Muted, syncopated beats, ghostly pedal steel and icy Solina string machine conspire to create the effect of a slow-motion scene: unwanted debris blowing away in the wind, with our stronger and more resolved singer standing at the centre of the wreckage. Even amid the ashes of her past, it seems, Margo Price keeps burning ever more brightly. [Feb 2023, p.80]

Highly seductive and pulsates with youthful energy. [Mar 2023, p.88]

Strong Stones in the '80s vibes set the tone. [May 2023, p.95]

[Ben Gregory's] emergence from psychiatric treatment to go solo has restored ambition, engineering a starling psychodrama, both spiritual and musical. [Jun 2023, p.87]

The cumulative effect is lulling and hypnotic. [Jun 2023, p.89]

A delightful album. [Apr 2023, p.82]

Villagers lives in its own hermetic and compelling space; it's not too late to pay a visit. [Jul 2023, p.84]

A furiously funky soundtrack to impending doom. [Aug 2023, p.85]

As The Murlocs wave their freak-flag high, the party raves on via the taut Southern rock riffage of Common Sense Civilian and Russian Roulette's rogue Farfisa. [Aug 2023, p.78]

Stylistic touchstones veer toward the William Blake's 7 weird of Julia Holter, Henry Cow and Julie Tippetts' prog-jazz outlier Sunset Glow. Incomprehensible/irresistible. [Sep 2023, p.87]

Expansive, restless, subtly volatile, Radio red is intriguing enough to keep it locked. [Sep 2023, p.84]

A slinky, soulful, witty, mid-paced affair. [Oct 2023, p.81]

The story arc LeBlanc has stitched into the songs never get in the way of sheer enjoyment of the tunes he's created. Grand concepts are a tricky move for any artist, but LaBlanc pulls it off with plomb. [Dec 2023, p.91]

If life's what you make it, here Anderson makes it sound very beautiful indeed. [Dec 2023, p.92]

From top to bottom, what a joy it is. [Jan 2024, p.88]

Nau isn't especially original, but he is especially beguiling. These are songs to luxuriate in. [Feb 2024, p.89]

This cool and stylish record should make the jazz best-of-year lists. [Apr 2024, p.90]

The songwriting's uniformly exceptional, the messaging on-the-nose and inspiring - and boy, can he still play guitar. [Apr 2024, p.82]

Love In Constant Spectacle is watchful rather than showy, its songs not boxing up one simple mood at a time but sitting with their uncertainty. Nuance might be going out of fashion in the world outside, but in here, Weaver speaks it fluently. [May 2024, p.83]

While his mentor and grandfather RL's original form was violent and nihilist, Burnside's is just as fierce. [May 2024, p.88]

What might be their best yet. All the various elements of Joe's songs are here. [May 2024, p.88]

Y'Y shows his fluid piano technique - a hard to quantify mix of Monk, Ibrahim, Corea and Shipp - let loose on looping patterns that trace ever more surprising arcs and mood variations. [Jun 2024, p.88]

Every song on Two Dancers reflects the meticulous intelligence of master stylists. [Sep 2009, p.90]

Heal's molten flow of grandiloquent '70s rock and '80s electronica is unstoppable. [Jul 2014, p.88]

With Memories Are Now, she understands exactly when to use the bridle and bit on these wild, wise songs. [Mar 2017, p.98]

Never sounds less than game. [Nov 2021, p.87]

The more chances Tears For Fears take, the more they thrive, and they take chances here: seems like a new album was a good idea after all. [Apr 2022, p.88]

Much of Everything Was Beautiful has a vital, thundering pulse. ... Utterly beautiful, as advertised. [Mar 2022, p.80]

Live In Paris is a pure window into the troubled soul of the mid-2010s Tuareg. [Jan 2016, p.92]

This time there's noticeably less fuzz and extraneous squall piled on top. [Feb 2004, p.92]

FLOTUS is highly processed, highly textured--and yet for the most part, it sounds surprisingly natural and unforced. [Dec 2016, p.86]

This is the most uncompromising album of the year. [Oct 2014, p.96]

