The meat of the set almost certainly wouldn’t have been released if Prince were still with us. ... They add up to arguably the strongest new set of Prince recordings since Lovesexy. [Aug 2017, p.70]

After four decades, the album's concentrated blend of brutalism and intricacy, fluidity and fracture, sound as uncompromising as ever. [Nov 2011, p.69]

Prince didn’t put a foot wrong in his golden era, right down to what was left in the vault. [Jan 2021, p.94]

These performances have been rightly cherished by collectors for decades. [Oct 2011, p.54]

Instead of disappearing amid the back stories and deep cuts, the hefty additional content and context only acts as so many glittering foils for the enduring, singular force of their crowning achievement, the album itself. [Apr 2014, p.70]

The music has an originality that sounds remarkable even now. [#248, p.52]

The audio material is an illuminating reflection of the group’s transition from pop copyists to psychedelic adventurers, en route to becoming champions of rock’s progressive faction. [Jan 2017, p.82]

Lamar offers a commitment to effect change through the work itself. Whether or not that's realistic ideal the delivery is so powerful it's hard not to get caught up in the rapture. [May 2015, p.50]

Unsurprisingly the mood is melancholy and the louche, theatrical sexuality or carnal drama of earlier albums is replaced by a battered and searching tone, striving to make sense, or failing that, some poetry or beauty out of the tragedy. The narratives take on a less devilish tone here. [Nov 2019, p.46]

A less deranged response to celebrity than Kanye West’s Yeezus, more imaginative than Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP or Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, it shares with the former an economy of form, and with the latter two the giddy energy of an artist coming into perfect sync with their audience. It’s also a sumptuous sounding pop record, polite streamlined mass market psychedelia. [Jun 2017, p.64]

This ludicrously exhaustive deluxe edition includes hour after hour of live takes, demos and interviews. Fascinating, but none of it overshadows the original album. [Dec 2017, p.70]

Rough And Rowdy Ways is undoubtedly the work of an artist with one eye on his legacy, yet it’s so full of wit, mischief and life that it positively sings. [Sep 2020, p.52]

The most triumphant volume in the series, an at times nearly orchestral realisation of Branch’s unique compositional vision. It’s a shame there won’t be further volumes, but this caps off one of the great catalogues in 21st century jazz. [Oct 2023, p.46]

This constellation of miniature masterpieces is arguably the finest introduction to the Ra universe there is. [Jan 2017, p.84]

UK rap’s first masterpiece of 2021. [Apr 2020, p.56]

It feels distasteful to rate so powerful, so raw an album in any aesthetic terms and yet it brilliantly, blackly, radiates life. Skeleton Tree is a work of mourning, yes; a work of reverie, yes; and also an immensely moving attempt to reach out of blackness towards life. [Nov 2016, p.65]

While it might be hard to hear this music as revolutionary now, there's no denying how commanding and demanding both the tuneful and flat out noisy sections are on modern ears. [Oct 2014, p.70]

Were it only instrumental, Dopesmoker would be some kind of masterpiece. [Aug 2012, p.55]

There probably isn’t a better sequenced album on your shelves. ... The remastering is immaculate, tightening up the jangle and twang, cleaning up Russ Kunkel’s drums and improving the separation of instruments throughout. Some of the alternative versions are a little slower than others; take three of “Some Misunderstanding” might just possibly be superior to the issued take, in the usual sense that sometimes musicality was sacrificed to technical perfection. [Jan 2020, p.78]

The biggest problem with Noname’s Room 25 is that the opening two tracks, adding up to barely four minutes of music, are just too damn good. ... The rest is merely exceptional. Essential. [Nov 2018, p.68]

The vinyl pressing is high quality and these albums deserve every extra crumb of clarity analogue can muster. ... Clear the shelves. [Dec 2017, p.74]

This box is not an artefact but an act, a decisive statement of Czukay’s immutable id bereft of egoistic nostalgia or sentiment. ... Cinema is a beautifully appointed and stylish tribute to a sampladelic pioneer who changed the sound of popular music forever. [Apr 2018, p.72]

This miscellanea contains premonitions of Pylon’s future greatness and fills in the gaps of a catalogue overdue for reassessment. [Jan 2021, p.94]

What makes this set so compelling is its mapping of the rapid shifts in Davis's music within shorter periods. [Oct 2015, p.68]

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

The original running order is slightly shuffled, but starting with "Raw Power" wasn't such a good idea, as it mostly serves to highlight the way the album sags in its second half. But ending with a roaring "I Got A Right" salvages the set. [Jun 2011, p.48]

