Part II is an altogether more personal and laidback affair, concerned with romance and emotions.

Energy, desire and that indefinable cool that any great rock band must have burst from every angle. This album feels like a celebration, and Sheer Mag sure deserve one.

The TNGHT EP packs five explosive instrumental hip-hop tracks, every one dripping with each producer's trademark sonic flourishes.

It’s a high-quality project, but we lost Mac way too soon, and that’s hard to accept. So while it’s hard to listen to him talking about self-deterioration and how he spends far too much time in his own head, it’s a privilege to hear him share his inner most thoughts over a bed of sweeping, inventive sonics. This is the album Mac Miller was born to make.

July is a career high.

Where his previous projects felt sprawling, ’uknowhatimsayin¿’ succeeds in feeling compact while delivering a powerful project that is expertly produced and concisely executed.

This isn’t merely a record by a good band. This is a record by an important one that is now teetering on the edge of greatness.

When the album proper kicks in with ‘Totally Fine’, it’s clear that PUP are still trading in the same brutally pissed off but unassailably catchy blasts of self-loathing. And, yes, it’s still as much fun as ever.

If the best country music has always been about storytelling, then on ‘Cruel Country’ Wilco are delivering it in its purest form.

Swans' bleakness is beset with great beauty, black wings to another world.

Tracks like 'Mortar Remembers You' convey the bleakness of the situation ("I had to build a room to contain all the panic"), but Campbell's voice and the persistent whirling synths infuse the desolation with compelling energy.

It's expansively, ecstatically excellent for many of the same reasons as The Field's previous two: blissful, loop-based hymns at the intersection between shoegazing, trance and minimal techno.

‘Harry’s House’ is undoubtedly Styles’ best record yet and presents a musician comfortable and confident in what he wants to create right now.

All in all, this is merely promising rather than masterful. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]

Their jaunty Americana morphs from something lovely into something utterly essential.

There’s almost something for everyone on Dose Your Dreams, and, thankfully, that eclectic aspect to Fucked Up’s most ambitious project yet means it leans more towards opus than hopeless.

Tracks like 'Torture' borrow far too liberally from A$AP Rocky's cloud-rap aesthetic to be considered original. But otherwise, Old is a perfect example of why 2013 is a very exciting time for hip-hop.

The impressive ‘3.15.20’ [is] well worth the wait.

Konnichiwa is a landmark in British street music, a record good enough to take on the world without having to compromise one inch in the process.

When icy guitar turns ‘Pay My Debts’ into one of Van Etten’s darkest songs yet, Van Etten’s wounds feel incredibly raw.

Tempest is a relentless exploration of bleakness.

These are some of the most interesting and sonically varied songs of her entire career.

If ‘All Mirrors’ took you to a lavish, creaky ballroom, then ‘Whole New Mess’ tucks you away in the cupboard under the stairs, the door slammed tightly shut.

This is the side of Jack White III he's happy to show the world right now, and it's absolutely fascinating to behold.

Sounds as if it were recorded on one perfectly wasted afternoon. [22 Oct 2005, p.43]

Bass, horns, strings, organ and choir provide the backbone, and when Whitney allow themselves to kick it up a gear and really let rip, as on ‘Golden Days’ (with its cathartic “Na na na” outro) or the George Harrison-meets-The Band magnificence of ‘Dave’s Song’, they’re untouchable.

The resulting remixes and medleys, as heard on equipment that probably costs more than your house at Abbey Road, could make you weep with joy. It may not sound as good on a common-or-garden stereo, but you'll still mist up a bit.

Ultimately, this album is the sound of the future.

This urgent and important record will ensure the veterans don’t get lost in the shuffle.

It’s lyrically dark and has the musical aggression to back it up.

Open Your Heart is breezier and more tuneful than its predecessor, but this is very relative.

Skeleton's only real weak spot: moments of genuinely inventive instrumentation and musical ambition are in abundance here, but somehow the songs feel less than the sum of their parts.

It can be a taxing eardrum workout--its beefed-up guitar work (from Walker, Stu Mackenzie and Cook Craig) and jackhammer rhythms (drumming duo Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore) barely let up. But it’s also loads of fun.

The best moments of the album come when the band get candid about their hardest experiences, all the while leaning into the driving, raw rock sound they were known for.

Saturn is full of beautiful, intricately unique songs that could never be imitated.

There are far too many children’s voices, snatches of birdsong, glissandi of saccharine strings, and always the half-heard, half-sensed thwack of Frisbee upon social media manager.

