Cacti is relentless, laser-focused and irresistible. [Feb 2023, p.32]

His style is exquisitely restrained and deeply soulful. [Jan 2023, p.25]

There are nine other unreleased tracks, of which “Why D’Ya Go To Cleveland” is the only entirely unheard thing. ... Not everything is unsalted. The B-sides and rarities – many from film soundtracks – allow Harvey to stretch herself into Brechtian oompah, Beefheartian discord, neo-folk. Some of these waifs and strays are excellent. [Dec 2022, p.42]

With this devastatingly personal song cycle, Price completes her transformation from retro-country preservationist to anything-goes auteur. [Feb 2023, p.35]

It’s an instantly captivating set – 10 resonant but unfussy songs distinguished by a balance of up-close intimacy and understatedly elegant composition, attuned to the power of repetitive flow.

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

A genuine quartet record. [Jan 2023, p.18]

Made with members of Guns N' Roses, the Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction plus the late Taylor Hawkins, who provide a professionally truculent background to tracks like the loose and slinky "All The Way down" or the terrific "Modern Day Rp Off". a self-deprecating Stooges Pastiche. But Iggy's voice is the star. [Feb 2023, p.35]

Features passionate songs that defy categorisation. [Feb 2023, p.33]

Almanac Behind's message rings loud and clear. [Dec 2022, p.25]

It feels like a meeting of worlds. [Feb 2023, p.25]

While it's sometimes a little too precious or studied, there's plenty of beautifully blank melody here, too. [Feb 2023, p.26]

Consistently startling and affecting. [Jan 2023, p.21]

Particularly interesting among the demos (and these really are early sketches) is the entertaining “Out In The Country” (banjos, acoustic guitars, an Eagles vibe), which is taken two radically different ways; seeming to show that the band didn’t just have one route out of the perpetual summer of 1964 and into the introspective, soft-rock 1970s, they had several – this one even involving country rock. [Jan 2023, p.28]

The group have said this is their final album, and say goodbye in unsentimental but explosive fashion. [Jan 2023, p.27]

A fourth album that feels fervently human for all the machine-tooled precision it otherwise demonstrates. [Jan 2023, p.21]

Whether the album has scratched Stewart’s solo creative itch remains to be seen, but it’s hard to imagine a better record to finally put their own name on. [Dec 2022, p.34]

Beguiling and really rather wonderful. [Jan 2023, p.21]

Live At The Fillmore 1997 stands as both an outstanding document of a great rock'n'roll band at full throttle - and as good a live album as has been made by anybody. [Jan 2023, p.32]

There's no shortage of Hendrix live recordings out there, and while this isn't essential, it's very good recording of a fantastic performance. [Dec 2022, p.44]

A take on "White Cat" from 2017's Plum is strung out to 20-odd minutes. ... Elsewhere they approach their back catalogue with a sense of blissed-out spaciousness. [Nov 2022, p.38]

Johanna Warren’s sixth solo record is as masterful as it is enchanting. [Oct 2022, p.36]

The longer cuts like "Les Echos", "Ann" and "crooked Teeth" are most compelling, with loops projecting through the air and clashing like streamlined silver darts. [Dec 2022, p.32]

Time contains KG structurally, but not creatively. "The Land Before Timeland" is a lyrical workout of delicate intricacy. ... "Hypertension" is every bit as light on its feet and the conversational playing between the Gizzards is equally impressive, but it takes more of a pastoral-prog path. [Dec 2022, p.18]

Fascinating, though fans of their later work are advised to approach with caution. [Dec 2022, p.48]

Perhaps closest to his spiritual essence. [Dec 2022, p.29]

It lacks the crumbly warmth of Betke's early '00s work, but the likes of "Grauer Sand" and "Stechmück" - pensive, jazzy constructions drawing on the whine of an ailing Minimoog - draw a certain beauty from their tone of smoky introspection. [Dec 2022, p.35]

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]

The best music here is more evocative of their own past triumphs like 2014's "Do It Again" EP with Robyn. [Jan 2023, p.25]

Understated double set, the material meandering gently, but persuasive in the way its interlocking parts both ride the groove and smear lush textures across these four side-long live cuts. [Jan 2023, p.23]

A brave, thoroughly welcome comeback. [Dec 2022, p.28]

With World Record, Young tosses things up in the air. For much of the album, he abandons guitar and with it the classic Horse sound, opting to lead on keyboard, mostly pump organ. ... Producer Rick Rubin carefully captures a live sound, a spontaneous first-take feel. [Jan 2023, p.22]

An album that takes in atmospheric ambient, immersive synth soundscapes and ripples of cosmic electronics that shift from beautifully immersive to hauntingly eerie. [Dec 2022, p.26]

Fertita fashions 11 lean, mean garage-like tunes that frequently touch base with his work as a member of The Dead Weather. [Jan 2023, p.27]

