Less effectively soothing than 2022's A Journey..., it's unconventionally beguiling, more ambient predecessor. [Dec 2023, p.34]

The album flags a bit in the middle but maintains enough propulsion to easily glide past those saggy moments. [Dec 2023, p.34]

It's an embarrassment of riches. [Nov 2023, p.40]

LeBlanc wears his canyon-rock influences proudly on his sleeve, all high harmonies and chiming guitars, from the yearning "Stranger Things" to the tender "No Promises Broken" and the cathartic closer "The Outside". [Dec 2023, p.33]

The Aussie Maestros deliver seven concise tracks of electronica, largely indebted to Giorgio Moroder but with ventures into many of those elements Moroder inspired, from disco to techno and even jungle. [Dec 2023, p.33]

A familiarity with the back-story is not necessary to enjoy this potted indie-rock opera: as always with Darnielle's work, an appreciation of droll storytelling and deadpan melodies will do. [Dec 2023, p.34]

Skinner's brightest, punchiest and most eclectic in memory. It's a welcome return. [Dec 2023, p.36]

A reworking of an early Squirrel Flower track, "I Don't Use A Trash Can", and the delicately atmospheric "Finally Rain" bookend the work, showing Williams' quiet strength as a songwriter. [Dec 2023, p.34]

Laugh Track features a band free of some of their usual burden. [Dec 2023, p.34]

There's often a giddy, even ecstatic feel to Pierce's exercises in personal exorcism, one that connects the exuberant indie-pop that was The Drums' stock and trade during their breakout a decade ago with his more smiths-y and synth-laden music here. [Dec 2023, p.28]

Hackney Diamonds strains at the leash to show just how vital and dynamic the tones still are, with Jagger very much in pole position. .... Reborn again, the Stones kick back and celebrate. [Dec 2023, p.20]

Black Bayou is a showcase for Finley the storyteller, an artist who can convincingly inhabit narratives that may not be entirely based on his own experiences, lifestyle or even beliefs. [Nov 2023, p.27]

The set ranges ambitiously from hypnotic, twisted love songs such as "103" and the title track to the warped gospel undertones of "My Girls My Girls" and "LA Hex", courtesy of the Compton Kidz Club Choir. [Dec 2023, p.31]

But for all the rueful, wistful, middle-aged preoccupations of History Books, its two most emblematic tracks, "Little Fires" and "Positive Charge", catch The Gaslight Anthem at their most glorious and furious. [Dec 2023, p.30]

Selvutsletter is a shapeless sprawl in places but covers an impressive range. [Nov 2023, p.31]

It's an album that unfurls like a flag on a battlefield, glorious, tattered, defiant, full of big choruses, vaulting harmonies, a brazenly windswept sound. The guitars couldn't be louder, bolder, more heroically deployed. [Nov 2023, p.28]

While Pearlies often invites comparisons with music by Lush’s many dream-pop descendants – “The Presence” and “Tonight Is Mine” being just two songs here that Beach House will wish they’d crafted – Anderson continually finds intriguing ways of deviating from those templates. In so doing, she’s able to nudge the guitar pedals aside and demonstrate that her music still has other places to go.

Ultimately, what CMAT has done with CrazyMad, For Me is create a new pop music, centered around melody, heartache, and resolve, and filled with more than a dash of gallows humor to boot.

["And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me" is] unashamedly lovely but manages to avoid tweeness through the clarity and concision of both the composition and the playing. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Sweeping arrangements, thoughtful ambient passages and judicious archival samples drive the story, which is cleverly weighted from a thematic viewpoint. [Oct 2023, p.33]

The London trio chart out some fresh trajectories for the mesmeric brand of avant-pop they established with 2019's eerily prophetic The Age Of Immunology and 2021's superb Ookii Gekkou. [Nov 2023, p.33]

There's a similar vibe here [to the soundtrack they created for BBC drama Gallows Pole] on tracks such as "raised By Hills" and "Tripping In The Graveyard", although elsewhere the psych weirdness is as rampantly eclectic as ever. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Clear, uncluttered, minimally adorned, it works in different measures to the usual. [Oct 2023, p.31]

It ["Hurtin' Or Healed"] is one of many moments on the record with a reflectively slow and gentle pace. But there are also subtle dynamic shifts and spikes throughout. [Nov 2023, p.32]

Sherwood's production is typically stylish - clear when needed, dubbed-out and spiraling when the music demands; heavy and uplifting. [Nov 2023, p.26]

Faithful and reverential throughout, there's nonetheless clear signs of Joe's own personality shining though. [Nov 2023, p.27]

As an artistic exercise, it's interesting enough. [Nov 2023, p.33]

The blend of early Cure and gnarly grunge of "Soft Like A Flower" produces an indie-ish racket, the dance pulse of "Wild Times" and the smoky brass curling around "Golden" show new facets to her sound that work just as well. [Nov 2023, p.26]

