The manic arrangements sometimes overwhelm, but there are worse places to drown than Baths' ball-pit of an imagination. [Jan 2018, p.106]

Memory reverts to his early-noughties down-tempo incarnation as OCS, which only illuminates his frailties as a singer/lyricist. [Dec 2017, p.109]

His second album evokes a fragmented, at times nightmarish, digital world. [Dec 2017, p.113]

The frequently heavy subject matter is brightened musically by flashes of pedal steel and taut strings--meaning things never get too oppressive. When it's over though, you're left feeling you've been touched by something deeply elemental. [Dec 2017, p.109]

A roster of guest vocalists elevate his noir-shaded take in Detroit techno and '80s "dark-wave" synth-pop. [Dec 2017, p.102]

While odd duds such as Cryin' In Your Beer occasionally stall proceedings, this trip down memory lane otherwise yields compelling results. [Dec 2017, p.113]

Deacon's score is all subtle mood shifts and intriguing instrumentation. [Nov 2017, p.108]

Dillards-quality instrumentals such as Office Supplies keep the whole album zinging along. [Dec 2017, p.106]

Admirers of The Boo Radleys, the group Carr side-stepped stardom with in the '90s in favour of eclectic cult-dom, will appreciate the sophisticated dance-pop, rock, soul and Brian Wilson-like orchestral curlicues in evidence. [Dec 2017, p.102]

A dense dish to consume in one sitting, perhaps, but Bootsy's spicy narrations and undulating, jazz-informed basslines hold it all together. [Dec 2017, p.105]

Sun Gong is a two-part aural resonance-bath suitable for ultimate relaxation. [Dec 2017, p.106]

While Introspection and Ocean Flow Zither pluck strings in infinite caverns of echo and temple bells, elsewhere things are more earthbound, though still transcendent. [Dec 2017, p.106]

An album with dirgeful ballads, though they do at least let her show off her excellent voice. [Dec 2017, p.109]

This is an almanac for the chronically inert, best when bottling the sparks that fly as misery meets fine company. [Dec 2017, p.111]

If there's a weakness it's the lack of an obvious pop banger. [Dec 2017, p.113]

If their principal audience is a nostalgic one, The Selecter deserve credit for refusing to bask in its obvious comforts. [Nov 2017, p.112]

This polished set plays to his strengths--Oil And Water is an emotive half-ballad with Rag'n'Bone ambitions while the surging Fuel To The Fire channels Emeli Sande. It's a relief, though, when he lightens up a bit. [Nov 2017, p.112]

An intoxicating approximation of Beach House's gauzy atmospherics. They replicate them skillfully enough but you can't help feeling they're ultimately trying to move into a space that's already taken. [Nov 2017, p.107]

Neither subtle nor very shocking, it still sounds as if Manson, Countess Bathory-style, has received a shot of fresh blood. [Nov 2017, p.111]

There's the occasional intriguing beat and nods to musical theatre. [Nov 2017, p.111]

Not cutting edge, but it;s looking sharp all the same. [Nov 2017, p.111]

Revisitations of several Fall tunes, such as Hotel Bloedel from Perverted By Language, allow her glam spirit to shine, minus MES's obfuscation. New compositions are hot too. [Nov 2017, p.104]

The neverending quest for bangers leads Hurts to lean heavily on foot-stomping choruses to carry songs, but it's to their credit that Desire has a lighter touch than previous albums. [Nov 2017, p.108]

Sampling Michelle Obama on No Man Is Big Enough For My Arms feels glib, while Vale aspires to Solange-like authority but, unlike their voices never quite strikes the right note. [Nov 2017, p.111]

As ever, the Californian threesome's pervasive wackiness is matched by a breathtaking sense of musicality punctuated by Claypool's manic basslines. [Nov 2017, p.112]

Conflict was always at the root of Living Colour's sound, and finding a balance remains a challenge; even more so for a group whose members work together so occasionally. [Nov 2017, p.111]

It swaps the ramped-up volume of the past for a jittery urgency that mirrors 21st-century urban Britain. [Nov 2017, p.108]

[Deluxe's] successor is equally likeable. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Numan and collaborator Ade Fenton complement the narrative with a sand-blown, Eastern gothic mood, featuring use of Arabic scales, which evoke a desert within the human soul as much as any hypothetical desert Earth. [Oct 2017, p.107]

Confusion's left in its wake, of course, but such is the price of the peaks. [Oct 2017, p.100]

What it lack in surprises it makes up for in songcraft. [Oct 2017, p.108]