The accumulative effect is transformative but focusing on the moving parts, the elaborate patterns and the mazes that constantly expand and unwind is fascinating. The stark reality of the music's often caustic infrastructure is never far from the surface; it nags and vies for your attention amid the hum. [Jan 2023, p.26]

For all its space-oddity trimmings, Feorm Falorx mostly sticks to Plaid's home planet, boldly going where they have been many times before. [Jan 2023, p.24]

The band continues to elevate themselves into one of the country's finest pop exports. [Jan 2023, p.23]

Offers a more intimate appraisal of his state of mind. [Jan 2023, p.18]

A certain wistfulness pervades this record, as frontman David Best comes to terms with middle age, yet musically they're as sprightly as ever, having minted a shimmering take on krautrock that allows them to explore numerous directions. [Jan 2023, p.18]

[Clemintine] has a rich, resonant baritone which adds gravitas to every note. It is also, perhaps, a trick to his songwriting: there are big truths about love, self, family and identity buried in this collection, but Clemintine is careful to keep the details to himself. [Jan 2023, p.17]

This is as much a celebration of collaboration, camaraderie and community as it is a noted personal evolution. [Jan 2023, p.17]

The 51-year-old family man's struggles with depression and anxiety bring unrelenting urgency to the album. [Jan 2023, p.15]

There are times when, while applauding Springsteen's attempts to stay faithful to the originals, you wish he'd taken more chance. ... But that was not his intention, and it becomes hard to carp when he brings off something as triumphantly as his note-perfect version of Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)". [Jan 2023, p.10]

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]

This is rebel music as passive resistance, blissfully embodying change. [Dec 2022, p.29]

Richard's voice slowly becomes an instrument that blends into this song cycle, creating a blissful spiritual balm. [Nov 2022, p.35]

protector maintains its creator's woozy MO. ... Dream on. [Dec 2022, p.26]

Its focus is tighter, its punches more considered. [Dec 2022, p.26]

"Ready To RUn" and "Nobody Knows" are particular highlights, and "Wild Horses II" joins their own immortal "Emmylou" in the top tier of country songs about country music. [Dec 2022, p.26]

A cohesive, strong statement as well as an exciting one. [Dec 2022, p.30]

Given that their spectrum of nods and references runs from early Warp techno to bluegrass to Trout Mask Replica - horn-heavy freakouts like the full-bore "May Brigade" also demonstrate a kinship with The Comet Is Coming - the focus and coherence of Comradely Objects is even more impressive. [Dec 2022, p.28]

Sounds a lot more like Haines yammering on about end-of-days cults while Buck ditches his customary Rickenbacker jingle-jangle for brute force Raw Power stormtrooping. [Nov 2022, p.29]

Though motorik beats carry much of the set and there are prog and sci-fi-metal elements, Changes throws back to tracks like "Ambergris" and "Kepler-22b" in its tapping of soul, disco amd R&B, styled along both classic and modern lines. [Dec 2022, p.18]

An immersive, gently hypnotic and sporadically sublime album. [Dec 2022, p.29]

The quality of the 30-year-old recordings is surprisingly good, with the slight grain actually managing to emphasise and celebrate the rough edges of a group for whom shabby lo-fi and sprightly power pop are treated with equal reverence. [Dec 2022, p.44]

As with Martin's other special edition remixes, his work is subtle and tasteful. ... Listening to this package, it's clearer than ever just how Revolver set the template for the Beatles' future. ... Their peak, as well as the end of something - can be found here. [Dec 2022, p.40]

Irresistible. [Dec 2022, p.35]

It's a smart, exuberant set. [Dec 2022, p.32]

The group's most unabashedly pop-forward and irresistibly buoyant effort since 1996's Dizzy Heights. [Nov 2022, p.32]

The spacious, stereo-panning "binaural" sound mix works particularly well as a headphones album. [Dec 2022, p.29]

The album largely struggles to match the buzz and momentum of its tone-setting opener. [Nov 2022, p.36]

There are some cloying twee moments, but the players' telepathic interaction imbues even their slightest songs with crackling immediacy. [Nov 2022, p.36]

The psychedelic delirium of the music is all we really need to know. [Nov 2022, p.29]

The third installment is almost shockingly concise at 30 minutes. ... Hearing one of the group's freewheeling jams coalesce into "Bel Air" 10 minutes into the proceedings still sparks a frisson of recognition that makes the series so exhilarating. [Nov 2022, p.46]

This full-bodied, all-star immersion into an insalubrious world inspired by late '70s/early-'80s continental disco is somehow more appealing than Matmos' recent foray into Polish mid-century avant-garde. [Dec 2022, p.35]

She sings achingly slow, self-loathing, minor-key ballads which would function well with just a clawhammer acoustic guitar accompaniment. But she transforms the rest of them into epic pieces of sludge metal. [Dec 2022, p.36]

