The LP opens with “My Golden Years”, a delectable mélange of Harrisonian 12-string riffs, Wilsonian harmonies and layer-cake hooks, and reaches its apex with the glorious Beach Boys homage “In The Eyes Of The Girl”, with Sean Ono Lennon co-producing and playing bass. [Jun 2024, p.35]

Jazz remains the root of his sound, with Washington’s saxophone as bold and vibrant as ever. But the grand orchestral sweep of albums past is pared back, replaced by adeeper engagement with hip-hop, funk and soul. [May 2024, p.41]

Though Chasny’s folkier inclinations generally prevail over Six Organs’ equal affection for psych explosions, it’s still thrilling to hear him set the controls for the big red sun in the final minutes of “Summer’s Last Rays”. [May 2024, p.41]

An album that has bite and snarl but also a wonderfully woozy and unfurling sense of groove. [Jun 2024, p.36]

There’s something galvanising about the way they’ve signed off with their best album in decades. This is not to slight previous albums like Perpetuum Mobile or Alles In Allem, but the group are on particularly excellent form. [Jun 2024, p.26]

Opener “I Suck At Grieving” is a musical marvel, a song about losing a parent that’s genuinely fun to sing along to. “Jealous” is a garage-rock Gen Z remake of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated”, while “Pretty Good For A Bad Day” – a duet with All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth – offers a clever sense of perspective. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Throughout, Rademaker's tremulous vocals and endearing slacker persona imbue his songs with a heart-tugging humanity. [May 2024, p.34]

“Stock Horror” offering aghostly absence, its additional sepulchral weight midway through welcoming what could be ameteor shower, while the amorphous “Dim Hopes” ultimately brings brighter skies too. Similarly, “We Were Vaporised” effects alanguid transubstantiation. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Another radical musical/ psychological metamorphosis. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Muttered vocals and jazzy trumpet combine on the unsettling “God Save The Queen”, and even Mary Lattimore’s harp and Lonney Holley’s graceful voice can’t disguise “Guilty”’s uncomfortable challenges. [Jun 2024, p.37]

Rhett Miller’s quartet crank up the cowpunk on the likes of “This World”, “Falling Down” and “Chased The Setting Sun”, but time, inevitably, has tempered their collective experience. [Jun 2024, p.37]

There’s acreaky Sunset Boulevard synth-pop air of nostalgia to much of Nonetheless, but just when you’re ready to dismiss it, they pull out “Love Is The Law”, adream collaboration between WH Auden and John Barry, which shoots straight into the Top 10 of their indisputably greatest songs. [Jun 2024, p.37]

Jain often subverts the placid mood with playful details, like the fractalised vocals that fill "Our Touching Tongues" or the synth arpeggios that add a sprightly energy throughout. [Apr 2024, p.35]

The music here swells, surges and rages without ever losing the vulnerability at its core. [May 2024, p.31]

Forgiveness Is Yours sometimes becomes too diffuse, hampered by a surplus of bold ideas that do not get all the necessary follow-through. But it Abounds with queasy pleasures all the same. [May 2024, p.32]

Light Verse rejoices in its playful details. [May 2024, p.35]

Fu##in Up captures Young and the Horse on blazing form. Nelson makes acapable duelling partner for Young, working intuitively alongside Old Black’s grizzled solos, while Lofgren’s honky-tonk piano lends ashimmying quality to these craggy, elemental songs. [May 2024, p.41]

A sublime composition. [Feb 2024, p.37]

At just 25 minutes, it’s very much a listen-through, though the percussive clattering and ominous synthesiser hum of “Names Make The Name” constitute a standout. [Apr 2024, p.41]

His voice might not be as powerful as it was – “This Ain’t Rock And Roll” sees him push it to the throaty limit –but it still has range, control and versatility, while his phrasing is consistently imaginative. [May 2024, p.30]

On the first LP, the 60-piece Brussels Philharmonic adds top-heavy accompaniment to his melodic playing. .... On the second LP, however, the 11-member Umbria Jazz Orchestra sounds simultaneously nimbler and heavier. [May 2024, p.32]

