Inevitably flawed yet fascinating, it's respectful without being reverent, less myth-making tribute, more robust embrace. [Aug 2023, p.81]

Appaloosa Bones is prime Isakov. [Oct 2023, p.81]

They've just turned their hazy daze up to 11. [Sep 2023, p.89]

A thrilling 90-minute swansong. [Oct 2023, p.93]

Much of IM is thrillingly intense, then; a rabbit punch with pop-prog interludes and Devo-like hooks. [Sep 2023, p.88]

Hozier's audacity can feel outsized and overbearing, but his tandem of earnestness and eccentricity here is more winning than not. [Sep 2023, p.91]

Well-crafted and unfussy. [Sep 2023, p.92]

Its dozen tunes about finding love, rejecting losers, and criticising corrupt systems are a patchwork of assorted American pops. [Sep 2023, p.83]

A cathartic wrestle with identity, Deliverance will sit well with fans of the original Some Bizarre roster. [Sep 2023, p.91]

An undeniably enjoyable career-twilight collection. [Sep 2023, p.82]

Volcano continues where 2021's Loving In Stereo left off. [Sep 2023, p.86]

Has a spare, homespun feel with its simple folk guitar. [Sep 2023, p.82]

Expansive, restless, subtly volatile, Radio red is intriguing enough to keep it locked. [Sep 2023, p.84]

Over 12 mostly blueprint-hugging songs returns diminish, but scuzzy beat-box disco outrider What Did I Ever To You is great. [Sep 2023, p.86]

Stylistic touchstones veer toward the William Blake's 7 weird of Julia Holter, Henry Cow and Julie Tippetts' prog-jazz outlier Sunset Glow. Incomprehensible/irresistible. [Sep 2023, p.87]

The revivified Bush Tetras prove No Wave's not dead. [Sep 2023, p.86]

Sure, the age is clear in the voices of Matt Piucci and Steven Roback, but so is the honesty inside songs that mine lost brothers, opportunities, and time. [Jul 2023, p.86]

It's absorbing stuff, even shorn of the images. [Aug 2023, p.87]

If there isn't a great leap forward, there is progression on assorted fronts, so The Best Is Yet To Come embraces all-out rock, but Scared Of Love suggests acoustic ballads could be an alternative way ahead. [Sep 2023, p.88]

Aqueous groove Up tackles mid-romance feelings of inadequacy, while coldwave-y Begging You Now infers a darker supplication. Ever-infectious, however, and rarely short of good fun, this one should substantially further the threesome's upward trajectory. [Sep 2023, p.91]

Supernatural Thing makes a strong case for keeping that odd flame alive. [Aug 2023, p.82]

The years don’t fall away – you feel every one – but this recording shows just what a beautiful thing that can be.

This pared-back sonic trip sings with freshness and immediacy. [Sep 2023, p.89]

Fluid, cultured, but never wilfully indulgent, Days In The Desert refuses to sit still. [Sep 2023, p.89]

Welshpool Frillies maintains the high standard GBV since he reunited them six years ago. [Sep 2023, p.82]

The second half - "a saucy, synth-heavy cabaret" - will undoubtedly lose a few fans, yet Rowland still manages to pull a gem out of the fire with the touching My Submission. [Aug 2023, p.78]

Warbling soul, classical lieder, No Other's stage-musical rapture, the title track's echo of Copeland's 1986 New-Age-synth album Keyboard Fantasies - all united by his seemingly unshakeable belief in humanity. [Aug 2023, p.84]

Interspersed with scored interludes and fragments of poetry read by Jessica Griffin of Would-Be-Goods, the effect is one of benign diffusion, the hazy avenues of MacLean's impressionistic lyrics running through the music as if the songs themselves now inhabit that hypnopompic state of consciousness where the centre cannot hold. [Aug 2023, p.86]