Dawes have never sounded more musically sophisticated. [Sep 2022, p.23]

This carefully recorded and intimate performance captures their cool command of Texas rock'n'roll better than most. [Sep 2022, p.32]

“Hello, Hi” is one of Ty’s most lean and focused albums to date. But the closer you get, the more you spot its idiosyncrasies. Heartfelt and playful, homespun and surreal, down in the dumps and head-over-heels in love: here is Ty Segall in all his wonderful contradictions. [Aug 2022, p.18]

The Sadies’ nebulous country-rock moves through glistening psychedelia (“Message To Belial”), gorgeous string ballads (“All The Good”) and fierce garage fuzz (“Ginger Moon”). [Aug 2022, p.31]

[A] set of lean, characteristically nuanced, folk-edged songs. [Aug 2022, p.30]

Moonshine is a set piece, but “Greenway”, a nudge at The Beatles’ “Because” with rippling keys and cicadas, and the baffled starburst that is “With You” stand out. [Aug 2022, p.30]

Though their drive to fill all available space causes some songs to grow diff use, their vision coheres on “Taken By The Hand”, a suitably audacious fusion of ferocious post-hardcore and anthemic Southern rock. [Aug 2022, p.23]

The basic formula may be familiar, but Mallinder’s ear for fresh noises and slippery grooves remains as sharp as ever. [Aug 2022, p.29]

This push-pull between melody and twisting beats, veering back and forth between dark and joyous moments, is the crux of this excellent album, one that glides snappily between acid electro, synth-washed indie, crunchy pop and dance-floor rippers. [Aug 2022, p.36]

Purim blends new material with rebooted old favorites here, applying her lush liquid harmonies and dazzling six-octave vocal acrobatics to voluptuous bossa nova reveries. [May 2022, p.32]

Narcissistic (“Black Hole Baby”, a montage of radio praise and day-in-the-life mission statement), earnest (“crushed.zip”, an anxiety-fuelled showcase for singer Orono’s sugary-sad voice) and deeply weird. [Aug 2022, p.33]

Dan Hyndman supplies a reliably cryptic stream of absurdist prattle, though his decision to stick with largely adlibbed lyrics robs Down Tools of some of the force and focus of last year’s excellent Lines Redacted. [Aug 2022, p.30]

Its eloquent yet unfussy nature and thoughtful arrangements are clear affirmation. [Aug 2022, p.33]

There are rowdy barn-raisers, but also melodic, meditative grooves and strange, insidious songs. It’s an album of almost fragile beauty, intense loneliness and raging storms. Not for the last time, Crazy Horse took Neil Young somewhere he wasn’t expecting. It’s just a shame it’s taken us so long to get there too.

They’ve managed to make tonal inconsistencies feel like an actual consistency, rather than being a jarring and detracting experience. They’ve wrangled chaos into submission, and currently sound like no other band out there. [Aug 2022, p.34]

Pearson’s clear knack for melodic songcraft is plentiful, across the breezy “Talk Over Town” or the sugary indie-pop of “Alligator”, resulting in an album that nails introspective songwriting just as seamlessly as it does infectious pop. [Aug 2022, p.31]

Full of hits and misses as it sways back and forth between indie and electro, never quite finding its feet. [Aug 2022, p.30]

There are no giant leaps here, it’s very much Interpol as you know them, but there’s plenty of micro evolutions, impressive production and subtle tweaks to make this a welcome addition to their catalogue. [Aug 2022, p.28]

The effect is kaleidoscopic, as the music constantly moves and morphs to reveal new shapes, colours and meanings. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Bock’s solo work takes a subtler but no less arresting approach, weaving in melodic passages for strings, organ and woodwind and rhythmic calls to her Brazilian heritage in ways that only fully reveal themselves with repeated listens. [Aug 2022, p.25]

GBV’s second of 2022 is another LP packed full of charm, imagination and winning tunes. [Aug 2022, p.26]

The only downside to this soundtrack is that you can’t watch Prince slink around stage or pretend to take a bath with the audience, but at least the Blu-ray. [Jul 2022, p.44]

From the creeping “Let That Sink In” to growling “Warpaint”, Sage Motel is super stuff: check in at your earliest convenience. [Jun 2022, p.31]

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

The bereft “Have Mercy On Me” and hopeful, lightly gospel “I Have Wandered All My Unending Days” are particularly striking, while the concluding 11-minute instrumental mix works as metaphor for Cave’s faith: immersive and foundational. [Jul 2022, p.25]

Emerald Sea isn’t your average third album. An otherworldly mix of Gustav Holst’s drama, The Flaming Lips’ psychedelia and Broadcast’s retro-futurist exotica, with hints of the band’s earlier Beach House dream-pop, it breaks a fourth wall of sound with “The Glare”’s saturated reverberations, while “Deeper Surround” offers a chimerical carousel ride of synths. [Aug 2022, p.33]

On The Spur, Shelley captures the ache and the sweetness, the loss and the love, the coming and going of it all, with greater scale and skill than ever before.