At each stop on the tube map, much yobbo-chorus fun ensues. [Jan 2021, p.86]

A work of transcendent pop beauty that finally explains the idea of "ekstasis" by leaving the listener beside themselves, in a state of rapturous joy. [Apr 2012, p.91]

Those attuned to the harsh aspects of existence, who despair at the forces shaping the world, won't find any answers as such, but Angels & Devils' blend of fever dreams and corporeal nightmare articulates the confusion beautifully and brutally. [Sep 2014, p.86]

The results isn't just his best album post-Sonic Youth, but some of the best music he's ever released. [Oct 2020, p.90]

Furling expands the sonic palette, bringing in piano, percussion, harp, vibraphone and more. The results bring new dimensions to her psychedelic folk. [Feb 2023, p.92]

Through the hypnotic, J Dilla produced Love to the ghostly Incense, the short skit You Loving Me to the skittish jazz of Agitation, it's the sound of an artist in full, uncensored flow. [June 2010, p. 93]

He and Lucille are still as one and the guitar licks come exquisite and often. [Nov 2008, p.119]

Essential listening for serious-low-life connoisseurs. [May 2012, p.101]

The Allstars have that same dynamism plus a similarly brutal rhythm section, which sounds like a billion wasps playing Sister Ray in your brain, but they have found some missing ingredients, such as melody and variation. [Sep 2008, p.112]

It's all so sad, and surrounded by 80-plus minutes of restless, questing uncertainty. [Nov 2018, p.90]

Sinner Get Ready spotlights the itinerant Californian's magnetic vocals by removing harsh textures, reflecting her move to rural Pennsylvania with a majestic palette of choral polyphony, crashing percussion and traditional porch and church sounds. [Sep 2021, p.86]

He sounds shyer and less relaxed at the onset than on the 1968 archive At Canterbury House. [Jan 2014, p.112]

I've Been Trying to Tell You works wonderfully on many levels. Those harsh first impressions give way to something altogether more beautiful. [Oct 2021, p.94]

Following the creative upswing of 2012's Silver Age and 2014's Beauty & Ruin, this is definitive work. [Apr 2016, p.87]

The delivery is folk emo. [Dec 2017, p.92]

[Cryptic, allusive, impressionistic, The Bible needs its own concordance at times. Yet, after three decades on a quest to close in on the mysteries of being human, Wagner's perceptive edge hasn't blunted. [Oct 2022, p.83]

Her sultry rasp--think Nancy Sinatra meets Bettye Lavette--delivers disquieting, brooding self-penned originals over warped, folk-tinged, electric blues. [Sep 2003, p.110]

It's among the best albums ever made. [Nov 2002, p.92]

Here, his eloquent trumpet is framed by musical backdrops that range from noir-esque alt-rock to ambient soundscapes and jittery hip-hop beats. [Feb 2018, p.93]

Progressive conceptual art, underpinned with profound personal resonances. [Jan 2024, p.87[

A melancholic late-night album, then, but one that really sounds beautiful. [Mar 2014, p.91]

Its uvowedly less manic, but uknowhatimsayin¿ still cuts deep. [Nov 2019, p.93]

A more sophisticated Harry Nilsson-like groove, but still keeping those Music City roots. [Jun 2017, p.95]

At once spooky and playful, romantic and angry. [Sep 2015, p.89]

[The term techno] seems inadequate for the magnificent noise emanating from Clark. [Dec 2014, p.96]

This debut long-player has been greatly anticipated, and does not disappoint. Skating an agreeably fine line between conscious dancehall and complex nu-roots, Chronixx delivers 15 deeply personal explorations of Jamaica and the challenges it faces.

