Tightly structured, lavishly orchestrated, brilliantly realised. [May 2019, p.18]

More mellifluous than menacing despite its formidable display of power, Life Metal may be the richest work in the band's 21-year-mission to reconfigure Tony Iommi-worthy riffage into a soundtrack for mindful meditation. [May 2019, p.34]

There's a mystical bind to UFOF that grips the listener and never lets go. [Jun 2019, p.24]

This is acoustic roots music at its most glorious, and Giddens is fast becoming the genre's brightest star in the firmament. [Jun 2019, p.33]

Serves as both a potent primer on the traumas and triumphs of life in a not-so-racial America and an enthralling demonstration of her playful musical sensibility. [Jun 2019, p.37]

Cate Le bon's terrific run of form continues with what must be her best album. ... She enchants at every turn. [Jun 2019, p.30]

The two CDs from SIR Rehearsals in New York find Dylan in what might be described as his element. Which is to say, at the centre of a certain amount of chaos. His Approach to rehearsal is at best relaxed, if not entirely whimsical. [Jul 2019, p.44]

The unquestionable highlight is the seven-minute version of "The Rainbow Willow," but there's so much to admire throughout. [Jul 2019, p.27]

This sprawling, beguiling collection strives to reveal all, but every answer brings more questions. [Jul 2019, p.18]

Purple Mountains is an excellent return to form for Berman; a worthy next chapter for a songwriter who quit, many believed, in his prime. [Aug 2019, p.30]

Woodstock 50 is an archival feat, an exhaustive capsule melding bygone sentiments with timeless performances. [Sep 2019, p.49]

Cross has created something of a mesmerising mini-masterpiece. [Sep 2019, p.24]

As stylistically adventurous and technologically innovative as the album is, this community of musicians ensures it remains accessible and soulful. [Oct 2019, p.24]

Savour all the strangeness, the power and the glory that fill the present. [Oct 2019, p.22]

Timeless, tender and sparse. [Dec 2019, p.35]

The results are exquisite. [Sep 2019, p.34]

Epic debut, an emotionally rich and stylistically broad mediation on homeland, exile and identity. ... A lavish feast of an album. [Nov 2019, p.30]

Throughout Jamie, Howard also continues to challenge the impressive instrument of her voice in unpredictable ways. ... Her quest for personal fulfillment doubles as a creative bloom as well, revealing new dimensions of her talent. [Oct 2019, p.18]

There's a uplifting buoyancy to these eight tracks. [Oct 2019, p.30]

Finely honed reflections that add a new perspective to the conversation of politics. ... The songs here are simple, but they contain multitudes. [Oct 2019, p.25]

Songs Of Our Mothers taps into something much bigger than itself. ... It also helps that the music is quite remarkable. [Oct 2019, p.38]

It is raw, but also synthetic. There are a number of very long songs,m verbal rambles, but the music fills in, disturbing the melancholy of Cave's piano with static interruptions that owe as much to cave and Warren's film soundtracks as they do to the Bad Seeds' more conventional songcraft. [Dec 2019, p.18]

Dawson's most direct album to date. ... It's hard not to conclude that 2020 is the record we need now: a state-of-the-nation address for a nation in a bit of a state. [Nov 2019, p.20]

Kiwanuka is loaded with memorable songs, but the best way to experience them is by listening to the album from start to finish. [Nov 2019, p.26]

Played and sun with unassuming grace, it's an album of rare generosity. [Nov 2019, p.30]

Every song here has its merits; there isn't a dud among them. [Oct 2019, p.40]

There's a defiance in each painful note. In tasting despair, Tahliah Barnett has returned 10 times stronger--in spirit and voice. [Dec 2019, p.27]

Some will prefer the stripped-back, elemental performances that are compiled on the extra disc, and they are certainly magnificent recordings in their own right. But part of No Other's magic is its ambition. [Dec 2019, p.36]

This 50th anniversary reissue of their faultless second LP still digs deep to find six unreleased studio cuts. [Jan 2020, p.39]

It's spellbinding, shiver-down-the-spine stuff, and enough to have any self-respecting Quadropheniac dusting down their scooter for one last run down to Brighton. ... Their best since Quadrophenia, then. [Dec 2019, p.22]

A mutant strain of noisy funk, hip-hop, subversive art punk and dirty disco. [Dec 2019, p.35]

From the ominous beatless fog of recent tracks "State Forest" and "Beachfires"-the compilation is sequenced for flow, rather than chronologically-emerge some unexpected shapes. [Feb 2020, p.43]

This anthology perfectly encapsulates The Go-Betweens' irresistible, evergreen and still expanding appeal. [Jan 2020, p.34]

However minor these 45s may have seemed at the time, together they constitute a major discovery for any soul fan regardless of his or her denomination (or utter lack thereof). [Oct 2019, p.50]

