In terms of unreleased material, the motherlode is the two-disc Live at The Matrix set, recorded on November 26 and 27, 1968 at the San Francisco venue. Of the 18 songs here, 10 are previously unreleased.... All are comprehensively bested by the 36-minute version of "Sister Ray." [Jan 2015, p.81]

A masterpiece in any time zone. [Dec 2023, p.26]

A riveting debut packed with ideas and invention. [Jul 2003, p.126]

Ranging from explosive Afro-funk workouts by Petelo Vicka et Son Nzazi and Les Bantous de la Capitale to more psych-influenced stunners by Abeti et Les Redoutables and Zaiko Langa Langa, these rediscoveries are thrilling enough for Congo Funk! to deserve a place next to African Scream Contest among Analog Africa’s most indispensable collections. [May 2024, p.53]

Age seems to have deepened his poetic faculties, these rootsy narratives scarred by experience, but all the richer for it. Crowell's best since The Houston Kid. [Apr 2017, p.26]

It’s the work of a focused artist who is consistently attempting to stretch out the parameters of their own ever-expanding sonic world. ... Yet another late-career highlight. [Oct 2022, p.22]

The Pylon Box is filled with moments that are equally exhilarating; evidently, what was feasible for Pylon was extraordinary by anyone else’s measure.

For the fourth album in a row, they've moved the goalposts, challenging themselves to apply their whooping idiosyncrasies to a new aesthetic framework. [Mar 2014, p.70]

Striking successor to 2021 breakthrough Pohorylle. .... Her phrasing is exquisite throughout. [Oct 2023, p.26]

One of the most adrenalising albums you'll hear this year. [Sep 2002, p.110]

This is the most approachable and therefore unexpected Osees album for some years. [Sep 2023, p.32]

McMurtry's flair for the cinematic shines brighter than ever. [Apr 2015, p.78]

This set combines recordings from a number of indie EPs, and while the ensemble always combines a bemused, tongue-in-cheek quality with a rock'n'roll fanatic's mindset, Dungeon Golds spinning out smart, graceful pop hooks and hard, Dukes-Of-Stratosphear-type psych--gazes hard at mortality. [Apr 2015, p.80]

A sun-dappled, idiosyncratic delight, flooded with warmth and vitality, yet weighted by an undefinable sadness. [Aug 2003, p.108]

Like any new city, this album may take some getting used to--there's beauty everywhere, but the streets are far from a neat grid. But as you walk them, Holter's genius as a sonic town planner reveals itself. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A record which transcends any scene's fleeting credibility. [Oct 2003, p.122]

Sometimes the honesty gets close to discomfiting, but it's always compelling. [Mar 2018, p.47]

It's an extraordinary set. [Feb 2014, p.92]

As with all of Le Bon's projects, the claustrophobic, wonderfully awkward whole is very much her own. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Yes, it's largely tuneless, the guitars and drums about as co-ordinated as a set of blindfolded square dancers, but the sisters' naive approach yields endless wonder. [Nov 2016, p.52]

The gravity of his subject matter finds a contrast in Swift's playful musical settings. [Dec 2018, p.33]

A startling, inspirational comeback. [Dec 2012, p.68]

In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades, Ry Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special.

Every song here has its merits; there isn't a dud among them. [Oct 2019, p.40]

Inspired song choices further deepen the spell in a beguiling instant classic from a masterful soul stylist. [May 2013, p.78]

A strange, rich and global journey in sound--lasting just 37 minutes, Bon Voyage begs to be put on again, each listen revealing more of the myriad ideas that make up its weird majesty. [Jul 2018, p.22]

Smash The System is looser, punchier, a surrealist pop masterpiece. [Nov 2016, p.28]

However minor these 45s may have seemed at the time, together they constitute a major discovery for any soul fan regardless of his or her denomination (or utter lack thereof). [Oct 2019, p.50]

A Jaime 2.0 likely to secure her status as an auteur in terms of both conception and execution. It's bigger, freer-thinking and more dynamically audacious record. [Feb 2024, p.20]

This is Forster in excelsis. [Mar 2023, p.22]

The 12 songs on his eighth ares till gloriously strange, though: lyrically as kaleidoscopic as mid-'60s Dylan, and packed with fascinating, contradictory references. [Sep 2016, p.76]

Another truly wondrous record. [May 2004, p.99]

Their first album in almost two decades, David Roback and Hope Sandoval are on stunning form. [Oct 2013, p.71]

I'm Bad Now feels as much a modest masterpiece as Spring Hill Fair or Tigermilk. [Apr 2018, p.32]

Suffused in both the dread mortality inspires and the peace that comes with accepting its inevitability, it simultaneously addresses the effects that the passing of years has on one's relationships and the compromises these demand. [May 2016, p.66]

