A set of 12 colour-saturated, avant electronic-soul tracks, where Sumney's extraordinary voice is strong, clear and central to the mix rather than one element of it. [Apr 2020, p.37]

While Hutchings' trademark, frantically circling sax figures are prominent, it's the album's sombre moments that prove the most powerful. [Apr 2020, p.35]

Hearing these instantaneous, improvised rituals makes the world feel a little less huge. [Jun 2020, p.29]

If Deleted Scenes feels somewhat anachronistic, it doesn't blunt the quality of the songs within. [Jun 2020, p.37]

Crockett's warm, buttery vocals melt through his latest collection, which delves into mid-century cowboy soundtracks for its cinematic plushness and moody grace. [Sep 2020, p.28]

Terrific follow-up. [Oct 2020, p.29]

The new album is singular in its conception and an impressive leap forward in terms of execution. [Nov 2020, p.20]

This is the sound of celebration of life, and of music escaping confinement and coming to be freed. [Dec 2020, p.20]

Surviving on the present, these songs infer, may be hard. To process this, he uses expansive, hypnotic arrangements: winding guitars, jazzy undertones, sturdy melodies sent into the ether. [Jan 2021, p.23]

It's a rich ensemble sound, full and complex, but not overly dense. [Feb 2021, p.30]

Several tracks sound like ruminative 1970s jazz breakbeats that have been sampled by hip-hop DJs. [Nov 2020, p.33]

On older Bartx compositions "Uhuru Sasa" and "Dr Follows Dance" they sound like a Herbie Hancock-less Headhunters; while "The Stank" is a jaunty boogaloo. [Jul 2020, p.27]

Certainly a claustrophobic listen, and not for the faint-hearted. [Feb 2021, p.25]

The prevailing mood is one of stately elegance but there are flashes of wit, too. [Jun 2021, p.25]

Marten’s stripped-back early work drew comparisons to Lucy Rose and Nick Drake, and while her voice is as gentle as ever, a wider sonic palette adds both brightness and depth. [Jul 2021, p.31]

At 68, Hiatt is producing some of the best work of his career, mapping his inner life with an eloquence that most can only aspire to. [Jun 2021, p.24]

I Be Trying sounds as stark and untamed as a field recording, belying the perfectionism with which it was made. [Aug 2021, p.24]

“Concrete Tunnels” and “Hari” communicate the cold isolationism of deep space. But deeper in, the album deftly channels the film’s themes of memory and consciousness, with “In Love With A Ghost” achieving a kind of terrible beauty. [Aug 2021, p.29]

Carnegie Hall has its own distinctive vibe, with the songwriter coming to terms in real time with his burgeoning, sometimes over-enthusiastic fanbase. [Nov 2021, p.49]

With each track the listener sinks deeper into their world, and though the punchier rap numbers like "B£E" cut through, these scruffily celestial miniatures add up to present a compelling picture. [Dec 2021, p.33]

On this generous and kaleidoscopic soul album, Harding holds nothing back. [Dec 2021, p.30]

You Get It All shows no dip in quality. [Nov 2021, p.26]

This is chamber music taken into a different dimension. [Jan 2022, p.30]

The Sea Drift owes something to the classic sounds of Kristofferson, Gentry, Chips Moman/Dan Penn and Glen Campbell, but there’s no throwback nostalgia here. The Delines’ way with romance is all their own, and for 41 sweet, orchestral minutes, time is somehow suspended while we watch with our ears. [Mar 2022, p.34]

Flicker is never derivative or predictable, with Bell using these influences to craft often beautiful songs, from the groove of "riverside" to the lovely strum of the Simon And Garfunkel-influenced "lifeline" or the springy disco-beat of "Sidewinder." [Apr 2022, p.32]

Paint This Town is the work of a group who understand that the genre is sufficiently robust to withstand an amount of affectionate roughing up. [May 2022, p.30]

The thoughtful A Beautiful Time finds Nelson in remarkable voice, giving thanks for a life well-lived over songs that feel wise and wily without being overly sentimental. [May 2022, p.30]

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

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]

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

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]

"Living Torch I" is gentle and organic, a hypnotic four-note refrain offering some of the spiritual uplift of her organ work. The shorter "Living Torch II" presents something like the same ingredients, but strafes them with electronic attack. [Oct 2022, p.33]

This fully formed debut is incontestable evidence of an important new act. [Sep 2022, p.30]

There’s something about the funky syncopation between the two and their slightly punky sensibility that elevates GA-20 way above so many dreary blues revivalists. [Oct 2022, p.29]

Songs such as the languid “Deeper” and the joyous “Stoned Love” are full of spiritual healing, as self-doubt is replaced by a hard-won inner radiance. [Oct 2022, p.32]

Irresistible. [Dec 2022, p.35]

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

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

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]

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]

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

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

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

There are moments where this French-Algerian collective truly get deep into "acid house". ... Elsewhere, three decades of Western club culture are put through the prism of North African music. ... Best of all is the galloping afro-house of "Habaytak", featuring the haunting voice of Ghizlane Melih. [Mar 2023, p.23]

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

Startling stuff. [Jun 2023, p.29]

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]

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

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]

Infectious. [Aug 2023, p.26]

Ornery eloquence. [Aug 2023, p.34]

"D4N" is a shimmering piece of neo-soul featuring vocals from kindred spirit Sampha. even better are the tracks that dispense with the drums and moves into woozy, beatless territory, using choral harmonies and FX-laden electric pianos. [Sep 2023, p.27]

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

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 manic, galloping "Susie Mullen" proves Anderson's still got a nose for fun. [Dec 2023, p.31]