[Myela] descends into a bit of a toe-curlingly worthy WOMAD sing-along. More subtle and far better are gentle ballad When the Body Is Gone and lovely closer Infinite Trees. [Oct 2017, p.107]

Unfortunately, aside from Stranger's Kiss, the overall level of artifice here is simply too steep to surmount. [Oct 2017, p.100]

Concrete And Gold is a straightforward Foo Fighters album, albeit one that does occasionally fulfill its promise to deliver both aural lavishness and maximum heaviosity. [Oct 2017, p.102]

The message is as subtle as a street riot but the delivery mechanism ('90s funk metal, barked tirades) creaks with age. [Oct 2017, p.108]

The forgettable radio-pop of Laughable or Show Me The Way suggests a musician with nothing to prove having fun with his friends. After five songs, though, Give More Love nosedives into by-numbers country rock. [Oct 2017, p.111]

Outrage! Is Now makes a convincing fist of them not sounding like a band pushing 40. [Oct 2017, p.100]

The dystopian mood ultimately delivers more chills than thrills. [Aug 2017, p.112]

Guided by a love of '80s synth-pop, but feeding in elements gleaned from Chicago house and Italo disco, they come across like a Nordic Junior Boys. [Oct 2017, p.107]

INHeaven's potential is huge, it's just not fully realised here. [Oct 2017, p.105]

His fourth album shows a continuing talent for both dynamite house beats and reframing idiosyncratic vocalists. [Oct 2017, p.105]

This one has it's moments, but somehow never quite catches fire. [Oct 2017, p.106]

There are moments when it becomes a bit Baltic Eurovision, but Okovi is as tender as it is tough. [Oct 2017, p.111]

It's not a wildly eclectic trip, but for dependable hooks and relatable emotion, Alvvays are spot on. [Oct 2017, p.100]

At its worst (Jealousy Is A Powerful Emotion), he's overwrought and stodgy. More often, though, Draper is an unceasingly self-lacerating lyricist unafraid to deal with his past. [Oct 2017, p.103]

Much here amounts to solid AOR, by turns over-polished and underwhelming. [Oct 2017, p.103]

Oddly, it [maturity] suits them well. [Oct 2017, p.105]

Under all the Iggy Pop mumbling, splintered ballads and warped Western themes, it seems they keep bubbling back up. [Oct 2017, p.105]

Orc is an incredibly full-on record. [Oct 2017, p.107]

Shah isn't doing anything especially new here, but she is blending 2017's concerns, with unalloyed fury and genuine musical craft. [Oct 2017, p.108]

Ultimately, floating voters will lament the lack of a flat-out glam and/or electro-disco belter to rival their hits. [Oct 2017, p.111]

Lynne and Moorer are at their best on the straight country material, but their take on The Killers' My List usurps the original. Sadly, things take a turn for the worse later. [Sep 2017, p.113]

Stratton is much richer musically than lyrically but, like a fast-flowing stream, he carries you along with him regardless. [Sep 2017, p.115]

Despite the gentle, plaintive Sticks Not Twigs and the lugubrious Dead At The Wheel, it's Albini in excelsis: a super-fast, super-loud cathartic howl, but this being The Cribs, it's leavened by their trademark way with a manly melody. [Sep 2017, p.106]

Its tight-wound electronica is perfect for anyone wanting a visual-free sensation of mounting suspense in the comfort of their own home. [Sep 2017, p.113]

There are no hidden depths to find here, but sugar rushes aplenty. [Sep 2017, p.106]

The Grocery [is] riveting. If Manchester Orchestra are guilty of being a tad too serene elsewhere, it must also be noted that sounding beautiful is a good problem to have. [Sep 2017, p.113]

There aren't any bad songs here, there just aren't enough brilliant ones either. [Sep 2017, p.116]

In cinematic terms, not a bomb. But not a blockbuster, either. [Sep 2017, p.116]

There's beauty amid the sonic desolation. [Sep 2017, p.116]

It's 10 tracks are produced by veteran Chicagoan No ID, who provides a consistently soulful feel for the rapper's reflection on family, fatherhood and fidelity. [Sep 2017, p.110]

There are echoes of Bibio's pastoral folktronica woven throughout. [Sep 2017, p.110]

The band's simmering anger are leavened by a sophisticated musical backdrop utilising brass and keyboards. [Sep 2017, p.109]

Sweet Sweet Silent is hardly the most strident listen, but it's not without grit. The choruses are understated but addictive and the fragile intricacies are beguiling. [Sep 2017, p.115]

