Some of the group's most personal work. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Reaffirming his faith in rock as transformative thrill, and adding atmospheric detours recalling late-period Weller and Bowie. [Jul 2023, p.27]

Stills is dynamic vocally and instrumentally throughout, but the underutilised talent pool makes this document of what was incongruously dubbed The Memphis Horns Tour and odd curio that exemplifies the wigged-out extravagance of the era. [Jun 2023, p.49]

Deeply hermetic then, but catchy as hell, too. [Jul 2023, p.34]

Although the record is unlikely to convert any sceptics, the presence of wide-eyed improviser Alex Ward gives Thomas the perfect foil. [Jul 2023, p.33]

This album proves that Collins – if she so wishes – still has more to give. [Jun 2023, p.18]

While there's a groovy sweetness at work in "Clutch Pearlers", and "Bully" is anything but - a woozy, neon-pastel comforter with a head-nodding pulse. [Jun 2023, p.25]

She threads Lou Reed's vocal rhythm over the band's brisk skank on "Hangin' Round", while "Song To The Siren" and "The Man Who Sold The World" slip with similar ease into reggae mode. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Thrillingly pioneers its 21st century sound. [Jun 2023, p.26]

This middle ground between jazz and hip-hop is the crux of the record, ad while it's loaded with deft playing, rich production and complex compositions, the constant rotation of differing voices can often kill the flow and coherence of what is otherwise a meticulously crafted record. [Jul 2023, p.33]

Eyes may be on the US market, but the honesty of Parks' expression holds. [Jul 2023, p.33]

As always they are best when singing of brief encounters and regret. [Jun 2023, p.36]

In making work that continues to challenge oppressive systems and relay his tender feelings, it’s clear Nash is very much alive in the now. [Jun 2023, p.22]

Villagers' sleeve is telling: a pile of disparate old junk that somehow sites together as a piece. The remarkable thing is that this album achieves that so spectacularly. [Jul 2023, p.16]

Joan Of All rarely feels ordinary. ... As a whole, this is a work of strength and variety. [Jun 2023, p.24]

Her debut full-length retains the intimacy of those bedroom recordings [on Soundcloud] while making good on their promise, with cleaner melodies and production texture pulled from the pop, hip-hop and indie music. [Jun 2023, p.31]

An album heavy on moody atmospheres and dese riffs. ... There's also pleasing variety to this immersive and enveloping debut. [Jun 2023, p.36]

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

Lanois, along with other western guests, fits organically into Tinariwen's desert blues. The collaborations help even the most furious lyrics slip down nicely. [Jun 2023, p.30]

As much as the likes of "Injury Detail" and "Peach Fuzz" evoke Clock DVA and early Psychic TV at their most unnerving, the group nevertheless achieve a grimy grandeur that feels modern, too. [Jun 2023, p.32]

It would be a magnificent way to end a magnificent career, but Simon probably has more ideas in him. [Jul 2023, p.20]

The songs tap '80s electronic pop, art-house soundtracks of the same era, psych-prog ad house and constitute a compelling set-piece. [Jun 2023, p.32]

Lahey excels at crafting chewy pieces of bubblegum-punk whose exuberance and smarts are often matched by their emotional potency. [Jun 2023, p.32]

At 15 tracks it rather drags its anchor, but there's much promise here. [Jul 2023, p.23]

Even without the backstory or an understanding of how difficult this record was to make, …Frankenstein is a skilful portrait of what it means to feel disconnected from the joy and urgency of life.

Airy melodies and Rachael's breathy vocals combine to create music that gets under the skin. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Her vulnerability is more affecting on the wistful break-up anthem "Losing", before "Younger & Dumber" closes the set with a pedal steel-laced paean to the woman she used to be. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Though these tracks are fluid and often meandering, they never lose their immersive, pulse-like groove. [Jul 2023, p.24]

Their angsty post-rock elements have been largely superseded by quivering/rousing chamber pop reminiscent of early Arcade fire and Florence + The Machine, yet a weird emotional intensity remains - along with a talent for self-mythology that inspires audible devotion in an excitable crowd. [Jul 2023, p.23]

There are star turns from figures like the veteran tenor saxophonist Ari Brown. But this is a collective, community affair - never more so than on "Stigmergy", which sees multiple instruments feeding into a single, glowing master melody. [Jul 2023, p.30]

Finger-poppin' fantastic. [Jul 2023, p.36]

There's a lot to like, and though "Pilot Was A Dancer" runs close to standard, indie folk-pop fare, the title track, with its Fairport-ish twangling and braided harmonies, and the wintery, Croz-styed "Give" compensate. [Jul 2023, p.36]

