The slightly sterile neo-soul fump of the Roots may lack the feel of their progenitors but the songs make up for that.

Generation Indigo is a hugely enjoyable electro-pop album.

The occasional off-kilter touch throws things sufficiently askew to deny listeners any complacency.

Bar that electric guitar, this is the kind of music that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on an old piece of 78rpm vinyl rescued from a car-boot sale (which is, of course, meant as a compliment).

This is a belting return to form by the best vocal artist in jazz.

There is nothing not to love about it.

All of it frothed up into an accomplished brew and delivered with good-timey vim but without a whole lot of charisma, especially in the vocal department. Snake oil, in other words. Good fun snake oil.

An undiscovered diamond.

Bewitching.

It's his best group for eons.

Obscure or not, they're songs worth learning, especially when sung as gorgeously as this.

This is jouncey, mostly R&B-derived pop with a keen ear for what supports a melody. It's good.

Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and Pugwash’s Thomas Walsh strike another fine balance between cricket’s arcane specifics and its universal metaphors in cucumber-crisp batches of catch-all pastiche-pop.

White Lies have just enough elegance and intrigue beneath the bluster to carry it off.

The orchestra's work is subtle and supportive rather than flashy, allowing free rein to that astonishing voice.

Woon's work is unashamedly bucolic (he writes songs about going for a walk) and beat-literate (he's worked with Burial), and his tremulous, medieval folk singer voice makes it perfectly bearable.

There isn’t a shadow of doubt expressed here about where Mavis is going, but there is plenty of feeling that the journey, like all journeys, is bordered with darkness.

[Life is Good] proves once again that Nas is one of the smartest and most skilled players in the game.

Sistrionix is a hugely enlivening 41 minutes of deliciously distorted vocals, instantly memorable fuzz-up guitar riffs, handclap breakdowns, and vicious put-downs of cheating lovers and sleazebags.

There are standouts aplenty and, as song rolls seamlessly into song.

Over 13 tunes, Akinmusire and his very hot quintet (featuring Walter Smith III on tenor sax and a great drummer, Justin Brown) take the basic format of post-bop straightahead jazz and tease it around with absolute authority.

It's still a cut above most epic global-influenced rock.

It's a brilliant record; probably her best.

A potent shot in the arm for Afrobeat.

It marries a downbeat songcraft to an expansive sound courtesy of producers Guy Garvey and Craig Potter.

One Breath draws on choppy emotions--grief, depression, anxiety--but Calvi commands the tides with the imperious authority of Barbara Stanwyck leading her posse in Sam Fuller's wild western Forty Guns.

The vibe is convivial. And though the great man can't put his cancer-strangled voice to every number, he can still swing the nuts off a Slingerland kit in between chesting a nifty mandolin.

With a little luck, and the careful choice of singles, there might be life in this party yet.