Evokes Watt's early mentor Robert Wyatt at his most enthralling and adventurous. [Mar 2020, p.37]

Opening up the album to new ideas and interpretations without obscuring the man himself. [Mar 2020, p.35]

Call it an expansion rather than a reinvention--but it's a dramatic and rather dazzling one. [Mar 2020, p.27]

They sound as Zappa seldom does: not over-thinking it, and guilelessly lost in the moment and in the exuberant joy of the playing. [Feb 2020, p.40]

Sparse and otherworldly, yet powerful and dynamic. [Mar 2020, p.24]

I kept wishing I'd been there that night, 45 years ago. [Mar 2020, p.42]

The wry, heartfelt "Cash Up" and truly touching "Amberjack" are highlights; that he exits on the breezy, sardonic bonus track "Juliefuckingette" is a reminder, though, that yes, it's still Malkmus. [Apr 2020, p.30]

A dazzling return. [Apr 2020, p.30]

Dury seems to have found a tone and groove that he's both relishing and flourishing in. [Apr 2020, p.27]

Warm, uplifting and fizzing with both passion and virtuosity, Rejoice is not only a fitting last will and testament from Masekela, but a glorious affirmation of music at its most potent and universal. [May 2020, p.22]

From funk struts to tender touches, Thundercat's ascension continues rapidly here. [May 2020, p.35]

The more one listens to Ever-Roving Eye, the more details emerge to elevate it from a mid-60s tribute to something wholly rooted in the present, and far stranger. ... An outstanding record. [May 2020, p.18]

Fetch The Bolt Cutters is mostly the soundtrack of liberation, not recrimination, with Apple's piano keys, battering on the walls and barking dogs as its percussive, beating heart. [Jul 2020, p.27]

A heroic, controlled crash landing. [May 2020, p.25]

Filled to the brim with usual abundance of trademark lyrical zingers, tenacious earworm melodies and stylistic zigzags. [Jun 2020, p.26]

It's romantic, it's exhilarating. [Jul 2020, p.26]

Head Above The Water is a triumph of sensitivity, as Power's exquisite voice gives shape and contour to folk-centric songs that assimilates elements of country, jazz and experimental drone. [Jul 2020, p.33]

Cunningham and Stewart also know how to write a killer pop melody. [Jul 2020, p.33]

There's not a weak moment to be found. [Jul 2020, p.34]

Mordechai is a great record, made by deep listeners who believe that discerning taste does not equate to snobbishness, Through it, we're reminded that good music is for everyone. [Aug 2020, p.20]

Even when they're singing about the horrors of nuclear holocaust -- as they do on the Hendrix-ish "Mushroom Bomb" -- they can't help but sound quite addictively cheerful. [Aug 2020, p.27]

A spectacular return to the tower of song and the game he plays best. Brimming with memorable melodies, swooning arrangements and smart lyrics dreamily sung. [Aug 2020, p.39]

This record - Cocker's finest work since This Is Hardcore, maybe - marks the arrival of an adventurous collective who might just be getting warmed up. [Aug 2020, p.26]

It's a sharp turn to the left for Swift and a fine reminder that she is more than just a gleaming pop phenomenon, but a remarkable songwriter too. [Oct 2020, p.36]

It's as touching, beautiful and dark as any of Collins' records, and even pushes her sound into new territories. 65 years into her recording career, that modern approach to folk music is still yielding treasures. [Sep 2020, p.24]

There's a purity to them that's as much a product of her spirit and artistic choices as a demo's function. ... The Demos in particular still overwhelms with its conviction and visceral wallop, almost 30 years on. [Sep 2020, p.47]

If its redemptive poignancy often recalls Richter's masterful Sleep, Voices is more dynamic, instead provoking--not subduing-thought. [Sep 2020, p.35]

Live At Goose Lake is messy, thrilling and utterly unhinged. In other words, it's The Stooges at their best. [Sep 2020, p.44]

Unironically majestic set pieces that offer a ray of hope as this wild ride ends. [Oct 2020, p.28]

Utterly thrilling. [Sep 2020, p.32]

The whole of American Head finds Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd examining the nature of family, love, death and nostalgia with a sincerity and tenderness that's been missed. [Sep 2020, p.29]

Their fifth album comes with a cathartic feel. Densely layered - four of the 11 tracks are over five minutes - it's also as complex as a Rubik's cube, the elaborate arrangements owing more to progressive rock than contemporary pop. [Oct 2020, p.38]

Robin Pecknold's ruminations on ageing and loss are a soothing balm in uncertain times. [Dec 2020, p.29]

Inside there’s one masterpiece and three very fine records, all remastered. ... As on most of Hard Luck Stories, the remastering is barely noticeable, but the previously unreleased bonus tracks are more notable.

