An LP that is all over the place, yet with a clearly defined sense of self. [Nov 2018, p.105]

This is high-pedigree pop-soul in the style of Costello's 1982 song Tears Before Bedtime. ... Gostello's lyrics are subtle, penetrating and often written from a woman's perspective. [Nov 2018, p.107]

Their sky-scraping melodies may not enjoy the same reverence and ubiquity as, say, The Smiths' catalogue but these rearrangements are magical. [Nov 2018, p.105]

It's a stunning, stealthy, faintly malevolent collection of songs that serve as a reminder of this songwriter's power and innovation. [Nov 2018, p.106]

The result is his slickest and best-produced record yet: all warm beats, electric piano and weeping, reverb-y pedal steel. [Nov 2018, p.113]

The swagger of Marshall's lyrics indicate a musician luxuriating in her maturity. [Nov 2018, p.105]

A sprawling, ambitious 18-track behemoth, its size and constant stylistic shifts belies its cohesiveness. [Nov 2018, p.106]

While AAARTH doesn't veer too wildly from the template--tightly-wound rock riffs and pummelling drums forming a circle around frontwman Ritzy Bryan's atmospheric hooks--it doesn't put a foot wrong, either. [Nov 2018, p.109]

An album that is one of 2018's gems. [Nov 2018, p.102]

Cypress Hill have rarely sounded this focused. [Nov 2018, p.105]

A fascinating insight into Joe's mind and the last days of The Clash. [Nov 2018, p.115]

Timeless and effortless, it's unmistakably them. C'est Chic. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Sadly though, the pairing of this reflective Rod with 2018's ultra-slick production and some route-one songs often disappoints. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Pleasing, interesting, but not especially gripping. [Nov 2018, p.102]

Often the beats are so clumpy that the vocals are left trying to drag things forward. [Nov 2018, p.109]

The resulting combination, of despondency and dull melodies, makes for an uninspiring take on dance music past. [Nov 2018, p.111]

A66 is made thrilling by the gear change midway through, ditching its Sabbath crawl for a brutal climax. Nothing else quite succeeds in cutting through the downtuned murk, although riffs are uniformly monolithic and frontman Matt Baty's throaty bark is never less than entertaining. [Nov 2018, p.112]

Intriguing abandoned avenues and sketches towards masterpieces. [Nov 2018, p.115]

The Trump nightmare goes on, but these otherworldly lo-fi lullabies provide the perfect tonic. [Nov 2018, p.111]

It's as unsanitised as ever, then, and , as such, makes Mudhoney's continued existence a cause for celebration. [Nov 2018, p.111]

His voice is the one constant, a symbol of defiance against overwhelming forces. [Nov 2018, p.109]

Their second LP contains songs of remarkable quality. [Nov 2018, p.106]

Snow Bound continues to showcase a jangled set of nerves and guitars. [Nov 2018, p.105]

These are songs that do indeed seem to move through another era, from the delightful mournful I Can't Listen To Gene Clark Anymore to the pulse of Roy Orbison beneath Lover Release Me and Dream Dream Big In The Sky. [Nov 2018, p.108]

Songs like Harvester cut through the austerity with undercover earworms, providing a melodic relief you'll long for when the anti-pop sensibility finds its logical conclusion in dreary jams. [Oct 2018, p.108]

The a capella tracks remain their USP, but when they stretch out into the acoustic guitar balladry of the Joanna Newsom-sih Fish, they shine even brighter. [Oct 2018, p.115]

The result is an album that balances sophistication with a satisfying pop sense, and emotional heft with a lightness of touch. [Oct 2018, p.110]

It's an impressive reminder of what made him so special in the first place. [Oct 2018, p.119]

There's an emotional spark here that never goes out. [Oct 2018, p.115]

The album's title is a nod to America's addiction to prescription drugs, while the 21st-century pop production gloss of Actual Pain, for example, hides an inner turmoil. [Oct 2018, p.111]

A promising start, but there's room for improvement. [Oct 2018, p.108]

Somewhat muted follow-up. [Oct 2018, p.111]

Anyone ever touched by the likes of English Rose or Fly will find much to cherish here. [Oct 2018, p.113]