Supremely inviting, warm and ruefully radiant. .... A crown on a career still going strong. [May 2024, p.31]

The result sits somewhere between Mazzy Star and Broadcast, exploring a liminal space between the more propulsive moments of the album. [Apr 2024, p.41]

A record that is quietly powerful in its delicate yet emotional execution. [May 2024, p.39]

The band's first full-length project with prolific writer-producer dan Carey mostly stays within familiar punk-funk parameters, but is generally an infectiously kinetic, richly detailed, timeless affair. [May 2024, p.29]

A squealing noise-rock juggernaut that balances gruff anthemicism with a certain improvisatory elan. [May 2024, p.38]

This is a fretful and ferocious record, lyrically much preoccupied with things having ended or appearing about to end, but musically much more blaze of glory than any kind of funeral pyre. [May 2024, p.40]

Thematically and musically, this is classic Hawkwind –epic space-rock with science-fiction lyrics –resulting in a double album crammed with songs like “The Tracker” or “Traveller Of Time And Space” that could have been written at any time since 1970 and therefore fit seamlessly into one of rock’s great canons. [May 2024, p.34]

The power of Cotton’s compositions for Engelchen lies in both its clarity, and its lack of affectation. She’s sensitive to the story, conveying it through simplicity. [Apr 2024, p.31]

Not everything hits the target, partly due to strangely sluggish pacing, but impassioned weepies like “Work Today (And Tomorrow)” and the sarcastic, agreeably sloppy “Everybody’s Somebody” showcase an impressive vocal and emotional range. [Apr 2014, p.31]

Resounds with the liberated feeling of an artist who not only has something to say but an audience to say it to. [May 2024, p.35]

Metz's latest combines the Jesus Lizard's Goat-era aggression with PiL's Album-era rigour. [May 2024, p.38]

Yummy can be lyrically awkward as Tim Booth addresses conspiracy theories and digital addition. Often, though, influences brewed via innocent '80s indie and lusty Emo ambience spark arresting hybrids. [Apr 2024, p.35]

Who Will You Believe is the sound of a man who has not only grown into himself, but is finding that, despite dents and losses, he's kind of enjoying life. His trademark country-rock jangle glistens. [Apr 2024, p.39]

Pop-minded producers Dimitri Tikovoi and Dan Grech-Marguerat add a sheen to the Up The Bracket-style clatter, and unexpectedly stately arrangements. [Mar 2024, p.32]

The predominant flavour here is a sort of manic hedonism, but scratch the sequinned surface and you find some witty social commentary and a seam of vulnerability. [May 2024, p.35]

The highlight is "I'll Do Whatever You Want", a gentle nimbus of melody featuring fellow flute convert Andre 3000 and Floating Points' Samuel Shepherd on twinkling Rhodes. [May 2024, p.39]

There are surprises everywhere. While "R&B" and "Nearly Daffodils" are sprightly, irreverent post-punk, the influence of Black Country, Nee Road nd Radiohead are evident on the complex, proggy title track and the diverse, hushed final third of the album. Lily Fontaine's lyrics, to are deep and funny. [Apr 2024, p.32]

The result is a richly produced album of breezy, melodic and infectious indie-rock with hooks galore. [May 2024, p.31]

Characterised by a laid-back, full-band sound, this heartfelt music exudes the warm thrill of catching up and looking back among old friends. [Apr 2024, p.35]

Little Sun is one of his strongest sets in a while, whether he’s lost in the hypnotic reveries of “Bearhead Lake” or finding Michael Hurley-esque playfulness through “Ten Watt”. [Apr 2024, p.39]

Lyrically and vocally, Houck is as witty and insightful as the come, with that cacked voice making everything sound sacred or profound. [Mar 2024, p.33]

El Magnifico finds him much the same bruised piano troubadour, surveying red-blooded romantic scars. [March 2024, p.28]

This is music created with ease, songs that are uncluttered, with no fuss or flash, but plenty of commitment. It's another compelling achievement. [Apr 2024, p.24]

