LAHAI extends Sampha’s virtuosic career with a showcase of his limitless pool of influence, his songwriting ability, and, inevitably, his soul.

Superlatives barely do the record's beauty or brilliance justice. [Aug-Sep 2015, p.63]

Tone is an alchemic process, and Fleet Foxes produce gold with regularity, a stunning feat for such a young band. [Summer 2008]

On Dirty Computer, she finally makes good on her promise, keeping the fearlessness of her earlier albums while refining her focus. This album is only 48 minutes long, but it feels as ambitious and grand as her previous 70-minute releases. In the process, she has raised the standard for her music.

Reissued for its 25th anniversary by Craft Recordings, R.E.M.’s subtle ’90s masterwork has made a triumphant return, with something to offer listeners both old and new.

At over an hour in length, the beauty of YTI⅃AƎЯ can drag its feet a little bit, but listeners will find no trouble in surrendering to the world Callahan lets them into.

The sheer ingenuity with which he illustrates his immaculate tone poem makes Person Pitch as imaginative as any pop album you’ll hear this year. [#17, p.92]

The overall weight of Inlet isn’t out of character, and in a way it can be seen as a channeling of their own sound through some of the bands they have influenced over the years. Hum are now a prime example among the bands from their generation that have made good on unfinished business and shown there are different ways to have longevity in music.

[Blackstar], amidst all its trappings, is a puzzle begging for examination, and a solidly unique work from an artist who is no stranger to breaking boundaries.

At once profoundly intimate and universally true, these songs of hardship, love, and dignity resonate with the man's soul.

Twenty-two years in the making or not, this is a return that captivates, excites, and is relentless in its grab for your attention. It's the perfect comeback.

The band has flipped the script and turned the focus inwards, reflecting on the unfathomable that pervades our every moment and delivering a performance of masterfully honed restraint that perfectly encapsulates their invitation to discover the vast and alien within the seemingly familiar.

Listeners expecting the feminine-themed album and song titles to highlight obvious lyrical threads will be left with more vague notions. What is consistent is Olsen's musical personality, which feels perfectly at ease and singular, irrespective of producers or genres or other boxes that might try to contain it.

A somnambulist journey into an ornate dream, Javelin may not be his masterpiece but it is the work of a master.

Over an impossibly difficult three years, the band have learnt to fuse the seismic nature of their sound with an emotional transparency that elevates them as a band hugely.

Flock brings together the best of all Weaver's diverse genre colliding worlds in one glorious sitting.

Much of the rest of Blonde is far less accessible than its predecessor. And that's not a bad thing.

Bright Future slots in comfortably with everything she has done to date and brings a greater sense of being of a moment in time.

It showcases the entire process and in doing so furthers one’s appreciation of a work of art that is so consequential as it already is. Along with a book of essays and ephemera to further instruct and illuminate, Fragments is as essential to the Dylan catalog as Time Out of Mind itself.

Magnificent and starkly candid new album.

Forfolks is a galaxy in eight tracks—these songs orbit each other wordlessly, leaving near-tangible tracks of light in their wake.

Vijay acquits himself nicely on "Mystic Brew," effectively reinterpreting organist Ronnie Foster's impressive soulful mush for stately piano. [Fall 2009, p.74]

For all of its brainy machinations, what An Overview on Phenomenal Nature never forgets to do is make a human connection. Jenkins puts herself central to the story and provides the vulnerability to be the patient whose body needs healing hands placed upon it.

None of these songs are particularly complex and they're all the more brilliant for it. [Sep/Oct 2014, p.78]

Live in Brooklyn 2011 is a great swansong with the bandmembers dragging all their pent up feelings of frustration, loathing, and distrust with each other onto the stage and playfully tearing it all to shreds.

Musically, In the Darkness is perhaps her grandest, most elegant work to date—a perfect culmination of her past experimentalism and deep devotion to graceful melodies that lift from the deepest parts of the soul up to the heavens.

With a firmly established legend behind him, The Seer doesn't serve to endear him to new fans but rather to deepen his already compelling narrative.

Every song is a vivid glimpse of Berman's miserable and acute self-awareness that will break your heart and fill you with ecstasy, the ultimate underdog story we never knew we needed.