A more enjoyable pairing of words and music this year it's hard to imagine. [Jun 2013, p.63]

Played and sun with unassuming grace, it's an album of rare generosity. [Nov 2019, p.30]

It features a stellar setlist built around tracks from that album, liberally peppered with Horse classics and deep cuts. In all this, the Horse prove themselves dependably elastic. [Apr 2021, p.49]

By comparison [to 2019's Father Of The Bride], Only God Was Above Us is off its meds - grimier, sonically and spiritually; more compressed, more stressed. Lyrically, conflict is everywhere and nothing is stable. .... It would all be so much showing-off if the narrative ache Koenig displays wasn't so palpable, and the craft wasn't so meticulous. These guys listen hard, sometimes applying different processing effects on each word, even syllable. [May 2024, p.33]

From the yearning opener “Hold On” through to the life-affirming ruckus of “Queens” and “Better Love” and to the final epiphanies in “Alpine Drive”, Observatory is a triumphant expression of resilience in the face of all the hard knocks and harder lessons that fill a life.

The most prismatic Hiss Golden Messenger record to date, one that ranges confidently from the folk shuffle of "Say It Like You Mean It" to the taut rural funk off "Like A Mirror Loves A Hammer." [Nov 2016, p.22]

It may be the most accurate representation of her vision yet, a singular blend of abrasively charming feel-bad noir rock. [Jan 2024, p.28]

Impossible Truth says more with six strings than most records manage with a thousand words. [May 2013, p.79]

Always confident in his ability, here he conjures sublime moments with "Retrograde" and ""digital Lion" before violating each with curdled klaxons, his voice throughout pitched persuasively somewhere between Antony Hegarty and Jeff Buckley. [May 2013, p.67]

It might just be the best record of this year, and the best of Rowland's career. [Jul 2012, p.66]

Beyond the clever production and judicious musical blend is a sensibility and a voice and songs that find Plant still on his quest, still grappling with the intricacies of love, still seduced by distant, misty mountains. His Uniqueness has never been more apparent. [Oct 2014, p.61]

Along with her interest in free jazz and expressive, improvisatory styles of music, it’s possible to see these seven songs as a type of painting with sound, a messy, wild process of distillation and curation, until only sparse daubs of bright colour remain on the canvas. Limited elements, but a giant impact. It’s been worth the wait.

A clutch of glistening electronic pop gems. [Jul 2017, p.37]

Exploratory, visionary record. [Aug 2022, p.22]

Far greater than the sum of it's parts, Vulnicura can be a challenge but, once immersed, it's hard to tear yourself away. [Apr 2015, p.85]

Beautifully now. [Mar 2024, p.29]

Runaway's Diary is a record with hugely impressive depth and emotional range. [Jun 2014, p.79]

Grandiose, overwhelming, pretentious and absurd, Before The Dawn Heals Us is one of the first great albums of 2005. [Feb 2005, p.79]

The best moments of Inferno are tender hymns to everyday pleasures. [Apr 2019, p.29]

The warm homeliness drifts into untethered territory. [Dec 2021, p.31]

Either of Dwyer's bands would be a fine fit for Yonkers' primitive but inventive garage rock - best examples are the pummelling "sold America" and "The Thunder Speaks," both hyped-up takes on Yonkers' originals - but Damaged Bug are better equipped to tackle his more tender moments. [May 2020, p.26]

There's something deeply satisfying about the way the songs fit together as an album, their sequence strengthened both by the homogenous tone of the music with its air of wistful melancholy, and by the way each song seems to push the next one forward. [Mar 2013, p.61]

These are McCartney's most arresting songs for a long, long while. [Oct 2005, p.94]

This is a thoughtful, empathetic showcase of his interests, of intense feelings translated into a dreamy sonic atmosphere. It’s an album that meets the world in its moment, where global issues and far-flung international voices are more amplified and connected than ever.

The album feels disciplined and enormously funky. [May 2012, p.61]

Hallelujah Anyhow may have been recorded swiftly, but the abandonment is still exquisitely detailed, as every listen to "Domino" reveal further nuance beneath the swagger. [Oct 2017, p.22]

Clarke may not have the tools to open you up emotionally to quite the same degree [as Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Ghosteen], but he's found an elegant and absorbing mood of despair like few have managed so far. [Apr 2021, p.24]

Utterly thrilling. [Sep 2020, p.32]

A work of lyricism and maturity, this is one of Veirs' finest yet. [Sep 2013, p.97]

Ad hoc, anything goes is the mood of what follows. Much is accomplished and playful. ... When he allows himself to forget who he is and just remember what it is that he does, he can still come up with songs to surprise you. More impressively, maybe even surprise himself.