The pair sparked and quickly knocked out an album that sounds years in the maturing. [Jul 2022, p.25]

The way it weaves this constellation of influence and artfulness into 10 songs that are lighter than air, deceptively simple, yet cumulatively, surprisingly moving. [Aug 2022, p.32]

It starts with rousing rebel anthem “The Real”, and further highlights include the shoegaze drawl of “What’s In A Name?”, the jittery “Silenced” and the sinister growling surf of “You Think I’m Joking”. [Jul 2022, p.25]

This is a generous, curious and commendably weird LP. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Reggae Film Star is a luminous beauty. [Aug 2022, p.29]

“Mr Bojangles”, sung with cornpone syrup by Dylan, here earthily returns to the drunk-tank cell where Walker met its subject, a broken-down, alcoholic tap-dancer his song invests with heel-clicking magic. The tune defiantly climbs, strings waltz and Earle stores sentiment ’til the end.

Mixing classic covers (Big Joe Williams’ “Crawling King Snake”, Charlie Patton’s “Pea Vine Blues”) with his ‘new’ compositions, lyrical advances into commonplace blues melodies like “When The Frisco Left the Shed”, there’s timelessness in every note here, every expression. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Throughout Taylor and Ralston draw from astral jazz, Alice Coltrane's meditation music and the expansive orchestral funk of David Axelrod to create something uniquely emotive over four lengthy and very different tracks. [Aug 2022, p.31]

With its combination of Goodman's ache-filled vocals and Crazy Horse clamour, "Keeper Of The Time" is an even more striking demonstration of what she can do. [Aug 2022, p.26]

She’s made another very good album, her first in six years. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Whether in the propulsive “The Fall” or the more delicate “Desire”, she’s rarely sounded so commanding. [Jun 2022, p.34]

With a '70s/'80s-inspired disco-pop feel, creating a Eurovision-like mood that you probably wouldn't expect to find on a Sub pop release. The lack of top-line sheen, though, ensures this album retains a rough edge without sacrificing any intrinsic appeal. [Aug 2022, p.33]

Their unfussy but subtle playing embellishes the simplicity of Nash’s melodies, while experience brings renewed pathos to songs like “I Used To Be A King”, “Man In The Mirror” and even something as straightforward as “You’ll Never Be The Same”. [Jul 2022, p.30]

There’s plenty for prog loyalists to appreciate in the knotty polyrhythms, hopscotching bass and divebombing guitar excursions of tracks such as “Harridan” and “Chimera’s Wreck”, but genre agnostics may find more inviting access points in the sumptuous stripes of rueful melody, nuggety riffs and widescreen pomp-rock dynamics that Wilson and friends create. [Jul 2022, p.31]

All the writers who share Lund's love of droll wordplay, and all their works are illuminated by Lund's signature laconic twinkle, and the Hurtin' Alberans' deadpan virtuosity. [Aug 2022, p.29]

Behind their heavily stylised surface, these are fairly standard heartbreak ballads, but Li's voluptuous gothic gloom is still intoxicating. [Aug 2022, p.29]

Halvorson's string arrangements admit complexity without overwhelming, and the Mivos String Quartet play gracefully and authoritatively. [Aug 2022, p.26]

You're left wishing these jazz quintet pieces breathed more. [Aug 2022, p.26]

White Jesus Black Problems fizzes with indignation and exults in contradictions. [Aug 2022, p.25]

Works best when it diverts furthest from the originals. [Aug 2022, p.25]

By far the most compelling persona on Mr Morale & The Big Steppers is the Kendrick who is trying to make sense of his own family. ... ["Mother I Sober" is] a tour de force, almost but not quite as revelatory as "DUCKWORTH", a similar family saga off 2017's DAMN. And the best moment is when the strings swell and Lamar's voice changes. [Aug 2022, p.24]

It’s just five tracks, barely half an hour of music, but worth the wait in gold. ... Particularly on the radiant “Make Lovely The Day”, where she’s accompanied simply by Steve Hackett’s fluttering acoustic guitar, it’s like hearing the greatest British singer of her generation for the very first time. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Sophie Allison's ascent from teenage bedroom-pop savant to incisive chronicler of Gen Z angst hits a crescendo on Sometimes, Forever, an improbable but rewarding collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin. [Aug 2022, p.33]