It broadly succeeds because her songs - worked on with R&B guv'nor Jai Paul and her father Pino, a seasoned session player, and siblings Rocco and Giancarla - are elegantly poised. [Apr 2024, p.38]

Beck appears on half the tracks –his deadpan gospel is especially discernible on “Beautiful People (Stay High)” – Noel Gallagher on three songs, and an invigorating hip-hop influence is contributed by Juicy J, Lil Noid and Dan The Automator. The sum of these disparate parts is an album with that infectious quality of sounding like it was a total blast to make. [Apr 2024, p.29]

Love In Constant Spectacle, is by some distance her most satisfying album. Full of surprises and tantalisingly familiar, it’s the sound of Weaver stretching out and drawing from her wealth of experience to fashion a heartfelt, head-spinning account of grief and solace. [Apr 2024, p.28]

The charisma, charm, galvanising dynamism and radical positivity of frontman Bobbie, aka Pascal Robinson-Foster, works better on stage than in the studio; even so, his hilarious takedowns of Marx-quoting armchair revolutionaries and Brexitvoting Top Gear fans reveal a sharp, self-aware wit behind the headbanging polemic. [Apr 2024, p.31]

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]

For all of the album's lushness, Grip may be most defined by its unabashed lustfulness. [May 2024, p.39]

While Live Laugh Love could benefit from more of the tension that builds in "Tethered" lest it all start seem too comfortably slack, Chastity Belt's blend of blissed-out effervescence and sly wit remains very appealing. [May 2024, p.32]

Their fourth album sees them on more soulful, though no less seductive ground, having worked up old song ideas into 12 new, mid-tempo tracks which are compositionally and emotionally diverse. [May 2024, p.35]

This set is a confirmation and welcome addition to the catalogue of recorded Alice Coltrane music and spiritual jazz. [May 2024, p.48]

Bold, brilliant and experimental. [Apr 2024, p.34]

Shook unpicks destructive relationships, self-determinism, mental health struggles and romantic yearning over backings that switch between rockabilly, mid-tempo ballads and ringing outlaw country. [Apr 2024, p.41]

Here [on "Yesterday Is Only A Song"] and on the best tunes of Interplay, Ride feel wonderfully, unexpectedly, younger than yesterday. [Apr 2024, p.36]

A loose, luscious listen, with a timeless sound. [Apr 2024, p.32]

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

Beautifully now. [Mar 2024, p.29]

Organic set of gorgeously gilded songs which English folk sensibility mixes with the freewheeling spirit of Californian Canyon rock. [Mar 2024, p.35]

Every song contains a clever new idea. [Mar 2024, p.35]

His most expansive statement to date, a swaggering collage of blues, boogie, hip-hop and fuzzy rock riffs on which - unlike with, say, Joe Bonamassa - the songs are never subjugated to grandstanding guitar pyrotechinics. [Apr 2024, p.31]

Top stuff. [Mar 2024, p.25]

There is something about this music that is warming, aqueous, immersive and endlessly engaging. [Mar 2024, p.18]

Gossip have been a force of nature - in no small part down to charismatic vocalist Beth Ditto and her dancefloor-quaking voice. Real Power, the Portland trio's first album in 11 years, plays on that reputation, but tenderly. [Mar 2024, p.26]

Lee's overarching theme is loss and despair at the damage done to the natural world, but with an approach that is emphatic rather than abrasive, the anger palpable but not overbearing. [Mar 2024, p.29]

The tracks play to the strengths of Dion's guests. [Mar 2024, p.25]

While Waxahatchee has never sounded more suited for mass approval, Crutchfield has never seemed truer to herself. [Apr 2024, p.30]

Lenker collects vivid details and lets them amplify each other, until the deeply personal becomes somehow universal. [Mar 2024, p.29]

Rockmaker's rude vigour and bounty of hooks will reassure the faithful, as should the ample supply of snark from Courtney Taylor-Taylor. [Apr 2024, p.31]

A sparkling set recalling the mid-century tipping point of folk revivalism into rock. [Apr 2024, p.38]