The bewitching tone varies from languid to experimental. [Jun 2023, p.35]

The smoky drawl and casual phrasing of her vocal often seems to channel Billie Holiday. [Jun 2023, p.31]

She relies on relatively conservative house music tropes sometimes, but the hooks never fail to cut through. [Jun 2023, p.29]

It's sunny and optimistic and mostly dynamic (sans a few sleepy, repetitive moments on the six-minute-plus tracks). [May 2023, p.35]

Nelson remains the supreme interpreter of American song, and age has wearied his fretboard fingers not even slightly. [May 2023, p.32]

They're both incredibly deft players, executing taut riffs with obvious charisma. [May 2023, p.35]

Jean plays a mean guitar and the trademark rockabilly romps of "fate" and "trouble", or heavier numbers such as "Godmother", are perfectly fine. ... The wild, carnivalesque cover of Enya's "orinico Flow" - a novelty but a thoroughly enjoyable one. [Jun 2023, p.31]

At 72 years of age, Crowell remains both a vital link to Van Zandt's classic sensibility and an enduring force whose vitality shows few signs of waning. [Jun 2023, p.28]

Confirm that the brothers have fully absorbed their influences in a work of stunning sophistication. [Jun 2023, p.32]

The concept is implicit in the music's gospel-soul communion, the lyrics' yearning and reckoning, and the rousing, towering power of Jones' purposively nostalgic soul vocal. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The band's creativity, imagination and power remain undimmed. [Jun 2023, p.29]

Ultimately, too much easy-listening stoner-tronica makes Prism yet another pleasant but inessential late-career Orb album. [Jun 2023, p.35]

It's the more emotional moments which prove The Damned's undimmed commitment. [May 2023, p.28]

Self-imposed limitations allow Lawrie to create unusual textures and sounds and force him to be more resourceful in how he deploys them. [Mar 2023, p.36]

Each song is so confident and perfectly formed, unravelling with cascading flurries. Orcutt is so confident and comfortable in his own skin that he has become a maser oif phrasing and economy. [Jun 2023, p.35]

Bullion's smooth, rounded sound burnishes what is a dynamic collection of songs. [Jun 203, p.26]

A set full of dynamic nuance with a filmic scope. [Mar 2023, p.23]

Dreamer is irrefutably dreamy. ... Nonetheless, she strays into other early-to-mid-'90s styles. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The subject matter sits somewhere between Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Led Zep. ... Yet the sounds owes little to either as flute and mandolin lend a folk-rock ambience and John O'Hara's keyboards and Jow Parrish-James' guitar essay '70s prog tropes like they never went away. [Jun 2023, p.31]

The Window Is The Dream is sonically richer than Horn's often sparse 2022 debut, Optimism, but each choice - the temporary Band-esque folk-rock swagger of "The Dream", the way "Old Friend" hovers at the edge of an extended jam that never quite breaks - is in service of, rather than overpowering, the song. [May 2023, p.30]

Alfa Mists addresses a key weakness in so much contemporary jazz - it actually has some decent tunes. He's helped by his guests. ... But Alfa himself (who also raps on a couple of tracks) can also develop a compelling melodic idea. [Jun 2023, p.35]

An elegantly spare showcase for her radiant voice, a tremulous yodel tinged with gospel and country inflections. [May 2023, p.31]

An intimate, ballad-dominated song cycle that melds their vintage and experimental sides. [Jun 2023, p.36]

If it lacks the politicised urgency of previous 21st-century Hunter albums, or much surprise, his faith in a rock'n'roll cause first signed up to in the '50s has its own majesty. [Jun 2023, p.31]

More intimate but still privy to occasional bursts of discordant, unsettling energy. Several tracks are exceptionally brief. [May 2023, p.38]

The music is spectacular, of course. But if you want to know how the deal really went down, you'll still have to go under the counter. [Jun 2023, p.48]

High Flyin' is like a snapshot from a long-ago holiday romance. Sweet, sometimes spine-tingling to recall. But you maybe won't linger over it too often. [Jun 2023, p.48]

Some tastefully lightweight, pleasantly inessential filler ultimately make Fuse a minor late-career coda. [Jun 2023, p.26]

Startling stuff. [Jun 2023, p.29]

Recalls both Erykah Badu and Arlo Parks, but there's no heavy shadowing here. [Apr 2023, p.32]

The songs here are country rock, unadorned and sensitively played, nestled around Young's lovely acoustic take on Barn's "Song OF The Seasons." Inevitably, Young's influence proliferates. [May 2023, p.31]