Producer Ross Orton helps sharpen their attack, and the quartet are at their very best on "White Rooms And People's" fierce synth-funk, the Suicide-like "Tomorrow" and the thudding grooves of Valleys." [Nov 2020, p.37]

[An] exhilarating companion piece. [Nov 2020, p.49]

Electric guitars crackle at the edge of the mix like Caribbean lightning, Jay Gonzalez's "Oliver's Army" piano glittering in the gathering storm. "Tough To Go" is from the Memphis sessions. Doom-laden drumbeats, gloomy organ and blasts of wracked guitars punctuate a song about disenchantment, lost opportunities, stacked odds. [Dec 2020, p.32]

It is arguably, the Replacements album that best balances the tension between the snotty punk rockers they began as, and the crossover success they were terrified of becoming ... [The included demos and mixes] will find favour with adherents of the rougher, readier Replacements, who around now were struggling with whether or not to blossom into something bigger. [Nov 2020, p.52]

An album of their most beautiful tracks. [Dec 2020, p.27]

At times it hits harder and heavier than anything they've attempted before. [Nov 2020, p.32]

Some of the most effortlessly insightful songs in the modern country-folk canon. [Nov 2020, p.37]

Their most multi-layered yet subtle work so far. ... The result is unshowily spectacular. [Nov 2020, p.34]

Summerteeth captures the band as they shed the last vestiges of their alt-country beginnings and introduce the ingredients that would catch fire on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. [Dec 2020, p.53]

The Pylon Box is filled with moments that are equally exhilarating; evidently, what was feasible for Pylon was extraordinary by anyone else’s measure.

The performance of a lifetime. [Dec 2020, p.27]

What Archives II does, then, is not just celebrate a wealth of great music - but those who helped make it. [Jan 2021, p.34]

Ad hoc, anything goes is the mood of what follows. Much is accomplished and playful. ... When he allows himself to forget who he is and just remember what it is that he does, he can still come up with songs to surprise you. More impressively, maybe even surprise himself.

What strikes you, above all, is the innocence and affection in their breezy blues, at odds with the heavy weather White has made of his post-Stripes career. [Feb 2021, p.49]

Along with her interest in free jazz and expressive, improvisatory styles of music, it’s possible to see these seven songs as a type of painting with sound, a messy, wild process of distillation and curation, until only sparse daubs of bright colour remain on the canvas. Limited elements, but a giant impact. It’s been worth the wait.

Either of Dwyer's bands would be a fine fit for Yonkers' primitive but inventive garage rock - best examples are the pummelling "sold America" and "The Thunder Speaks," both hyped-up takes on Yonkers' originals - but Damaged Bug are better equipped to tackle his more tender moments. [May 2020, p.26]

It may have been assembled as a lockdown stopgap, but Songs From An Old Guitar is overall glorious, a career highlight in a career full of them. [Feb 2021, p.47]

Richer textures, but no luxury-studio sheen or indulgence: the expanded resources are deployed with the care and rigour that characterised her previous use of humbler tools. Her voice is so distinctive and her writing so personal that a strutting backbeat and a flying hi-hat don't affect the essential character of the music. ... Perfect. [Mar 2021, p.36]

You'll be hard pushed to find a more adventurously self-assured debut this year. [Mar 2021, p.27]

Start Walkin’ emphasises the team’s many deviations from the mean, demonstrating how inventive and subversive Sinatra’s music could be even before her music with Hazlewood took a more avidly idiosyncratic direction with Nancy & Lee. ... 23 concise chapters that are thrilling, surprising and sometimes sublime.

Bristles with the unruly energies that enlivened their younger incarnations. [Mar 2021, p.32]

It features a stellar setlist built around tracks from that album, liberally peppered with Horse classics and deep cuts. In all this, the Horse prove themselves dependably elastic. [Apr 2021, p.49]

A fabulous treat it is too. [Apr 2021, p.37]

On The Cinder Grove he has a simple, yet profoundly effective modus operandi - setting streams of notes afloat and listening for the way their resonances commingle with strings and piano. [Mar 2021, p.31]

Offers the kind of transcendental electronics that burrow into your brain. [Mar 2021, p.37]

June has given us an album that is powerfully, elegantly subversive. [April 2021, p.20]

This scintillating set pulls and pushes extant studio ideas into wonderfully weird new shapes. [Apr 2021, p.32]

Does the reissue/repacking thing properly. Forty years after they kicked-off post-punk in a blaze of punk, funk and revolutionary praxis, Gang of Four bow out with a box that deserves a place in the history books. [Apr 2021, p.38]

Transfigures smoothly from one hallucinatory half-style to another. ... The playing is both adventurous and textural, and the surprising, soothing result would have made a fine release on Eno's '70s Obscure label. [May 2021, p.31]

Clarke may not have the tools to open you up emotionally to quite the same degree [as Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Ghosteen], but he's found an elegant and absorbing mood of despair like few have managed so far. [Apr 2021, p.24]