Black Bayou is a showcase for Finley the storyteller, an artist who can convincingly inhabit narratives that may not be entirely based on his own experiences, lifestyle or even beliefs. [Nov 2023, p.27]

The set ranges ambitiously from hypnotic, twisted love songs such as "103" and the title track to the warped gospel undertones of "My Girls My Girls" and "LA Hex", courtesy of the Compton Kidz Club Choir. [Dec 2023, p.31]

But for all the rueful, wistful, middle-aged preoccupations of History Books, its two most emblematic tracks, "Little Fires" and "Positive Charge", catch The Gaslight Anthem at their most glorious and furious. [Dec 2023, p.30]

Selvutsletter is a shapeless sprawl in places but covers an impressive range. [Nov 2023, p.31]

It's an album that unfurls like a flag on a battlefield, glorious, tattered, defiant, full of big choruses, vaulting harmonies, a brazenly windswept sound. The guitars couldn't be louder, bolder, more heroically deployed. [Nov 2023, p.28]

While Pearlies often invites comparisons with music by Lush’s many dream-pop descendants – “The Presence” and “Tonight Is Mine” being just two songs here that Beach House will wish they’d crafted – Anderson continually finds intriguing ways of deviating from those templates. In so doing, she’s able to nudge the guitar pedals aside and demonstrate that her music still has other places to go.

Ultimately, what CMAT has done with CrazyMad, For Me is create a new pop music, centered around melody, heartache, and resolve, and filled with more than a dash of gallows humor to boot.

["And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me" is] unashamedly lovely but manages to avoid tweeness through the clarity and concision of both the composition and the playing. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Sweeping arrangements, thoughtful ambient passages and judicious archival samples drive the story, which is cleverly weighted from a thematic viewpoint. [Oct 2023, p.33]

The London trio chart out some fresh trajectories for the mesmeric brand of avant-pop they established with 2019's eerily prophetic The Age Of Immunology and 2021's superb Ookii Gekkou. [Nov 2023, p.33]

There's a similar vibe here [to the soundtrack they created for BBC drama Gallows Pole] on tracks such as "raised By Hills" and "Tripping In The Graveyard", although elsewhere the psych weirdness is as rampantly eclectic as ever. [Nov 2023, p.29]

Clear, uncluttered, minimally adorned, it works in different measures to the usual. [Oct 2023, p.31]

It ["Hurtin' Or Healed"] is one of many moments on the record with a reflectively slow and gentle pace. But there are also subtle dynamic shifts and spikes throughout. [Nov 2023, p.32]

Sherwood's production is typically stylish - clear when needed, dubbed-out and spiraling when the music demands; heavy and uplifting. [Nov 2023, p.26]

Faithful and reverential throughout, there's nonetheless clear signs of Joe's own personality shining though. [Nov 2023, p.27]

As an artistic exercise, it's interesting enough. [Nov 2023, p.33]

The blend of early Cure and gnarly grunge of "Soft Like A Flower" produces an indie-ish racket, the dance pulse of "Wild Times" and the smoky brass curling around "Golden" show new facets to her sound that work just as well. [Nov 2023, p.26]

The eight songs of Midnight Rose range from serviceable to cringeworthy. [Oct 2023, p.33]

Javelin sounds like a proper Sufjan Stevens album, picking up the lyrical and sonic threads of Carrie & Lowell and 2010's The Age Of Adz. [Nov 2023, p.22]

This incarnation of Modern Nature has delivered a slim but rich volume of musical poetry, that demands a certain commitment to appreciate its quiet fervour. [Nov 2023, p.18]

There's a clear path being charted, expanding the grammar of R&B into the heart of the modern-day mainstream. [Oct 2023, p.34]

Another dazzling yet soulless smorgasbord of bold, modern pop composition that mixes the latest AI with more old-school contributions from Lee Renaldo and Jim O'Rourke. [Nov 2023, p.31]

This deluxe set showcases the vital rush and wildness that Stinson brought to the band for the last time. [Nov 2023, p.36]

An album from a band that still sound truly individual. [Oct 2023, p.25]

The music reflects this stark, witty chronicle of precarious modern living with a queasy tableau of churning beats, one minute harsh and industrial, the next lush and dreamy. [Nov 2023, p.25]

These four numbered tracks fall closer to dance music, although Föllakzoid's hallmarks - a lysergic dreaminess, tethered by a constant, hypnotic propulsion - remains intact. [Nov 2023, p.28]

Cousin is deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album. [Oct 2023, p.24]

Even better [than Time Skiffs]: consistently inventive rather than merely quirky, it makes sincere effort to get to the emotional core of what they do. [Nov 2023, p.25]