They return forever changed to confidently shape a form of country music that is entirely of their own character. [Jul 2022, p.87]

Thirteen years after they retired Swans return with thunderous tour de force. [Oct. 2010, p. 104]

Hinterland feels less like the spirit of the dance floor and much more like the crush of a weaponed march. [May 2015, p.98]

Thoughtfulness never rocked so hard. [Mar 2017, p.96]

A poignant reminder of a talent that may have gone forever. [Mar 2018, p.102]

The warm glow that they engender is palpable, but you do wonder what may happen if The Field broke free from the constraints of the loop. [Jan 2012, p.99]

Jazz albums don't come much better. [May 2009, p.101]

The result is intelligent pop infested with tense, subterranean melodies. [Jan 2012, p.91]

One of the albums of the year. [Dec 2006, p.120]

Look Now bounces with unforced, uncluttered and cleverly fleshed vivacity, every song a cherishable gem. [Nov 2018, p.86]

[Navita] charts her course through destruction, indifference and the city sounds: doo wop, Lou Reed-y R&R, even indie rock. It's not until she stares clear-eyed at those closest to her that the way is clear: she's to honor her Latin and Caribbean roots in story and sound. [Apr 2017, p.96]

A reverberant, high-octane treatise on the transcendent power of love and loud music. [Dec 2018, p.94]

Cue more mariachi mystery carefully balanced on John Convertino and Joey Burn's tenth studio LP. [May 2022, p.90]

Ultimately, this album stands in euphoric, unrepentant denial of its own title. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Throughout, Bryant's vocal is rich and full on songs that are framed in exclamatory horns and soothing organ. [Jun 2017, p.92]

The constantly shape-shifting and explosive dynamics of this brutal yet accessible blaze of glory are borne from a collaboration that's instinctive, primal and alchemical, effortlessly outclassing the competition. [Apr 2019, p.88]

This soaring album defines emotional shoegazing. [Dec 2009, p. 101]

Timeless and joyful. [Jul 2022, p.96]

This album engages out minds while it explores, but as it raises questions, it still comforts. [Sep 2019, p.92]

A focused tour de force. [Oct 2006, p.100]

More cohesive, languid and countrified [than Floaters and October Song]. [Sep 2021, p.83]

A suite of songs that are more reflective than self-pitying, and unlike her last, beats-free album, often grounded by solid grooves that allow her bewitching melodies to soar. [May 2024, p.85]

Tempest is Dylan's best musical album of this century, a vibrant maximising of strict rules and the savaged-leather state of that voice. [Oct 2012, p.84]

In just any universe, Playing Favorites would dominate the world's FM stations for two years straight. [Apr 2024, p.84]

In truth, despite Diana Krall as producre and accompanist, this is hardly jazz. Instead, it's another nigh faultless array of ballads, immaculately dressed by arranger Johnny Mandel (a deluxe edition has backings by Krall's quartet.0 [Dec 2009, p. 92]

Well-served by the sparse guitar-and-vocal arrangements and intimate, reverb-y ambience. [Oct 2020, p.84]

Shauf paints an endearing sketch of his house party's many moods. [Jun 2016, p.97]

His piano-playing is a joy, his vocals a dramatis personae of lively characters. ... The whole thing feels--thrillingly, poignantly--like you're in the room with him. [Oct 2018, p.84]

While Blunderbuss appears to be definite off-loading of emotional baggage, it also feels like a move toward rebirth. [May 2012, p.80]

Thrilling collective racket. [Dec 2022, p.90]

Engaging, inventive and emotionally charged. [Nov 2005, p.96]

Stimulating, entertaining and moving. You'll listen to it more than you have Anthology, I promise. [Dec 2006, p.100]

Quite literally, a dream album. [Nov 2012, p.88]

Tucker has created an album that should endear her to those who still raise the outlaw flag while also appealing to hard-edged pop-tinged rock believers. [Oct 2019, p.83]

They lurch between plaid-smothered unresolved chords and frontwoman Sadie Dupuis's verbose story-telling, delivered deadpan a la early Liz Phair. [May 2015, p.95]

A more tasteful affair [than Leave Home], tapping into the 1980s underground's collegiate, powerpop end... plus straight-ahead rock-n-roll holler. [May 2012, p.82]

This album is barefaced '90s revivalism. [Mar 2012, p.97]

A more charming and seductive album you're unlikely to hear this year. [Nov 2008, p.116]

Migraines possible; good chance of transcendence, too. [Apr 2020, p.96]

Four albums in 18 months might induce a malaise within lesser bands, but King Gizzard's current purple patch peaks here. [Jun 2016, p.96]