Regal's freewheeling eccentricity brings a wild new dimension to White Denim's sound; he should stick around. [Review of the Year 2023, p.30]

Classy Americana with a restless pulse and a passionate heart. [Jan 2024, p.33]

There's justifiable anger, not least "History"'s confrontation with generational trauma, but her potent self-respect is an inspirational as Roots Manuva, to whom the eerie "Marginalized" nods. [Dec 2023, p.27]

The band's sophomore effort feels like more than a photocopy of past indie-pop glories thanks to the surprisingly punchy contributions by bassist Nick Oka and drummer Keith Frerichs and the degree of craft and care evident even in songs as breezy as "When You Find Out". [Jan 2024, p.36]

When approached on its own merits, the Dave Cobb-produced Be Right Here is a minor classic of the genre. [Feb 2024, p.27]

A voyage in time and space - exploring the Amazon rainforest and transversing the African Diaspora. [Apr 2024, p.32]

He's one of the few guitarists around who can make a guitar solo an article of faith. [Mar 2024, p.25]

Love In Constant Spectacle, is by some distance her most satisfying album. Full of surprises and tantalisingly familiar, it’s the sound of Weaver stretching out and drawing from her wealth of experience to fashion a heartfelt, head-spinning account of grief and solace. [Apr 2024, p.28]

This is music created with ease, songs that are uncluttered, with no fuss or flash, but plenty of commitment. It's another compelling achievement. [Apr 2024, p.24]

Who Will You Believe is the sound of a man who has not only grown into himself, but is finding that, despite dents and losses, he's kind of enjoying life. His trademark country-rock jangle glistens. [Apr 2024, p.39]

Metz's latest combines the Jesus Lizard's Goat-era aggression with PiL's Album-era rigour. [May 2024, p.38]

Wild Beasts summon up the ghosts of that decade’s [1980s] brainier, more flamboyant indie bands.

Odd--and oddly impressive. [Jul 2014, p.81]

Memories Are Now is built on stacked voices, sparse rhythm and twisted folk shapes, but the execution varies pleasingly. [Mar 2017, p.32]

This is a colorful mix of styles, filled with feedback, mangled solos and manic vocals, and rocking like The Cramps on a good night. [Dec 2011, p.100]

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

A head-first plunge into the psych-punk muck. [Aug 2012, p.76]

Zauner adds peppier number like "Machinist" and "Road Head" without ever sounding like she's spread too thin. [Aug 2017, p.32]

It's the darker numbers in which Jewel's muse gleams brightest. [Sep 2013, p.95]

Fans of Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal will find more than enough reminders of their glory days. [Mar 2022, p.36]

In many ways, it’s everything you could want in a Spiritualized album. [Mar 2022, p.22]

Road-toned chops and anticipation of desert homecoming combine to evince a mighty set. [Jan 2016, p.81]

Theirs is a maniacal mish-mash of seemingly incompatible musical styles--Krautrock, psychedelia, no-wave, prog, synth-pop, '70s stoner rock and punk--wrought from a deeply felt, genre-leaping love of challenge. [Feb 2004, p.80]

Songs, without exception, are well crafted but more often than not collapse into cloying jauntiness. [Dec 2004, p.153]

FLOTUS ranks as one of Lambchop's most confounding to date, an album whose form and content are united in intimate, private purpose, but which may well turn out to be one of their best and most accessible. [Dec 2016, p.18]

Close to monomaniacal in their passions--weed, Satan, vintage British horror--Time To Die nonetheless introduces a gnarly edge to their downturned churn. [Nov 2014, p.73]

It's remarkable that the cosmic Ekstasis--recorded in Holter's home with only five musicians--feels surer of itself than Tragedy, a record rooted in millennnia-old practice. [Apr 2012, p.72]

Martin continues to brew new hybrids of dystopian dub reggae, industrial noise and experimental hip-hop. [Sep 2014, p.70]

At times all this vim can slip into noise. [Jul 2012, p.74]

There's some filler among three hours of material but the instrumentals are staggering, pulsating pieces that breathe life into soul-jazz. [Jul 2015, p.84]

His music is now more about the deep, nuanced dig into established territory than striking out to plant a flag someplace new, plus exploring different contexts for his signature sound through continued collaboration. [Oct 2020, p.30]

She's brought feelings to the surface that previously she may have kept veiled. It feels like a significant breakthrough. [Feb 2023, p.22]

It brings together the many facets of Sudan Archives--religious and sensual, independent and codependent, tender and menacing--in a way that feels very deliberate, particularly when you learn that the final tracklisting was whittled down from around 60 potential songs. [Dec 2019, p.28]

The result is a rich, easy-rolling album that finds King's fingers still nimble and his megaphone voice barely creaking. [Dec 2008, p.100]

It's a thrilling start but, after the breathless thrills of the first six songs, things tail off sharply. Still, it's hard to begrudge them. [Aug 2017, p.37]

Most compelling are the variety of vocals--some spoken, some hollered, some sung in spinetingling harmonies. [Sep 2008, p.98]

There are jarring moments but Holter's quest to channel the clatter of the universe produces transcendent beauty too. [Nov 2018, p.24]

There are many sterling moments to escape from Young's vault--but none seem quite as unguarded as the best ones here. [Jan 2014, p.84]

I've Been Trying to Tell You is immediate and soulful. [Oct 2021, p.26]

No other pony does his one trick half as well. [Apr 2016, p.76]

Lights may be bleak, but that only makes the moments of catharsis all the more illuminating. [Dec 2017, p.22]

It’s the work of a focused artist who is consistently attempting to stretch out the parameters of their own ever-expanding sonic world. ... Yet another late-career highlight. [Oct 2022, p.22]

Quietly devastating. [Dec 2002, p.131]