In emotional terms Titanic Rising is immense – names like Annette Peacock, Linda Perhacs and Judee Sill come to mind, but only because it feels like so long since you’ve heard pop this epic yet unmannered. ... With tracks like the stunning “Something To Believe” lodging themselves into your heart with the sure knowledge that your relationship with this music will only deepen as the year unfolds. [Jul 2019, p.52]

Despite its complexity, the album is full of ravishing, soulful production and vocals--as catchy and emotionally stirring as it is subversively and intellectually thrilling. [Dec 2012, p.75]

As interesting for what it carries over from the past as for the future it foreshadows. [Feb 2013, p.47]

It’s one of the most vibrant, purposeful rock records of the year, as Ambro balances the sickly weariness of this day and age with a triumphant jubilation of simply being alive. [Dec 2023, p.54]

A box set containing their first two LPs plus demos and live tracks, provides some help in cleansing the palette while providing context for the evolution of their massively cribbed style. [Jun 2021, p.67]

Little Simz’s latest--and greatest--album is divided between three emotional states: bravado, doubt and love. [Apr 2019, p.58]

Despite the obvious post-production touches and curation, the outtakes from 20 minute studio improv sessions featured across the four pieces feel authentically extemporaneous and evolve organically, akin to a late night jam between friends. ... “Bloodstream” provides the stunning album with a fittingly grandiose ending by digging into a psalm-like recital full of solemn organ, voluminous textures, invigorating fanfares and rumbling spectral melodies. [Feb 2023, p.52]

Sounding like nothing else out there, distinct even from Tribe's previous work, We Got It From Here is political without being preachy, fun without being unintelligent and next level out while being street corner down. A superb swansong. [Jan 2017, p.71]

For the most part, the album makes a convincing argument for Sleater-Kinney's continued relevance. [Jan 2015, p.63]

We should be thankful at least for this one precocious masterpiece, where even the big closing motivational ballad “Energy” comes humble and soothing. The 14 flawless blasts of pure hunger that precede it are equally spare, allowing room for all sorts of monumental chords and vocal inflections to weave their way into Salieu’s tales of frontline Coventry. [Jan 2021, p.87]

His verbal style is notable because it avoids typical ragga chat or MC freestyling in favour of an almost literary blend of prose and verse. [#219, p.75]

The sense of loss and longing becomes so physical at points that rather than respond, it's simpler to go with it until the ride ends in a drained silence. [#219, p.72]

The tunes recorded on 6 March bear no relation to that relaxed and delicate session [with Johnny Hartman]. Instead, they’re much closer to the kind of high-octane material the quartet were pursuing in live performance at the time, albeit with considerably less intensity than could be witnessed on the bandstand. [Aug 2018, p.74]

The album is the product of a consistent vision, synthesizing hip-hop's beat architecture and sound manipulation with bespoke funk playing. [Sep 2010, p.50]

Musically it’s mannered to the point where he makes Stormzy look like Tempa T. Token exceptions offer some respite. On “Location” with Burna Boy and “Disaster” with J Hus he briefly escapes the bland backing and naff counselling concept to explore more primal modes of expression. But ultimately the failures predominate, most notably ten minutes of the heavy handed domestic violence PSA “Lesley”. [May 2019, p.50]

Burial has transcended his dubstep origins, belonging to a Gothic tradition that takes in Massive Attack and even 4AD at their most grandiosely despondent. [Jan 2008, p.53]

Played front to back it works as a dazzling kaleidoscope; on shuffle, every combination worked in a different way, with no weak links because the quality of each track is insanely high. Underground, resistant US rap par excellence. [Jun 2023, p.60]

He knows that being the most complete version of himself requires lifelong searching – græ never fails to feel like such a journey. [Aug 2020, p.63]

This is what happens when you expose the oneiric to daylight. It’s jazzy, symphonic, tough, tender, true. Plain magnificent. [Jul 2022, p.45]

Fans will find things to love here, I’m sure. But Savage Young Dü won’t be making any converts. [Dec 2017, p.69]

New listeners may be drawn by these tributes, to experience something far more compelling, still flowing from the source. [Dec 2022, p.72]

This is the sound of two mature rap gentlemen throwing it up for one of hiphop's most enduring, if not always endearing, charms: utter immaturity. [Dec 2014, p.54]