This pleasing mix of exploratory guitar tones and ever-shifting rhythms that switch between the kinetic and flowing makes for an arresting debut. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Reflective of our era of political polarisation, the likes of “Contempt For You” can make for bruising listening experiences. Yet there’s still plenty of solace to be found in performances by Iceland’s Elin Ey and the ever-remarkable Anohni. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Though some tracks really need the context of performance or visuals, on the astral fourth-world funk of “Eye In The Wall”, Hadreas sets sail on his own Arthur Russell-style “African Night Flight”. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Ultraviolet... demonstrates both purpose and renewed vigour. [Jul 2022, p.25]

Deliluh are more economical on their third album, even if they regularly expand on its mix of Kyle Knapp’s intimidatingly recited, enigmatic lyrics and angular post-punk. [Jul 2022, p.25]

An album of skippy, infectious, electronics-soaked disco rock. [Jul 2022, p.26]

Love and hope stay preciously rare yet infinitely possible, and this album’s guttering, guiding light. [Jul 2022, p.33]

Les Racines is ultimately a full and fierce showcase for Vieux’s own prowess, and his restatement of desert blues. [Jul 2022, p.27]

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]

Even by Head's own lofty standards, this represents a late-career masterpiece. [Jun 2022, p.29]

Inside Problems is a rather less meticulous and more spirited band set that examines the questions that keep him awake at night, in ear-snagging songs shot through with ’70s country rock, chamber pop, Balkan and Appalachian folk and Tin Pan Alley eccentricity. [Jul 2022, p.23]

They stew in the rich absurdity of it all, and offer a collection that rings of the band’s tendency toward Southern-gothic neo-noir, but with frequent punctuations of light. [July 2022, p.32]

Raggedly glorious covers of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” and Bo Diddley’s “Crackin’ Up” rate as major highlights along with the live debut of Tattoo You’s “Worried About You” and a blistering take on “Hot Stuff” that amply demonstrates the liberating effects of the band’s temporary escape from baseball stadiums and hippodromes. [Jul 2022, p.44]

The album is a deeply textural listen, led by Leaneagh’s impressive voice. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Her sixth, co-produced by Jonathan Wilson, executes no radical stylistic swerve but neither are its 10 songs of a single type. Rather, they’re a balancing of country – here are echoes of Tammy, Emmylou and Lee Hazlewood – and torch song (kd lang, Roy Orbison), with the odd flourish of cocktail-lounge melancholy (a la Badalamenti) and classic, MGM-style orchestrations. [Jul 2022, p.28]

There’s a new sense of maturity, even kindness, starting with “More Power”, a song of odd, regretful sentiments, reputedly addressed to Noel and full of family references. ... Songs mostly remain Frankenstein stitch-ups, though: Jeff Lynne’s softly simulated psychon the Threetles’ “Real Love” seems the production template, when not mixed for terrace power, minus tunes. [Jun 2022, p.26]

Cruel Country is the rare album that throws everything that came before it into sharp relief – a small miracle for a band 30 years into its run. [Jul 2022, p.22]

It’s a little stiff and metronomic in places, working more as a calling card to Hollywood than a standalone album. [Jul 2022, p.31]

Past Life Regression is a perfect distillation of Quever’s aesthetic – 10 hook-filled tracks that bring to mind vintage Paisley Underground excursions, Barrett-era Floyd and jangly C86 moods. [Jul 2022, p.31]

As thrilling as it is unexpected. [Jul 2022, p.30]

Vincent Belorgey’s obsession with buffed-up synths and corny lyrics earnestly sung (“Reborn” by Romuald, “Renegade” by Cautious Clay) does pay off, but the air-tight production and endless cascade of saccharine arpeggios – plus a lovesick Sébastien Tellier pining on “Goodbye” – lays on thick the sentimental shtick. [Jul 2022, p.29]

Feels more like a refreshment, refinement or even fulfilment of Radiohead core principals, rather than an extracurricular dalliance. [Jul 2022, p.24]

Closer "Underdog", a stripped-back self-portrait of a striver still "trying hard [to] leave a mark", provides an intimate coda to Harwood's depiction of his teeming inner world, a hermetically sealed ocean of emotion. [Jul 2022, p.27]

The result, unsurprisingly, is a downbeat, ruminative affair. [Jul 2022, p.31]

An album that feels charged by forward momentum while also embracing the comforting pulse of a locked groove. [Jul 2022, p.31]

A reflection on memory and transience amid which his deadpan drawl is frequently draped in incongruous but effective orchestral splendour, while Finn’s character sketches are as deft as ever. [Jun 2022, p.26]