Warm, fuzzy and delicious. [May 2023, p.31]

Heavy and heady, free jazz shot through with the urgency of spoken word and pleasure of experimentation. [Jun 2023, p.32]

Most of this album is more laudable than listenable. [Jun 2023, p.26]

As with Daft Punk's sleek 1970s upgrades, his accomplished 1780s meditations go past pastiche. [Jun 2023, p.25]

Wittily expressed and beautifully sung. [May 2023, p.31]

Distinguished by the forceful, deeply personal flows of Roots' MC Black thought, their fourth takes on hip-hop jazz tone, leavening their somewhat overly tasteful retroism without ditching its widescreen pleasure. [May 2023, p.28]

Leaving New York for Sweden during the pandemic gave fresh perspective to these songs of past American odysseys and accumulated loss. [May 2023, p.36]

The album is at its most interesting when it breaks from this mould [dreamy psych rock], embracing more atmospheric sensibilities. [May 2023, p.36]

All necessarily mood but never morose. [May 2023, p.32]

It's the restlessly inventive guitars, from silvery solos to swaggering glam rock, where Metallica find ageless redemption. [Jun 2023, p.32]

Lyrically, relationships dominate, if unconventionally. ... Her effervescent voice like muted Liz Fraser. [Jun 2023, p.32]

If you've not already bought into the LDR mythos, it's like joining a long-form TV show midway through its difficult fourth season. [Jun 2023, p.26]

It's a great illustration of how the trio are even more than the sum of their considerable parts. [Jun 2023, p.25]

A gorgeous collection of songs steeped in Americana roots and full of breezy canyon vibes. [May 2023, p.28]

A passionate but ultimately rather clean record of angst-filled ballads. [May 2023, p.27]

This record is a graceful, seemingly intuitive unfolding into various emotional and/or imagined physical landscapes. [May 2023, p.29]

Deep and heartbreaking. [May 2023, p.35]

The album may be even bolder and more bracing than the theatrical experiment that preceded it. ... She sounds fearless in every sense of the word. [May 2023, p.20]

A bleakly beautiful record that smuggles moments of elation into its ambient dread. [May 2023, p.28]

For all the widescreen grandeur and fresh perspectives of the orchestral arrangements, they're curiously at their most rousing when just voice and acoustic guitar embellish "Won't Get Fooled Again". [May 2023, p.38]

Remarkably, the world they create together never curdles into sentimentality. ... Wednesday turn that stabbing pain into triumphant rock'n'roll. [May 2023, p.39]

1982 has some nostalgic moments. ... But there is forward motion too. [May 2023, p.25]

There is a luscious warmth to this collection. [May 2023, p.28]

Demos - impressive for Elton's ability to nail a song on first take, amusing for his repertoire of Goons voices - and songs from the Feb 1972 Royal Festival Hall concert which amounted to his showbiz coronation. [May 2023, p.46]

The trademark humour that seemed less prevalent as a result on 2018's Digital Garbage is satisfyingly back in evidence here, alongside agreeably ragged riffs and an admirable refusal to tighten up. [May 2023, p.31]

This is hypnotic stuff. ... A record that feels genuinely transportive. [May 2023, p.30]

An album that uses traditional African instrumentation and state-of-the-art electronica with a boldness that is extraordinary. [May 2023, p.31]

Brilliant though many of these musicians have been in numerous other contexts, this might be some of their finest work: a thrilling 90-minute voyage into the outer regionso f electric jazz. [Apr 2023, p.33]

While you'll find little direct trace of Odessey And Oracle here, or of course White's distinctive songwriting contributions, Blunstone's heartfelt interpretation of Argent's classicist craft does, though, endure. [May 2023, p.34]

A blissful affair. [Apr 2023, p.25]

These songs fizz as freshly as if the group have only just discovered that combination of the post-punk pugnacity of prime Attractions with the acerbic disquisitions of a spoken-word Springsteen. [May 2023, p.28]

One of its overarching joys is its relative directness, very much a conscious deciaion on the group's part. This is Deerhoof we're talking about, though - they still play it like they're hurtling towards collapse at breakneck speed, before pulling everything together with a fantastic flourish. [May 2023, p.28]

The interplay between the two string players is as elegant as ever, but their new partners dramatically expand the range of flavours on offer. [May 2023, p.36]

The veteran band's warmest, most tactile record. [May 2023, p.32]

A wonderful pop album that reads as both a studied tribute and a welcome update. [Apr 2023, p.35]