The Future And The Past is a journey of self-discovery brimming with hope and grooves made to help Prass and her listeners find optimism.

[Ventura] streamlines .Paak’s sound, making for a tightly packaged, melodic and danceable album.

At its best, Overgrown proves that James Blake doesn't need to listen to anyone's advice. He's doing fine already.

The dazzling deftness of his fingering in the Presto and Double Presto sections evokes a kind of giddy delirium and his feathery technique wrests the tenderest of emotions from the second Sonata's Andante.

Into just nine songs, BMTH have distilled a breathtaking demonstration of their ambition, their technical skill, and their awareness of the social climate.

Lyrically, there's a pervasive fascination with California outsider culture that soon palls, though the troubled relationship excavated in "Marked" suggests a deeper vein of inspiration may yet be mined.

It's an enchanting snapshot of British rock'n'roll at its moment of greatest revelation, the point at which the Tin Pan Alley production line of ersatz Elvises was rendered utterly obsolete.

Already Disappeared, which was co-produced with Cate Le Bon in the sprawling desert expanse of Marfa, Texas, is not an easy album. It’s often bleak and experimental: Cox’s vocals burst through like distorted, burbling fragments of static, or appear muffled amid the instrumentation. This is a new side of Deerhunter that gives the listener much to contemplate.

Elsewhere, these grand new performances with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra serve to pinion some songs too fixedly.

Listen, Whitey! seethes with righteous anger and revolutionary determination.

The unusual alliance of Floridian rapper/singer Eric Biddines with south London groovemaster Paul White brings an engaging, infectious charm to Golden Ticket reminiscent of Outkast and Arrested Development.

There’s a delicacy to his songs, lazily ambling along with just a few key elements allowed to flourish; the gentle, echoey guitar winding through “You’ve Got Your Way Of Leaving”, the fuzzy, Yamaha YC30 riff that “Abandoned Buick” is built on, the melancholic piano that appears on “Wildflower”. All of this gives his soft, lilting voice space to shine, and framed by such elegant, pastoral music, his delivery--and his lyrics--do most of the emotional heavy lifting.

The Australian artist sounds like a brand new person, ready to make up for those years she played it safe. Produced by Thomas Bartlett and Annie Clark (St Vincent), Sixty Summers is a celebration of newly claimed liberty.

Sadly, WOAPD is devoid of the sly wit of Vile's early material, and consists of mid-paced alt rock, reminiscent of the Dandy Warhols in a coma.

Not bad, but not brilliant.

Where his recent albums have leant more towards long-form improvisation, 50 focuses on songs, with the warm drizzle of Chapman’s gnarled Yorkshire burr lending a bluff, worldly-wise character to American tableaux.

Guitarist Vieux Farka Toure here seeks to extend his Malian musical heritage beyond the country's borders, by collaborating with American musicians on several tracks--though never obscuring the native essence of his style.

Lurking behind the cosmicity, there’s usually a solid pop hook.

It’s starker and sharper than you might expect--the most pop-conscious piece is a collaboration with Robyn, “Out of the Black”--but it works well on the sinister shuffle of “Spit Three Times” and bleak jitter of “Naked”.

[The] debut album sparkles with invention and throbs with emotion.

The result should be something that feels rooted in nostalgia, but in fact these songs sound and feel as modern and innovative as they did when first released decades ago.

This is music that sounds as fun to make as it is to listen to. The energy here is thrilling, the strong rhythm section provided by former Detroit garage band The Greenhornes’ bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler. ... Help Us Stranger has been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.

She has pulled off the difficult trick of developing a new signature sound, without losing the personal perspective that separated her from the pack in the first place.

It’s certainly rare to hear a comeback effort that not only reflects an artist’s own best work, but stands alongside it in terms of quality, as The Next Day does.

Patti Smith's latest album, her best in a while, is held together by a spine of pieces themed around exploration.

The past typically isn’t the most comfortable place to inhabit, but Swift embodies her younger self fully, imbuing these tracks with the same immediacy and emotional heft as she did all those years ago. Country twang or not.

Moreover, Newman never sounds more quintessentially Newman than when experienced, as here, alone at the piano, with the lyrical intricacies and ironies of his songs dependent on just his laconic delivery and trenchant accompaniment for their effect.

Lindi Ortega split sessions between Nashville and Muscle Shoals. The result stretches her character in new and intriguing ways, effectively redefining Ortega as a cross between Loretta Lynn and Amy Winehouse.