Fado is a harder sell, a stronger taste. Still, Lina's voice has an irresistible dramatic heft, and combined with the smudgy ambient arrangements, all dark wood and bitter coffee, she and Refree could fill a gap that non-believers might not know they had. [Apr 2020, p.111]

Withering, in all the right ways. [Aug 2020, p.105]

There are also welcome flashes of their own identity. ... At 14 songs, however, that saccharine sheen starts to grate a little. [Aug 2020, p.102]

There's a wobbly quality to La Havas's toplines that means they can get lost in the more densely instrumented tracks, yet the sparser finger-picked guitar numbers give her songwriting space to shine. [Aug 2020, p.108]

It's a uniformly lovely if melodically insubstantial mode. [Summer 2020, p.105]

The business can feel overwhelming at times - more straightforwardly enjoyable are the pared-back tunes that leave enough room for Moore's slightly husky and hugely characterful voice to shine. [Aug 2020, p.109]

It might feel too in thrall to their heroes at times. ... But Bdrmm's world of noise is so artfully constructed it's hard to not find yourself lost within it. [Aug 2020, p.102]

They're less assured on the more experimental numbers. [Aug 2020, p.109]

Her multiple selves clash more often than they connect. [Aug 2020, p.110]

While she could let her hair down a little more, this record finds plenty of sweet spots between melancholy and euphoria. [Summer 2020, p.107]

Startisha is a marriage that nods to the old while leaning on the new, where results are more mixed. [Summer 2020, p.103]

These songs' surfaces are fastidiously arranged - but in his delicate vocals and allusive, nervy lyrics, Westerman still stirs up darker, less elegantly curated depths. [Summer 2020, p.107]

It's wilfully rough around the edges. [Summer 2020, p.101]

Music of the mid-00s is undergoing a revival. London-based Sports Team are the fresh case. [Jun 2020, p.107]

It can occasionally cloy, but on The Prettiest Curse, Hinds are on fighting form. [Jun 2020, p.100]

Just enough texture and colour to lift his affecting compositions above the neo-classical norm. [May 2020, p.104]

Soundtracked largely by sweet, inoffensive Scandipop flavoured with R&B, EDM and acoustic indie. Occasionally, however, she complements her subject matter with notes of punk and emo ... and produces something livelier and less conventional in the process. [Jul 2020, p.104]

He's still more traditionalist than outlier, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. [Jul 2020, p.19]

Fake is rearranging his sound rather than reinventing it. [Jul 2020, p.109]

Though their lyrical scope remains limited, they work hard to deliver the kind of catharsis you'd associate with a cherished coming-of-age movie. [Jul 2020, p.106]

Style and contentment. [Jul 2020, p.104]

The results are mixed. [Jul 2020, p.104]

Halo's score is detailed and meticulous - but far more sombre than her usually playful, exuberant records. [Jun 2020, p.100]

You come to see the The Lovely Eggs are an act of fine calibration of noise and sweetness, of intelligence and brutish mettle. [Jun 2020, p.102]

Feels so far behind the curve that it's just rolling gently backwards on roller-skates at this point. ... More edge, it seems, would only burst their bubble. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Their music conjures the Sahara via a hypnotic desert blues that informed by both Malian folk music and their love of Western bands such as Pink Floyd and Can. [Jun 2020, p.106]

Locked inside Womb is an excellent EP, but stretched out to 10 tracks it can feel predictable. [Jun 2020, p.105]

At times they meander a little too much, as on the ponderous Fool Thinking Ways, but this is far from the work of beginners. [Jun 2020, p.105]