As Four Tet, Hebden has devised a musical identity that is distinctly different from his work with Fridge, but both projects share a passion for defying boundaries. [#231, p.60]

LEGACY! LEGACY! is just as much a celebration of Chicago musical talent. ... It also demonstrates Woods’s vast talent as singer and songwriter. [Apr 2019, p.69]

So here they are in 2015 with Apex Predator sounding as powerful and uncompromising as their debut. [Feb 2015, p.55]

A thousand times more exciting in every way than most everything in the air at the moment.... Timbaland's production is frontier staking stuff... [#208, p.58]

Hobo Sapiens is a confident and consistently rewarding record, and some of its songs rank alongside Cale's best. [#236, p.56]

It’s a strange brew, some distance from the monumental party music that has tended to characterise the duo’s three previous albums. [Jul 2020, p.50]

There’s a gracefulness to Patton’s rhythms that sets her apart from other footwork producers--something deeply contemplative. [Jun 2017, p.66]

Sometimes the sensuousness of Serpent Music is missed, but Tumor’s drive to take this radically new music to audiences as big as Blake’s, Ocean’s or even Radiohead’s is exhilarating. [Oct 2018, p.63]

Hot Rats is testament to the power of the overdub, and as such, The Hot Rats Sessions mostly consists of a selection of instrumental parts presented in isolation, which won’t be of interest to all. As with the album, the rambling blues jams are the least interesting, and the real magic is in the origami-like marvels of “Peaches En Regalia”, “Son Of Mr Green Genes” and “It Must Be A Camel”. ... Most remarkable are the outakes.

On the opening “Asynchronous Intervals”, Golding’s beautifully burnished tenor tone – sumptuously recorded here – plays against free drums that gradually morph into a slowly burning groove. On “ActiveMultiple-Fetish-Overlord”, that tone is broken up against Luthert’s palpitating, roiling low end work. “After The Machine Settles” is muscular jazz rock; “Because Because” with multitracked/echoing soprano, is a stirring conclusion. [May 2022, p.58]

What’s most thrilling about Big Fish Theory is that it doesn’t sound leftfield or challenging; instead it provides a scintillating snapshot of both the state of the art and the untold history of underground black music for the past 30 years. [Aug 2017, p.65]

She draws you into the shadows and crumbling concrete of America, a nation in which, as Knowles pointed out in a recent online essay, “a former Ku Klux Klan leader is running for Louisiana senator.” [Dec 2016, p.54]

Knowles’s instincts guide the cultural conversation in a way that feels healing, intentional and authentically collectiveminded. A well-constructed spell, cast with intention. [May 2019, p.63]

A sense of foreboding and emotional struggle is expertly crafted, so much so that at times it can feel like there’s little air and no escape. Outside of the songs, there’s a more uncanny, ineffable sense of power on the instrumental jig or reel passages of “Master Crowley’s” and “The New York Trader”. [Jul 2023, p.55]

No album in hiphop history has been less in need of a padding. [Jun 2014, p.63]

It is a working through of grief and abuse, characterised by Nastasia’s deeply resonant songwriting. ... It would be tempting to liken the run of songs in between to a personal descent followed by an emergence into the outside world, but Nastasia shuns such easy linear interpretations. [Aug 2022, p.53]

This remake justifies the whole shebang. So perfect is the fit, in fact, that it feels uncannily like Scott-Heron’s sonorous rasp must have been recorded to fit this backing. ... Though often dark, this is both a celebration and a vindication: a truly great album. [Mar 2020, p.56]

To Be Kind is even moodier and more desolate than 2012's The Seer.... The more structured, traditional tracks don't cut quite as deep, largely because they echo other groups, at times overtly. [May 2014, p.68]

There are moments when the insights of Newsom's improvised mythology fall into pseudo-profundity... But still it easily stands with this year's entrancing reinventions of song--Julia Holter's Have You In My Wilderness, Jim O'Rourke's Simple Songs--and the high points of her own catalogue so far. [Nov 2015, p.46]

An even deeper dig into the wound exposed on her debut. The album is drenched in divinity, its consideration of good and evil as polar concepts is biblical, elevating vengeance to a God-given imperative. Her classically trained voice deals in spiritual cadences, and commands gothic instrumentation of strings and drones. [Aug 2019, p.58]

The result is an enriched soundworld, more ambitious than her much discussed debut, Tragedy. [Aug 2013, p.53]

No News Is Good News is a grown up rap album by a grown up rapper that still manages to be utterly thrilling. [Aug 2018, p.69]