The Toronto group's grunge underworld is floodlit by stadium-sized drums and vast, airborne melodies. [Oct 2018, p.108]

What remains unbroken doesn't need fixing. [Oct 2018, p.119]

A tasteful and delicate record--but one that not quite as much fun as it first seems. [Aug 2018, p.116]

It's heroically earnest and not a little preposterous, but the singer's charisma carries it over the line. [Oct 2018, p.112]

Joyous and rammed with hits: it's worth the wait. [Oct 2018, p.111]

Far from spreading himself thin, the polymath composer seems more uncontainable with each release. [Oct 2018, p.108]

By turns wistful, plaintive and overwrought, Solo Piano III is a fitting virtuosic finale to this Renaissance Man's excellent adventure. [Oct 2018, p.111]

It might sound a bit much on paper, but Leschper's thought processes result in fantastic music--think Warpaint gone deconstructivism-crazy. [Oct 2018, p.115]

In short, a welcome retelling. [Oct 2018, p.116]

Warped and touching, this is an LP for both higher and lower selves. [Oct 2018, p.119]

Kingdoms In Colour maintains its atmosphere mainly through its use of hypnotic rhythms and light, primary colour trippiness. It could well be the perfect end-of-summer soundtrack. [Oct 2018, p.112]

For all of its typical craftsmanship you can't help but wish it had more moments like the stark despair of My Rock, My Rope. [Oct 2018, p.119]

A return to form have they made. [Oct 2018, p.115]

Overall, there are more steps sideways than great leaps forward. [Oct 2018, p.112]

The first 40 seconds of Spring King's second album are without doubt its most diverting. ... The rest of A Better Life is a uniformly bog-standard collection of Kasabian-like indie rock. [Sep 2018, p.118]

It's a mode that can feel pedestrian in the wrong hands, but Muncie Girls capture the sound's uncomplicated euphoria in style. [Oct 2018, p.115]

Intriguingly between success and failure, as if occupying a musical hinterland of its own. [Oct 2018, p.118]

At times, notably on Honey Bee, Pritchard's lyrics are sugary enough to induce toothache. However, the ever-present feel-good factor makes this an album as impossible to dislike as seeing the sun break through the clouds. [Oct 2018, p.112]

The record conjures an atmosphere of twilit sadness, but the songs themselves--languid and forgettable--fail to mark Stein out from dolorous troubadours past. [Oct 2018, p.116]

Intriguingly mixed bag. [Oct 2018, p.116]

This is the sound of Low finding extremity in a new, thrilling way. [Oct 2018, p.112]

He's on top form here: still damaged, still brilliant, still floating in a musical galaxy entirely of his own creation. [Oct 2018, p.114]

He's enjoying his music far too much to stop now. And so, for the matter, are we. [Oct 2018, p.106]

Old and new reflect off each other, their currents and clashes creating an intriguing weather system that's Anno's alone. [Oct 2018, p.115]

Occasionally sentimental but always endearing, it's impressive stuff. [Oct 2018, p.116]

He's retained much of his fizz, but his new, relatively thoughtful, air means that the piano-led The Bruiser exudes a heap of rue and regret, while the autobiographical Mississippi Delta toasts a bright new future in a bright new place, something this album cements. [Oct 2018, p.116]

This is a starkly beautiful suite of music by a band who--after two decades--just keeping growing in stature. [Oct 2018, p.115]

This feels indispensable, as both bereavement therapy and Brexit-era protest. [Oct 2018, p.117]

A well put-together record, just lacking in heart. [Oct 2018, p.119]

Here he leads by example, creating wonderfully complex, changeable music that dares to be different. [Oct 2018, p.109]

How much you enjoy it will depend on how you feel about largely structureless sonics, but if you just submerge yourself into it, there's plenty to discover. [Oct 2018, p.108]

The tracks are all short, sketching atmospheric outlines before vanishing. [Aug 2018, p.116]

While I Got You's rock-solid funk shows they know how to work up a sweat, the emotional themes don't always connect with equal force, Hatcher sounding most impassioned on 306, an ode to his ageing Peugeot hatchback. [Sep 2018, p.114]

There's a wildness to it, a predatory snarl as it bares its teeth and chases down new ways of expressing desire, different ways of being. [Sep 2018, p.112]

