dec 2023, p.82]

Linderman's triumph is more sophisticated than a simple contrast. The Ravishing music is studded with jazz details - the impressionistic gusts of saxophone and flute; Linderman's own clangorous guitar overdubs - that add a neurotic edge to the proceedings. The words, meanwhile, luxuriate in the prettiness of our world. [Mar 2021, p.80]

Fed is something of a lost classic. [Sep 2008, p.123]

Valerie June's siren-like vocal delivery [is] both beautiful and tempting. [Apr 2017, p.98]

Chris is an imposing structure, one likely to dominate 2018's skyline. There are, however, still heights left to hit. [Oct 2018, p.89]

With its measured banjo pecks and perfect shadow bv's, courtesy of rising Southern rock talent MJ Lenderman, Right Back to It's simple classicism seem to explore over sensitivity, while Crowbar, possessed of a lovely, Peter Buck-ish jangle, also stands out. [Apr 2024, p.91]

A sensitive, sure-footed triumph. [Jan 2017, p.99]

Tender dream-pop which is simulataneously familiar and novel. [Aug 2004, p.96]

Mvula is a gifted arranger with a distinctive cri de coeur, and this is where she soars. [Aug 2021, p.83]

All credit to Knowles, though, whose vision is so cohesive that the 19 short tracks feel like one long, utterly immersive piece. [Jun 2019, p.86]

It's a hyper-vivid and intensely musical affair that takes us deep inside Apple's skittish, fretful mind. [Jul 2012, p.82]