At this moment, Bad As Me might be his best ever. [Nov 2011, p.68]

Clark’s fifth album isn’t a retreat to an earlier style--if anything it’s even brighter, bolder and broader than St Vincent, even more given to IMAX worthy gestures-- but Clark does appear to have reconciled the streamlined automation of her new aesthetic with the orch pop crafting of her first three records, Marry Me (2007), Actor (2009) and Strange Mercy (2011). [Nov 2017, p.64]

In classic Simz style the journey’s more fulfilling a little further down the rabbit hole. ... But ultimately it’s hard to escape the comedy of such grand ambition also spawning the corniest voiceover since Prince invited Kirstie Alley to vandalise his symbolically titled 1992 album, and a cringe so intense it threatens to undermine everything.

Despite its recourse to sentimentality, this is appealing, historic and culturally important music. [Dec 2015, p.68]

A strong addition to Tyler’s catalogue and a good intergenerational connection for the fans. [Aug 2021, p.69]

Every track is a killer. [Mar 2017, p.54]

Approaches the psychedelic grandeur of Spiritualized or Mercury Rev at their finest while still offering a wealth of carefully placed sonic detail. [#229, p.71]

Given her capacity to align reinvention with a developing maturity, the 13 lucky songs of Stories deliver a complex text. It is certainly less frenetic, as if Harvey is finding new ways to exert her presence. In addition, its thoughtful spaces and pauses suggest room for doubt and manoeuvre. [#202, p.49]

Like remembering the loading sound of a ZX Spectrum or the incidental music of Teletext, the feel of these tracks provokes an odd nostalgia for equipment, now superseded and obsolete. [Apr 2019, p.72]

Ultimately, [“418 (Stairs In Storms)”] cannot avoid ending with a muscular crescendo, but those preceding moments of tranquillity provide the pinnacle of another excellent Mollestad record.

Building a strong, solid foundation for his skyscraper of words, the rapper channels everyone from Malcolm X to James Brown into a mountainous manifesto of beautiful blackness that is reflective of the struggle for dignity and equality, while also working towards the banishment of stereotypes. [Jan 2017, p.61]

Jurado's spare, edgy songs are miniature masterpieces of mood and character. [#229, p.68]

The sonic diversity and range of Magdalene is a marked departure from the breathy triphop of LP1, yet a thematic trajectory is clearly traced from the suggestive sensuality of the first to the combative provocation of its follow-up named after a defamed biblical figure. [Nov 2019, p.54]

Banhart mixes a relaxed bearing and a tense vocal delivery in a fascinating manner. [#245, p.51]

In the end, Vespertine commits its magic by daring to go places more obvious and more human than one would have ever expected. [#210, p.52]

The album is imbued with the expectant, febrile energy that comes with having forged ahead into unknown spaces with out the means or desire to backpedal. [Jul 2015, p.58]

There is still a sense here of a group magisterially marking time, shying away this time round from any grand, rhetorical, countercultural purpose. [Dec 2007, p.63]

Even when the songs aren't motivated by anger or frustration, they have a drive and a momentum that's breathtaking. [#256, p.52]

Throughout the album Nas sounds engaged, and his choices are unbeholden to the whims of the market. [Jan 2023, p.78]

It’s up there with their debut as an introduction to the Goat sound – a sound that seems even more pertinent and gloriously openended the further we’ve come from its first explosion. [Sep 2021, p.68]

A sparkling set that traces a number of lines through Haiti's musical patrimony. [Mar 2014, p.66]

What drives each track home is the tight focus of the playing, riffs and ideas, each one the clockwork fuse on a ticking time bomb. [Oct 2015, p.60]

In many ways this is his finest outing since The Boatman's Call. [#247, p.55]

This could have been camp on a Himalayan scale. Its strength is that it's anything but. [#255, p.51]

It evokes so many emotions in a single track, and wrestling with its bittersweetness affects you in the gut. [Apr 2012, p.67]

Adrianne Lenker’s songwriting and vocals have never been more inclusive yet forebodingly sui generis, sealing that simultaneous conviviality and strangeness that makes Big Thief’s music so addictive, and the band have got tighter and warmer from the years of touring that preceded the album’s creation. [Mar 2022, p.42]

A thrilling affair. [#252, p.63]

The songwriting and lyricism are strong, but her storied voice elevates the album and invests it with a depth and serenity that few can match. [Jan 2019, p.64]