This seems just to mean lots of beeps and bloops and using a theremin, rather than any structural inventiveness or lyrical avant-gardisms. Still, he's conjured a neat package of 10 perfectly listenable songs. [Sep 2017, p.106]

Stein sounds like she's coming of age on this album, addressing both her past and future, and mostly liking what she sees. [Aug 2017, p.112]

It's the cat-on-an-electric-hot-tin-roof cartoonery that makes Perrey such a joy. [Aug 2017, p.110]

The poolside psychedelia of Space Static Lover is a sparkling highlight; how much of the rest appeals hinges on your tolerance for ruthless pop efficiency. [Aug 2017, p.103]

Everything Now offers an underwhelming kind of overload: too much, but still not quite enough. [Aug 2017, p.113]

A sweetly gloomy affair mostly for guitars and voice. [Aug 2017, p.105]

It sometimes sounds like it was prodded out on a tablet. At other times, the production and the plus-sized pop tunes are perfectly matched. It's an ongoing struggle between DIY and deluxe, with the latter just about winning. [Aug 2017, p.109]

As befits a title meaning "peaceful," Eirenic Life is background balm for modern life. [Aug 2017, p.109]

Throughout, Crutchfield maintains a seething, triumphant line in catharsis that she channels into gruff college rock ad dreamy introspection. [Aug 2017, p.112]

Get Lost is a deliberate break with the woozy synths of his earlier work. The rest of the LP doesn't quite follow through n that adventurousness. [Aug 2017, p.112]

The album plays its best cards early. [Aug 2017, p.112]

There's a cheesy feel to many tracks but it's good fun, delivered with Chilli's soaring harmonies tempering T-Boz's throaty growl. [Aug 2017, p.112]

The first section bristles with churning intensity, but offers little in the way of surprises. The soundtrack, however, an unnerving sound collage, is far better. [Aug 2017, p.109]

It's a boring splodge on the pop landscape, so relentlessly samey and entitled. [Aug 2017, p.106]

Throughout, his control is masterful: spry on Make It Up, clarion and clipped on Grief Is Not Coming, familiar and uncanny all at once. [Aug 2017, p.105]

Earle isn't breaking any boundaries here, and he runs out of steam before the closing Goodbye Michelangelo, but he's doing what he does best--and that's better than most. [Aug 2017, p.105]

The intended fully immersive Sensurround experience eludes them, leaving just an occasionally diverting breeze. [Aug 2017, p.105]

They still sound a bit like a millennial Fleetwood Mac with a love of En Vogue--and they've retained a bit of sonic weirdness. [Aug 2017, p.104]

We're All Alright! has admirably little truck with nostalgia. [Aug 2017, p.102]

Combined with massive hooks, flashes of Robyn and Rihanna, and drops that will give you chills, heartache has never been so much fun. [Jul 2017, p.109]

While The Singles offers a skewed perspective on their career, the real attraction lies in the rarity of some of the material, such as Turtles Have Short Legs. A must for diehards, then. [Aug 2017, p.113]

The familiarity of the material is offset by the uniqueness of the approach. [Aug 2017, p.104]

It's on the final track, Punch, however, that they reach a brand of strung-out, sun-soaked lamentation that feels entirely of their own making. If only there were a little bit more of that elsewhere. [Aug 2017, p.100]

While the music is mellow, his stories can be tricky. [Aug 2017, p.107]

It's pulled down by too many mid-paced ballads and inordinate length. [Aug 2017, p.104]

Moments of spine-tingling transcendence outweigh those of aimless noodling. [Aug 2017, p.110]

A credible effort, then, but not so groundbreaking as to prompt deep re-evaluation of their place in the world. [Aug 2017, p.109]

Older, possibly wiser, cleaner and sounding as majestically ramshackle as ever. The only snag is that their new album is a live recap of their career highlights with no new songs to justify it as a comeback. [Aug 2017, p.108]

An uneven but fitting swansong, then. [Aug 2017, p.100]

Wilson's fragile vocals dominate, but her sidekicks add musical lightness. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Despite Styles' self-conscious references, his debut avoids indulgence. [Aug 2017, p.110]

Sometimes, these stresses and strains seem to swallow her dreamy synth-pop whole, but there's at least a striking EP's worth here. [Aug 2017, p.108]

Some workmanlike settings, but when the vocals spar and catch the tune just right, it all soars with a gospel-like wonder. [Aug 2017, p.100]

It can get a bit overly conceptual, but Gone Now is so irresistibly joyful that it can be forgiven. [Aug 2017, p.100]