The eight songs of Midnight Rose range from serviceable to cringeworthy. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Javelin sounds like a proper Sufjan Stevens album, picking up the lyrical and sonic threads of Carrie & Lowell and 2010's The Age Of Adz. [Nov 2023, p.22]

This incarnation of Modern Nature has delivered a slim but rich volume of musical poetry, that demands a certain commitment to appreciate its quiet fervour. [Nov 2023, p.18]

There's a clear path being charted, expanding the grammar of R&B into the heart of the modern-day mainstream. [Oct 2023, p.34]

Another dazzling yet soulless smorgasbord of bold, modern pop composition that mixes the latest AI with more old-school contributions from Lee Renaldo and Jim O'Rourke. [Nov 2023, p.31]

This deluxe set showcases the vital rush and wildness that Stinson brought to the band for the last time. [Nov 2023, p.36]

An album from a band that still sound truly individual. [Oct 2023, p.25]

The music reflects this stark, witty chronicle of precarious modern living with a queasy tableau of churning beats, one minute harsh and industrial, the next lush and dreamy. [Nov 2023, p.25]

These four numbered tracks fall closer to dance music, although Föllakzoid's hallmarks - a lysergic dreaminess, tethered by a constant, hypnotic propulsion - remains intact. [Nov 2023, p.28]

Cousin is deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album. [Oct 2023, p.24]

Even better [than Time Skiffs]: consistently inventive rather than merely quirky, it makes sincere effort to get to the emotional core of what they do. [Nov 2023, p.25]

The album is tethered by Roberts' spoken-word poetry. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Together, the North Carolina instrumental trio revel in heady improvisatory zones. .... There's no lead voice here, just three musicians moving as one. [Nov 2023, p.32]

Best of all might be the ecstatic, heavily orchestrated astral-jazz freak-out of "thank You God". [Oct 2023, p.23]

Halo is occasionally guilty of tasteful conservatory restraint, but overall this is a richly, immersive headphones experience, a haunted sonic mansion of many chambers. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Cobb recorded the record at Macon's legendary Capricorn Sound with Georgian musicians, and it sounds it. [Oct 2023, p.27]

The antic hippie of Banhart's early work is long gone on this depressed but not despairing record, warmed by the melancholy, spacy hush of his voice over drifting synths and the bass's heartbeat pulse. [Oct 2023, p.25]

[Endless Arcade's] follow-up is even more impressive, the five-piece creating an organic song cycle largely concerned with the roll of time hope's eternal promise and an unerring sense of where their natural strengths lie. [Oct 2023, p.34]

The teenage tyrants of "Girls From Mars" fame may now be chasing the tail-end of their forties, but they've lost little of that youthful vigour. [Nov 2023, p.25]

Overall the vibe is more celebration than confrontation, but there's still room for the odd reassuring freakout. [Nov 2023, p.29]

From the moment you heard her with Our Native Daughters, you knew it was only a matter of time before she made her album for the ages. The Returner is that album. [Oct 2023, p.27]

Weird but oddly wonderful. [Oct 2023, p.37]

The result is a varied, disjointed, entirely unpredictable yet utterly singular record. [Oct 2023, p.29]

It's a dozen of his finest compositions reworked as bluegrass tunes, and it's magnificent. [Oct 2023, p.31]

The self-produced LP captures the energy and sentiment of a veteran bar band tearing it up in some Jersey Shore dive - meaning they're very much in their element on this timeless record. [Nov 2023, p.31]

As ever, OCMS manage the deft balance of embracing tradition without lapsing into curatorial piousness or zany pastiche. [Nov 2023, p.31]

The fourth album from Speedy Ortiz crackles with typically furious energy - but there's a deftness which makes the band's polemics as fun to listen to as they are powerful. [Nov 2023, p.33]

It pitches up somewhere between devotional music, modern classical and shoegaze and plays as a set piece, though the powerful ebb and flow of "Skel" stands out. [Nov 2023, p.32]

There's not a weak moment here, though the aforementioned "I Don't Like My Mind" and "The Deal", with its sudden percussive tumult, shine brightest. [Nov 2023, p.31]

An expansive, soulful set that embraces modern West Coast fusion, Hancock-style funk, , psychedelic soul-jazz and more. [Nov 2023, p.26]

Despite a perennial weakness for soppy whimpering, Blake always delivers spine-tingling jewel-box beauty. [Nov 2023, p.25]

This is an album about distortion, not just of traditional folk instruments but of the emotions - grief and rage and bewilderment - that he experiences as a black trans person in America. [Oct 2023, p.23]

The abundance of dreamy, placid wonders like "Between The Past" and the instrumental "White Wonder Melody" doesn't entirely negate one's longing for more of the ferocious, Ira Kaplan-worthy shredding that fills the final moments of "Another Dream" or other touches that add a wobblier, woozier feel to the proceedings. [Oct 2023, p.37]

