Best Troubador is a joyous reclamation of song, gentle and true to Oldham’s personal, more delicate style. [Jun 2017, p.60]

Six decades later, this 90 minute slab of previously unreleased Monk reveals some strikingly fresh angles on his working methodology. [May 2017, p.68]

There’s a telling lack of conviction when he uses the past tense saying “I used to feel so devastated… now we on our way to greatness”. It’s a shame because when he settles for articulating rage from a less lofty position at the centre of a crowd he’s rejuvenated, alongside Schoolboy Q, J Cole, Styles P and Kirk Knight admitting a burn in his gut and boasting of how he’s “flowing religiously... Amerikkka’s worst nightmare, the super predator”. [May 2017, p.62]

In flashes it could be a parallel universe in which Mahavishnu Orchestra ended up inventing Japanese city pop: a luxuriously hi-tech vision of urban utopia. But just as often it has the futile atmosphere of those projects in which string quartets would perform Aphex Twin. [May 2017, p.61]

Whether it’s political (the second half looks pretty Brexit: “Aftermath”, “Catastrophe Anthem”, “Living Fantasy”, “Un UK”) or more private, there’s something at stake in every track. [May 2017, p.61]

The more they change, the more ADULT. sound the same: pared down electro pulses, synth jabs with industrial elbows, and Nicola Kuperus’s passive-aggressive post-Slits lilt. [May 2017, p.61]

When he muses on ideal love it comes off like How To Dress Well with a bit of a John Mayer wink--Vulnicura this ain’t. Longstreth is a talented producer and arranger and it shows here. ... Shame about the lyrics. [May 2017, p.59]

The weakest moments of this set are those that try to bludgeon the listener with noise. [May 2017, p.57]

As the 12 minute “The Lure Of The Mine” closes out this odd and enigmatic record in typically relentless fashion, the sensation is one of standing back and watching, impressed but stubbornly, confusingly unmoved. [May 2017, p.56]

There’s one serious misfire, a skit where Crazy Titch reassures us that everyone in his prison block agrees you’re never “too gang to listen Stormzy”, but mostly his wariness lends the album a series of unresolved tensions more perfectly poised than any other grime album to date. [May 2017, p.55]

Arca’s operatic tone adds another layer to the expression of emotion and open sexuality in his work--“Piel” and “Coraje” being particularly striking. Ghersi’s voice emerges quietly, piercing through foreboding sonics with sombre gentleness. [May 2017, p.54]

The album never quite wallows in gross out carnage or tragedy or blame (though these are here, for sure), but spins these yarns, perverse detail at a time, with the laconic humour of a short story by Richard Brautigan or Thomas Pynchon, stopping just short of mockery. [May 2017, p.53]

[Arthur Jeffes] often seems over-cautious. ... Yet when Jeffes reins in a tendency to over-orchestrate, he shares his father’s talent for painting delightful scenes with limited palettes. [May 2017, p.53]

The record is a meditation on masculinity, both lyrically and musically. But it is a sombre, barely lustful masculinity that growls and shrieks and howls and tells stories here. [May 2017, p.52]

Mr Mitch’s productions are as fastpaced, tight and spirited as his DJ sets. He makes the most of these sparse landscapes, marking a path for a complex of emotions to bleed though. Part of the album’s charm is that Mitch doesn’t shy away from adopting a pop sensibility nor embracing love as his subject matter. [May 2017, p.51]

Marshall’s electronic, krautrock-ish backing tracks extended what Lanegan had previously laid down on previous albums Blues Funeral and Phantom Radio. Gargoyle however has more of an early 1980s UK electronic rock feel, with Lanegan’s rough vocal rasp sawing through musical timbres reminiscent of what was being played out at Manchester’s Factory. [May 2017, p.47]

This is fierce, uncompromising music. [May 2017, p.47]

The pop elements apparent on Uyai are deployed imaginatively and effectively rather than as a means of demonstrating the group's impeccable taste. [May 2017, p.48]

The crisp and urgent execution on this recording has been immaculately produced, the overall result being an immediacy that only an accomplished performer and ensemble can achieve. [May 2017, p.47]

The first half of the album presents a disparate sequence of songs, the punky “I Want To Tell You About Want I Want” mixing with a rather laboured piece about Virginia Woolf’s and Sylvia Plath’s suicides (“Virginia Woolf”). ... This second half finds Hitchcock at his most purposeful. [May 2017, p.46]

Bassist Haz Wheaton and drummer Richard Chadwick provide the solid underpinning, while Brock's knack of fashioning and delivering strong melodic and verbal hooks is plentiful in evidence. [May 2017, p.46]

There are still hints of Gnod's more psychedelic aspect, but these tracks feel lean, stripped back and sharp-eyed. [May 2017, p.46]

Narkopop has a symphonic majesty, a sense of form and forward movement that no prior Gas record quite reached. Voigt's forest no longer merely murmurs; it positively exults. [May 2017, p.46]

All of the six songs feel epic in structure, each gradually building from a subtle breeze into a fiery windstorm as Michael and John Gibbons's sustained guitar mantras bleed into each other. [May 2017, p.44]

Darran Cunningham's most immediate and body-rocking record to date. [May 2017, p.44]

A warm and immensely good natured record. [Apr 2017, p.63]

The album is strong in the style, but offers no real surprises, with the familiar mixture of clacking Tuareg rhythm and scorched Sahelian riffing best illustrated here by the fiercely motorik “War Toyed”. [Apr 2017, p.63]

The album then settles into a solid groove of high end electro pop with just enough dust to keep it grounded. [Apr 2017, p.62]