Her's mine post-punk and new wave with a tasteful restraint, fusing Scritti Polotti's twinkling, slinky grooves with the luminous lugubriousness of Orange Juice to create something that feels distinctly theirs. [Sep 2018, p.113]

Their voices lock in dense, close harmonies on the likes of Listen, while We Know What It Means is as gorgeous as songs about 3am baby feeding can get. [Sep 2018, p.113]

Happiness may remain an elusive quality in AIC's music, but variety is not. Be it the acoustic parts in Fly or elegant a cappella vocals of Maybe, they juggle power and poignancy like masters. [Sep 2018, p.110]

The presiding theme here is one of nocturnal activity, and it's rather nice to see the songs as half-lit visions, as if it were all a Puckish Midsummer illusion. [Sep 2018, p.118]

A perfect late-summer soundtrack on a par with their 2009 masterpiece Fits. [Sep 2018, p.114]

It's noisy, danceable, by turns exhilarating and excruciating. But at 90-odd-minutes, beyond exhausting. [Sep 2018, p.114]

A debut that should be enjoyed in sweaty, late-night dance caverns. [Aug 2018, p.116]

In the second half, the gloom gradually lifts with dreamlike ballads Midnight Ease and Until You Kiss Me, and some of its predecessor's brilliance returns. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Thanks to their guileless sincerity and boundless invention, The Lemon Twigs manage to pull it off. [Sep 2018, p.111]

These are fine-boned tracks, filled with lops, piano, surges of sound and Tomberlin's hazy voice. But they are carried on the shoulders of great melody, so the effect is of gloriously distorted pop--warm, somnolent, slightly out of focus. [Sep 2018, p.118]

Mulberry Violence is uniquely unhinged. [Sep 2018, p.117]

Dizzy might feel wobbly on their feet, but Baby Teeth gives them an impressively solid foundation on which to build. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Omori hits the sweet spots--butterfly-inducing money notes, wistful minor-key switch-ups--but rarely excites more than cordial admiration. [Sep 2018, p.117]

They sometimes teeter on the edge of bovver-booted self-parody, but this still counts as a welcome evolution. [Sep 2018, p.117]

Old Rockhounds Never Die is ceaselessly exciting. [Sep 2018, p.118]

Loaded sounds like a Last Shadow Puppets album filler, right down to the Turner-ish vocal delivery while others such as Wrong Side Of Life are hopelessly overwrought. [Sep 2018, p.114]

In its focus and eccentricity this debut keeps Khan's own vision front and centre. [Sep 2018, p.114]

Marauder is not the sound of a group chasing lost sounds or long ago glories, rather it is a band detaching itself from its past, from a time that has long defined them; it is the sound of growing older, closer and more open. [Sep 2018, p.108]

A true meeting of minds then, and one that's deeply affecting throughout. [Sep 2018, p.119]

That song [Found What I've Benn Looking For], turbo-charged, grandstanding and whipped into shape by Grennan's gravel voice encapsulates his committed, lavishly layered approach. [Aug 2018, p.111]

At its best it's a combination that offers a kind of Lynchian allure. ... Elsewhere, thought, it can all seem a little passive, a chill-out zone somewhere along Route 66. [Sep 2018, p.118]

Throughout this masterclass in artful self-scrutiny, that tightrope is Mitski's domain. [Sep 2018, p.115]

While these songs feel debulked, The Coral still can't square-peg their music to fit in neatly. [Aug 2018, p.117]

A career-best mind-melter. [Sep 2018, p.117]

Beautifully low-key, gently life-affirming. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Not quiet as good as 1970's Live At Leeds, but it's still a riot. [Jun 2018, p.119]

By turns beguiling and unnerving, at times it feels like an exercise in disorientation. [Sep 2018, p.113]

This is a warped beach record tailor-made for heads' holidays. [Sep 2018, p.118]

It's impulsive and scrappy, lyrically uncomplicated and musically crude, yet each strange, hypnotic composition turns a quiet epiphany into a revelation. [Sep 2018, p.113]

An album of abundant imagination, if elusive meaning. [Sep 2018, p.110]

Gurnsey has pushed his ghost disco to its exhilarating limits. [Aug 2018, p.109]