The music is varied, best expressed by "Peace Or Quiet", which stretches their loud-quiet dynamic as far as it can go. [Oct 2023, p.28]

An inspired left turn. [Oct 2023, p.25]

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

This soulful, spiritual, experimental collection is a rich testament to the chemistry of collaboration. [Oct 2023, p.26]

A surreal sense of the macabre in everyday life remains their MO, from "Skunks"' shuffling crawl space inhabitants to the winged appetites of the softly intoned "Mothballs". [Oct 2023, p.29]

The diversity here is testament to the sheer scope of his [Leon Russell's] writing. [Oct 2023, p.37]

Confirming the band's Merseyside-'67 LA space-time portal, retracing familiar if melodically firm ground. [Oct 2023, p.26]

If these [tracks] feel like throwbacks, they're no more so than Norah Jones' best work, and there's nonetheless something timeless about the breezy "While You Were Sleeping" and, with its chugging guitars, "Lovesick". [Oct 2023, p.29]

Deliciously dark and yet full of an elegant lightness, this is Hersh at the top of her considerable game. [Oct 2023, p.29]

While Mid Air is an album occasionally rooted in grief following the loss of Romy's parents, it seeks to take those moments of joy and dancefloor elation. [Oct 2023, p.34]

They produce a whole lot of full-fat dance-pop joy. [Oct 2023, p.85]

It's a rather ragtag collection. .... You do, however, really get a sense of what a playful, unique and ahead of his time composer Garson was. [Sep 2023, p.42]

Bursting with warmth and character even when nearly tweaked beyond the point of recognition, Murphy's voice has rarely had a more satisfying showcase. [Oct 2023, p.31]

Held together by a unifying drone, End Of The Day is a welcome if unusual addition to Barnett's catalogue. [Oct 2023, p.25]

12-song collection brings together four elders, three younger practitioners and original James Gang singer-guitarist Glenn Schwartz, along with The Black Keys in Deep-blues mode. [Sep 2023, p.37]

What should have been the next step in Branch's innovative career became a tragically beautiful final document that captured an artist cresting a peak. [Oct 2023, p.30]

This is the Slowdive you've been waiting for. [Oct 2023, p18]

She has crooned before, but the freight of intimate emotion here, letting low notes waver within the ferally alive arrangement, is masterful. Ending an album of looking back, this is the new prime of Chrissie Hynde. [Oct 2023, p.22]

It's a warm, modestly confident record with elegant touches, and one that spits out occasional sparks, too. [Sep 2023, p.27]

The album finds the 69-year-old musing on mortality and checking in on his past with poetic articulacy. [Oct 2023, p.37]

It's all great fun and played by a road-hardened band full of vigour. [Oct 2023, p.26]

They're bummed to learn that adulthood breeds more angst than adolescence, which inspires a sharp-edged '70s hard rock, with songs celebrating kink and demanding equal pay and full-body autonomy on "Big Trouble". [Sep 2023, p.23]

Meek and producer Mat Davidson took the band to Sonic Ranch in Texas and gave the record a much more expansive, full-sounding presentation, a resounding and confident tone that matches these optimistic and often unfiltered emotions. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Jump For Joy is a panoramic, magical reverie on the sometimes hard gift of a life in American music. [Sep 2023, p.36]

The extraordinary power and jaded romance of Suede, which has been given renewed depth and sparkle in this new version. [Sep 2023, p.49]

Isakov's most panoramic album. [Oct 2023, p.29]

Suitably laid back and gently psychedelic, unhurried guitars wringing through the breeze, harmonies washed in from The Notorious Bryd Brothers. [Sep 2023, p.32]

The deep-cut-heavy, career-spanning set is manna for the faithful. [Oct 2023, p.48]

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

"De Selby Part 2" shows he can stylishly bring funk and R&B influences to bear. But most distinctive are the afrobeat touches that lace "damage Gets Done" and "Anything But". [Oct 2023, p.29]

It seems Allison has finally found her voice, on her own terms. [Sep 2023, p.23]

10 songs that glint like shards of glass yet brim with love, grief, courage, existential doubt and all the stuff that makes us human, to a soundtrack of grungy alt.rock cut with torch-song melodrama and Lenker-ish folk. [Sep 2023, p.27]

There's a tense, nervous energy o songs such as "Obsession", "Our Song" and "Oversize Sweater" and surprises aplenty. [Sep 2023, p.34]

The countrier she keeps it, the better. [Sep 2023, p.43]

Opener "Ocean Mouth" is similarly enticing, as are the crystalline synth hooks of "Don't Believe It Now", as his singular approach to lo-fi dance pop continues to charm. [Sep 2023, p.28]

Variety is this album's strength. [Oct 2023, p.33]

There's a dusty charm to Little Songs, which lacks the gravity of his 2017 self-titled debut but has higher stakes than his albums since then. [Oct 2023, p.37]