It's every ounce of Idlewild's potential fulfilled at once.

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is undoubtedly a good record. It's just that in the Beasties' case, merely being good doesn't seem, well, y'know, good enough.

These songs contain the record's protest element as well as its exemplary musicality: heartbreaking soul choruses, classical samples and '80s rocksteady rhythms.

If White Men really recalls anything, it’s those early TV On The Radio records made before Dave Sitek had figured out what he was doing--and you can take that as a sincere compliment.

On ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’, the magic is in the way that the music moves: the songs are radiant and full of joy, formed from the synergy of two relentlessly creative minds. The album glows with appreciation for the simple but irreplaceable power of working alongside someone you trust and respect like no other — and it sounds as effortless and rewarding as an old friendship.

Although inescapably discomfiting, the music’s complex textures keep the listener snared.

For the most part, Rodrigo has passed the bar she set on that single [‘drivers license’], sharing with us an almost-masterpiece that’s equal parts confident, cool and exhilaratingly real. This is no flash-in-the-pan artist, but one we’ll be living with for years to come.

If all you can see is a tangle of influences then you're standing too close to the picture, and when Skying's visions come into focus, it not only reaffirms that Primary Colours was far from a fluke, but that they could go so much further.

‘As The Love Continues’ is an album that opens impressively but falls short at times during its second half.

Though occasionally too florid, this bass cat’s on the path to majesty.

This is an album to fall in love to, to break up to, to drown sorrows to, or to bounce around to. One-hit wonders? Well, the wonders part is right.

Burial’s success has brought with it imitators, but with this EP he’s outwitted them all by introducing a gloriously widened palate to his music that is both instantly familiar and shockingly unlikely.

Pusha T has managed to elevate his art to new heights, signalling that the artist is nowhere close to being done. Despite being longer than ‘Daytona’, there is succinct preciseness to ‘It’s Almost Dry’ with Pusha’s lyricism, in particular, never left wanting. Alongside the outstanding production, it makes for an instant hip-hop classic.

Eye Contact is a piercing glimpse into an imagined Utopia of infinite possibility, as if they've focused their years of digital psychedelic jamming into a single beam, and fired it beyond a horizon peered at in vain by their peers.

It’s unhinged, but poetic, assured, direct and deviously loveable.

Somehow they’ve retained their pop nous, making for an album that’s unique, but maddeningly all over the place.

Moments of beauty cut through the bleakness.

The devil be praised that, rather than visiting the shrink or brothel to deal with his sexual dysfunction, the Grinderman went to the studio instead.

Despite the rock, you can still dance to it. [Review of U.S. version]

A real-life pop record. Well, not pop in the Girls Aloud sense of the word obviously, more in the drop-dead, fuzz-box brilliant 'Here Comes Your Man' sense. [10 Jul 2004, p.48]

It's genuinely surprising, beautifully wrought and announces TNP as one of the most powerful artistic forces in Britain today.

The result is a soothing, slow-burning collection which reflects on times and friends gone by.

Even if ‘Painless’ occasionally settles into a consistent, thudding groove at times, when Yanya goes full pelt, she’s at her very best.

The simple fact she's intent on change makes her and the rest of her career infinitely more intriguing.

A striking funereal stomp, considering its bleak subject matter, it really shouldn't be quite as sensationally sexy as it is.

It's an unassumingly great record that exists solely to celebrate the pleasures of making a gigantic, melodious racket.

A clearly adult, unfashionably sensitive document, all grace and understatement, experimental through what it leaves out, and the effects it plants in the background.

The band dub these 2022 sets as works-in-progress, and say that none of its members are precious about the songs, a problem that thankfully doesn’t bely this release. You sense even better is to come. ‘Live At Bush Hall’, then, offers a remarkable snapshot of a band in transition, one willing to push on and not let circumstances stand in the way of what they love doing most.

Significant Changes is at once both ludicrously fun and inquisitive, knowing exactly when to fuse Jayda G’s learnings and passions into music that’s, quite clearly, full of heart and wisdom.

Gives hope to a hip-hop stuck in a mire of mediocrity. [18 Jun 2005, p.64]

Hopefully Total Control can continue because, brutal as it is, Typical System is the year's finest punk album.

Towards ‘Blue Water Road’’s conclusion, things start to drift a little, ‘Everything’ feeling longer than its three-minute-27-second runtime and the Thundercat and Ambre-starring ‘Wondering/Wandering’ not quite landing as memorably as you’d hope. For the most part, though, this album finds Kehlani in spectacular form – softer, stronger and better than ever.