Their strongest, punchiest batch of songs to date. [Dec 2022, p.36]

Crutchfield's distinctive, smoky voice couldn't be more different from Williamson's softer one, yet the way they melt together on the choruses you'd swear it was fated. [Dec 2022, p.35]

The furious cumbia/rock fusion of "Graveyard Love" and the gentler cosmic pop of "Tourmaline" may comprise a new creative apex for these inveterate overachievers. [Dec 2022, p.29]

The result is a glorious, dizzy riot with no precursor. [Dec 2022, p.18]

There's a comfort, a natural ease, to Black Lips's Apocalypse Love that could never be mistaken for laziness. [Dec 2022, p.25]

It's wonderful to have them back, and on such imperious form. [Nov 2022, p.30]

If it's not as striking as its predecessor, its colourful patchwork exterior clothes some of Hitchcock's finest recent songs. [Nov 2022, p.29]

If the music and lyrics are both impressive, though, it's the interaction between them that makes Stumpwork such a triumph. They work together and against each other, pushing and pulling, fighting arrhythmically or slipping into step as the moment demands. [Nov 2022, p.38]

Turner's observations and the way he relishes a smart turn of phrase bring these vignettes to life in a way that's almost frighteningly vivid, even when his circuitous melodies don't always land. ... Much like For Your Pleasure or Gaucho, The Car functions both as intoxicating advert and withering critique. [Dec 2022, p.24]

You can choose to interact with this theme [an alien visiting Earth] or let it drift to the background, instead sinking into ¡Ay!'s gently shifting moods of innocence, curiosity and delight. [Nov 2022, p.28]

YTILAER picks at the fabric of the universe and if it doesn't always find the answers it wants, the expansive musical backdrop underlines its slightly ecstatic, questing spirit. [Nov 2022, p.34]

The earthbound "This Love", shuffling along on metallic, moody guitar, and the twining, spaghetti-western eeriness of "Sucker Punch" are more engaging, but Here Is Everything could use more of the punch that lists the standout "Trouble". [Nov 2022, p.25]

Avoiding sentimentality, this quality unexpectedly turns out to be vital to the album's success. [Nov 2022, p.18]

Nothing Special draws back from Okkervil River's giddy pop whirls in favour of beautiful, ruminative, Lambchop-ish ballads which, while lengthy, never outstay their welcome. [Nov 2022, p.36]

A real beauty. [Nov 2022, p.38]

A bold endeavour with some genuine thrills. [Nov 2022, p.35]

The welcome brevity of most tracks gives Snaith even more room to vary tempos and textures. [Nov 2022, p.28]

Her light, airy palette, punctuated by arresting stabs and scattershot rhythm, is informed by vintage Squarepusher and Plain - but Eastman's pioneering work as a black, gay musician operating in challenging times clearly resonates with James. [Oct 2022, p.32]

A welcome return. [Nov 2022, p.29]

It's impeccably crafted, with Mitchell and Johnson's radiant harmonies to the fore over arrangements that sometime evoke the bittersweet bliss of Fleetwood Mac ot turn-of-the-70s Grateful Dead. [Nov 2022, p.26]

No overhaul then, but the BB alure still holds. [Nov 2022, p.26]

The band's pivot away from fuzzed-out jangle pop to something closer to shoegaze adds to the dreamy feel. [Nov 2022, p.25]

Producer Adrian Sherwood now completes the picture with this sound-system-style refashioning, breaking tracks open, resetting them in eerie dubscapes. [Oct 2022, p.25]

There’s little to be found here that doesn’t already sound inescapably familiar, but it’s perfectly rock-solid stuff all the same. [Oct 2022, p.25]

The Arkestra's rich, gestalt thinking makes these pieces simmer and spark, building ritualistic power. [Nov 2022, p.36]

The message is heavy but the music is tremendous fun. [Nov 2022, p.38]

A celebration of the inherent power of community and music’s ability to connect and resonate through the ages, created by someone fast becoming one of the most important young voices in modern American folk music. [Oct 2022, p.18]

Heaton and Abbott's fifth breaks taboos about infant deaths on the quietly moving “Still” and nobly restores self-belief on the uplifting “When The World Would Actually Listen”. They remain impervious to musical snobbery, too. [Oct 2022, p.31]

It's not quite experimental, but there is evolution in this superbly judged set. [Nov 2022, p.21]

Louis O'Bryen and Asha Lorenz paint a drunker, more heartbroken picture of twentysomething romance on this downbeat sequel. [Nov 2022, p.36]

Fastidiously complex, yes, but also capable of moments of disarming prettiness. [Oct 2022, p.23]

The results are sometimes too meta to be particularly satisfying, but when but coheres - as on the bracing, static-smeared "Backwash" - it's worth the effort. [Nov 2022, p.29]