Start Walkin’ emphasises the team’s many deviations from the mean, demonstrating how inventive and subversive Sinatra’s music could be even before her music with Hazlewood took a more avidly idiosyncratic direction with Nancy & Lee. ... 23 concise chapters that are thrilling, surprising and sometimes sublime.

Some of the best moments here are twitchy funk miniatures, driven by tuba basslines, distorted Fender Rhodes riffs and chant-based vocals, which leave you wanting more. [Aug 2021, p.35]

Girly-Sound to Guyville is something much more revealing than an anniversary commemoration. It's a document of an artist finding and raising er voice: a souvenir from an era that questions long-held assumptions about the sex and the business of rock'n'roll. [Jun 2018, p.38]

Her voice alone is worth preserving humanity for, hitting peaks of gorgeous, sleek torment on the cosmic beauty of "A Given Thing". [Dec 2022, p.36]

Spare, beautiful, outstanding. [Jul 2003, p.128]

What strikes you, above all, is the innocence and affection in their breezy blues, at odds with the heavy weather White has made of his post-Stripes career. [Feb 2021, p.49]

It's the vivid, virulent product of the Maels' warped imaginations. [Mar 2006, p.90]

It’s the Phenomenal Handclap Band’s Daniel Collás, as producer, who brings Jackson’s long-lost creations to life. The eight tracks here, written during the Scott-Heron era, re-emerge more relevant than ever, courtesy of a strong backing band. [Jul 2022, p.26]

This is audaciously modern in its textural absorption of outre sounds from the 21st-century dance underground. [Dec 2002, p.136]

For him a song is no older than the last time it was sung. His fifth album, Good And Green Again is his most thoughtful, his most eloquent, and his most poignant explication of this idea. [Feb 2022]

Cunningham and Stewart also know how to write a killer pop melody. [Jul 2020, p.33]

While Phasor standouts such as "Flores" evoke Os Mutantes in a narcoleptic fugue. .... On "Colores Del Mar" and "Out There", he strikes an equally deft balance between aqueous abstraction and buoyant, big-hearted avant-pop. [Mar 2024, p.34]

Never short on vocal confidence, here, she trades divadom for arresting, unconventional shapes. [Jul 2016, p.69]

It begins with Michael Stipe's stunning interpretation of "Sunday Morning." ... The tracks that fly highest here are in fact the least faithful, more subversive. [Oct 2021, p.22]

An impassioned and resolute statement imbued with clarity of vision, emotional depth and the hum of boundless creativity. [Apr 2024, p.33]

You don't expect progression from such evident classicists, but there's a new clarity, poise and refinement. [Apr 2004, p.107]

Majestic, life-affirming and touched by magic. [Nov 2004, p.102]

It may have been assembled as a lockdown stopgap, but Songs From An Old Guitar is overall glorious, a career highlight in a career full of them. [Feb 2021, p.47]

Few, if any, artists are pushing the boundaries of traditional music further. [Feb 2013, p.79]

Mordechai is a great record, made by deep listeners who believe that discerning taste does not equate to snobbishness, Through it, we're reminded that good music is for everyone. [Aug 2020, p.20]

Nash, his many voices and every credited musician on the album combine in a joyous noise you want to go on as long as one of those versions of "Caravan" Van used to do with The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. [Aug 2018, p.25]

Soul Of A Woman proves to be so much more than your average swansong. ... Sly, spirited and sublime, it packs a whole lot of action into its 36 filler-free minutes. [Dec 2017, p.16]

The Ruby Cord won't fail to impress. You leave it mind reeling, happily baffled, dazzled by the scope of its achievement. [Dec 2022, p.22]

Richer textures, but no luxury-studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources are deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. Her voice is so distinctive and her writing so personal that a strutting backbeat and a flying hi-hat don't affect the essential character of the music. ... Perfect. [Mar 2021, p.36]

Hitchcock sounds more energised and vibrant than he has in decades. [May 2017, p.31]

Playful wordplay and minor-chord ingenuity bound. [Jun 2023, p.23]

June has given us an album that is powerfully, elegantly subversive. [April 2021, p.20]

Ellis' purist, even traditionalist, voice is the perfect vessel for his sanguine portraits of ordinary people, battered and bruised but never without hope. [Mar 2014, p.72]

It doubtless works best heard in the cinema or the home theatre, and especially in the context of Julian House's beautifully lurid title sequence.

Similarly to Lambchop's Nixon, it weaves together new and old, soul and country, black and white, love and hate, to form an understated masterpiece. [Feb 2006, p.74]

You'll be hard pushed to find a more adventurously self-assured debut this year. [Mar 2021, p.27]

An unqualified triumph. [Jun 2006, p.122]

This is Cheap Trick at their purest: a fierce, streamlined rock'n'roll gang. [Feb 2023, p.44]