From the rebellious energy that dances across the album to the twelve-minute shape-shifting epic of ‘Angel’ that closes out the record with giddy excitement, Working Men’s Club don’t know how to be boring.

Intimate and inventive, it’s a beautiful exercise – and one that could provide a bridge between last year’s ‘Any Human Friend’ and the musician’s planned return to melancholic material on her next original work. For now, though, she’s given us a rich new world burrow into, filled with soothing familiarity but brimming with the excitement of the new.

The Cribs’ best album in 11 years.

After exploring the isolation of feeling like a “nobody“, Mitski’s explorations of being somebody prove just as compelling.

There are a few radio-friendly moments. Happily, they're so sufficiently steeped in classic rawk that songs like 'Curl Of The Burl' don't sound like cynical stabs.

This resulting debut is a masterpiece of desert blues; blending American guitar licks with Malian groove.

It’s an impressive step-up from an artist who was already operating miles ahead of their peers. ‘soft scars’ can be an emotionally excruciating experience, but it finds yeule connecting with their humanity in ways that seemed impossible just one year ago.

Returning to psychedelia of a more modern variety after the Polaris-winning 'Andorra' saw him pegged by some as a '60s revisionist, electronic whiz Dan Snaith's latest offering is a triumph to top even that masterstroke.

Narrower in scope than 'Odelay' but more immediate in impact, it's clearly been conceived as an accompaniment to our hedonistic habit of choice, the last great party album of the millennium.

Filled with both a clarity of instrumentation and thought, this is an album of undeniably mature work. And one which knows how to effect a large emotional impact without unsightly flexing of the muscles.

Against the odds, 'Think Tank' is a success, a record which might not mean much to Strokes fans but which shows Blur's creative spark is undimmed even while their stomach for the pop fight fades.

This is both a fine and fun album. [21 May 2005, p.65]

'Grinderman' is an almost defiantly edgy record.

Making relevant, accessible, uncringey protest music in this day and age is such a difficult task that most artists have decided not to bother. Anohni has been brave enough to take that risk, and the most vital album of recent times is the reward.

Shedding old skins with jubilance, ‘Expert in A Dying Field’ is testament to the belief that better things are always yet to come. For us as listeners, they’re already be here.

The journey home for the pair has been perilous, but that mix of rage and hope is potent. They see a better community on the horizon, but know that they must be a part of its foundations – ‘Regresa’ is a magnificent rumination on those complex emotions.

‘Good Lies’ puts the pair on the edge of a major breakthrough. Its pop-leaning moments are also its most exciting, and the creativity and skill with which they bridge these worlds is thrilling.

An album which radically extends the Franz musical palette.

Yes, we could have done without the plodding, church-baiting 'Hash Wednesday', but songs such as 'Explode', and 'On A Fix' more than make up for it and are so incredibly abrasive that you probably shouldn't put 'Eyes & Nines' next to valuable records on your shelf.

eedly bass, tumultuous drums and big, dirty guitars careen beneath Casey's deadpan delivery, building riotously enjoyable labyrinthine passages that lead to nowhere, though Protomartyr make the journey feel essential.

While it’s not quite all gold--over two CDs the listener’s resistance to slap bass and super-smooth vocals may be tested--the standard as a whole is incredibly high.

SVIIB is a fitting eulogy for a musician and a band ever connected with both.

‘A Written Testimony’ is a 39-minute, 10-track project that offers all the usual Jay Electronica tropes: complex rhyming patterns, double and triple entendre, lyrics across various languages laid over psychedelic production with minimal drums. Electronica excels on a technical level throughout. Yet, while this is the most anyone has heard from him musically in over a decade, there’s a sense of reticence throughout the LP.

Though it’s not entirely without precedent, there’s still more than enough innovation here to mark Visiter out as one of the summer’s must-have releases.

‘Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’ is a brilliantly snotty two fingers up at the world. There’s no danger of finding the same fault in Street Safari, a record even more loveable than PATV’s first.

Amidst all the experimentation and extremes of this impressive album is a message about life: bathing in the moments of ecstasy will ultimately enable us to cherish and value life more.

The trio reflect the growing bleakness of the world around them by sounding more fiery and furious than ever before.

It’s a record riddled with questions, while refusing to offer answers. In remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound.

Their peak may be years away yet, but this is still some of the most exciting music you’ll hear until then; I’m not sure what more you could ask of a debut.

So We're New Here isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it showcases a producer so in love with the music of now that he not only preserves the power of his source material, but makes it more relevant.