The 76-year-old virtuoso is at his most poignantly expressive on the album's inward-turned, stripped-back blues ballads. [Jul 2022, p.34]

Backed by a 15-piece band plus horn section, they delivered a spirited set of classic blues, R&B and gospel that concluded with “The Weight”, which Staples and Helm had first performed together at The Last Waltz in 1976 at the start of their 35-year friendship. [Jun 2022, p.33]

While the tempo and patterns vary, with “I” featuring Christer Bothén on the six-string donso n’goni, the vibe is pleasingly uniform, with a boundless feel akin to Neu!’s “Hallogallo”. [Jun 2022, p.23]

With This Is A Photograph, he offers the wisest and most assured rendering of the Middle American vision he’s been honing of late, one where Dylan-esque anti-singing narrates impassioned, earnest and earthen tales of family, place, love and heroes, and a crack band shakes the rafters. [Jun 2022, p.32]

A “Time Of The Season”-like Latin groove powers standout “It Ain’t Over”, syncopated by percussionist Sam Bacco, whose tambourine and shakers are the album’s secret sauce. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Taken on their own merits, Royce Hall and Dorothy Chandler are prime examples of Young in early ’71 … but maybe we can move on to other territory now? [Jun 2022, p.43]

This is their best set of songs since the band’s sex-crazed 2004 debut, continuing some of the debt-to-the-’80s feel of 2014’s Get Back on homage-paying tracks like “Nikki Go Sudden” and “Swollen Maps”. [Jun 2022, p.31]

It’s an affirmation of their relationship and personal and creative identities in an(other) electronic-soul set with muted beats and a meditative, rather than impassioned bent, though no less righteous for that. [Jun 2022, p.29]

It’s a unique performance, with a wealth of rarely played material. ... The Bottom Line bootleg was the kind of listening experience that turned casual fans into obsessives. Now remastered and officially part of Neil’s ongoing saga, its seductive power remains undimmed. [Jun 2022, p.43]

Dorothy Chandler is the one to get; the 8+-minute “Sugar Mountain”, with numerous spoken-word digressions, is Neil at his most hilariously droll. [Jun 2022, p.43]

We’ve Been Going... is above all an incredible sounding record. Across its 10 tracks, it incorporates the Jupiter synths and saturnine beats of Remind Me Tomorrow and the stark, swooning strum of her early records to create truly a cosmic dynamic range, from the softest whisper to the most desolate scream. [Jun 2022, p.18]

Far from a series of intimidatingly empty spaces, Endless Rooms is more like RBCF’s shared mind palace, a place rich with experiences and emotion in which they’re stretching their creative legs, throwing open door after door and rushing eagerly through, to play. [Jun 2022, p.22]

While these dozen faithfully and fabulously Soft Cell-ish songs do not stint on paranoid foreboding, they are buoyed by an undimmed pop instinct and Almond’s waspish wit. [Apr 2022, p.35]

It all combines to paint a picture of a band entering a distinct new phase. [Jun 2022, p.33]

The album never becomes a dry documentary, though, because the music adopts the station’s spirit of dissent and subversion. [Jun 2022, p.31]

There’s always a risk with these kinds of collaborations – too many cooks, watering down the essence – but that’s largely avoided on Where’s The One?, thanks to the openness and playful spirit of the music. [Jun 2022, p.25]

Leaning lightly into their love of R&B on the likes of “Proof” and “Stevie”, and relaxing into expansive, stoned-in-the-sunshine grooves on pulsing lead single “Champion” and “Like Sweetness”, it’s a perfect goth summer record. [Jun 2022, p.34]

For all the record’s sonic invention, though, its Sangaré’s voice that commands attention, a rich, textured instrument that has only grown more nuanced and subtle with age. [May 2022, p.34]

Arcade Fire have delivered a triumphant restatement of purpose that 2022 probably doesn’t deserve but is brightened by all the same.[Jun 2022, p.35]

LP number nine features meditations on ageing: “Deathbed Of My Dreams” does it in a Nashville style; “Young And Stupid” does it like an early 1970s Eurovision entry. There’s also joyous self-affirmation. ... Best of all are “Prophets On Hold” and “Talk To Me Talk To Me”, AOR masterpieces that should have been on the last Abba album. J[Jun 2022, p.25]

Playful homages to country at its most synthetic and dancefloor-friendly, “Better Than Any Drug” and “Fall In Love Again” bridge the gap that once existed between Madonna and the Mandrell Sisters. [May 2022, p.29]

Woozy psych-folk remains her default setting, but there’s a fresh sense of experimentation at play here. [Jun 2022, p.26]