Its themes are plainly evident in the earworm metal stomp of "Many Doors To Hell" and gothic menace of "Fingers In The Wounds", although more subdued (but equally sombre) hues inform the portentous, piano-led power ballad "Shadow Of The Gods". [Mar 2024, p.25]

This is a marvellous collection of hooky acid rock that nods to UK '80s indie as well as '70s classic rock. [Mar 2024, p.32]

A surprisingly lively and assured comeback. [Apr 2024, p.29]

He also plays an agreeably skronky, Jeff-Beck-style electric on several tracks, but it's when unplugged that Lage is at his most extraordinary. [Apr 2024, p.38]

Her piano work enviably deft, she still opts for just guitar and brass on the title track, but "paradise" offers the easy-going charms of early Diana Ross, while producer Leon Michels helps lighten the mood further on "Running", adding sax and drums. [Apr 2024, p.35]

Moody shades of The National and Tunnel Of Love-era Springsteen abound, though the whole thing never quite manages to fully convince. [Mar 2024, p.25]

Moments feel somewhat bombastic, but where Scope Neglect hits, it certainly hits. [Mar 2024, p.26]

He's one of the few guitarists around who can make a guitar solo an article of faith. [Mar 2024, p.25]

While the latter's [drummer Gavin Harrison's] rhythms can overcomplicate at times, more often they add to the edgy atmospherics and heighten the contrasting rush when broader rock strokes are applied. [Feb 2024, p.34]

Weird details stud essentially conventional songs by a band who sound energised, and in many ways The Coral's true kin. [Apr 2024, p.31]

A voyage in time and space - exploring the Amazon rainforest and transversing the African Diaspora. [Apr 2024, p.32]

William and Jim Reid remain as defiantly out of time as ever. [Mar 2024, p.29]

There's little identifiable guitar until track five, by which time anxiety and menace have taken hold thanks to the lumbering mien of "Bye Bye" and "I'm A Man"'s monstrous grind. "Shelf Warmer" lets in some air but it too is fabulously foul. [Mar 2024, p.26]

As bleakly dystopian as that sounds, the music is colourful and bursting with joyous melodies. [Mar 2024, p.26]

The mess is the whole point. It's a fascinating place to be, largely because she finds so much meaning in everyday observations and mundane ironies, in the small moments many other songwriters might overlook. [Mar 2024, p.30]

Matt Korvette is a misanthropic force of nature whether ticking off the negatives of cities from Boston to Rome ("Everywhere IS Bad") or addressing adult responsibility ("Helicopter Parent"). [Mar 2024, p.33]

It may not be fuelled by as many immediate hooks and gnarly grooves as The Overload, but it's a bold progression both musically and lyrically. [Mar 2024, p.24]

If the tunes and attitude don't grip as strongly as they did in either man's era-bending pomp, both parties still sound better for getting together. [Mar 2024, p.27]

At times Sheer Mag are miraculous pop hustlers, still pulling off the most absurd trick shots on the scuffed three yards of stained green baize. Which isn't to say that they're not above a little experiment. [Mar 2024, p.22]

The quick-take, live-in-the-room approach serves these songs well. [Feb 2024, p.30]

The south of France motorik and funk bass of "Protéïformunité" similarly reassure, before "Don't Forget You're Mine" charts choppier waters and communication breakdowns. "The Inner Smile" returns to Sadier's central quest, propelling her mantras of sexual and global reg=integration with eruptive, flute-heavy prog grooves. [Feb 2024, p.35]

Elemental and menacing. [Feb 2024, p.35]

It's notable for uncensored emotional gloom and an evergreen college sound. [Feb 2024, p.37]

As always, you know what you're getting -- and you get that they're knowing. [Feb 2024, p.27]

An album that is leaps and bounds above anything else Shah has done before – a record that’s layered and detailed, coated with beautifully rich production, yet also spacious and considered. [Feb 2024, p.23]

There is a hint of Nashville in the production, a dash of steel guitar, but the main symptom is the clarity of the sound. It dares to be understated, pushing Real Estate's artful ambivalence into the light. [Feb 2024, p.35]

They make a welcome return to the looser, roots sound of earlier albums. [Feb 2024, p.28]