Only relenting for the odd Tinariwen-esque chill moment (Takoba; Imajughen), this one's an amps-on-11 polemical masterpiece that warrants worldwide respect. [Jun 2024, p.90]

As with 2023's downbeat Everything Harmony, what might be a Beatles-beach-Boys-Big-Star data-scrape is elevated through high-calibre songwriting. [Jun 2024, p.82]

On these dozen tracks, Washington creates a playground and invites friends in to be themselves, shaping a dizzying crosshatch of ideas where George Clinton’s lounge croon sets up a trumpet-chased pep talk from rapper D Smoke, or André 3000 slips – with flutes in hand – into a nocturnal haze that feels like some futuristic Debussy state of bliss. [Jun 2024, p.85]

Uplifting, rueful and expertly crafted. [Jun 2024, p.89]

With its meticulous ebb and flow, Time Is Glass is best approached in a single sitting. [May 2024, p.86]

While the brilliant closing Murder Of Sunrise delivers a suspenseful 18 minutes of menace via shimmering cymbals, speaker hum and fathoms-deep bass lines. There's beauty here too. [Jun 2024, p.86]

Ultimately hit and miss, Justice's gift for arena-friendly hooks remains undimmed. [May 2024, p.86]

Yet for all the luxuriant, Gong-like dreaminess of I Surrender or Imagine An Orchestra, sudden beats and vocal hooks make Delight more unpredictable odyssey than easy float downstream. [May 2024, p.89]

Nonetheless shows the duo pulling themselves up to full songwriting height, not just forging on, but flourishing. [Jun 2024, p.87]

A certain rock'n'roll energy is lacking. .... Think: transitional. [Jun 2024, p.86]

You might assume, given the title, that beam's seventh full-length album as iron & Wine is lightweight and whimsical. Actually it's pretty magnificent. [Jun 2024, p.84]

There's an undeniable zip to these. [Jun 2024, p.82]

Ultimately, this is a work of lush, immersive harmonic beauty and escape. [Jun 2024, p.86]

Octopoidal, Milford Graves-style fee jazz, miraculously achieving a sort of zen clarity. [Jun 2024, p.92]

The saturnine wavs of As Above Perhaps So Below suggest the torpor induced by the titular barbiturate, while We Were Vaporised proffers further subterranean tectonics offset by cosmic keyboard drifts that might have been plucked, like much here, from an art-house sci-fi movie score. [Jun 2024, p.91]

Never overwrought, A La Sala is a cool exercise in the beauty of restraint and understated groove mastery, exploring new vistas without subverting Khruangbin's blueprint. [Jun 2024, p.88]

Y'Y shows his fluid piano technique - a hard to quantify mix of Monk, Ibrahim, Corea and Shipp - let loose on looping patterns that trace ever more surprising arcs and mood variations. [Jun 2024, p.88]

There's taut New Wave (Tiny Moves; Jesus Is Dead), but mainly moody electronic balladry (think Streets Of Philadelphia), with Del Rey turning up to fulfil the intend of her one repeated line ("I'll make it darker") on Alma Mater. [Jun 2024, p.82]

A clearly cathartic album that further proves Annie Clark to be a brilliant and multifaceted musical force. [Jun 2024, p.83]

A few sag under the weight of brooding brass and strings - Lookout For Hope, Doom - but others soar - Beautiful Dreamer, Electricity, We Shall Overcome. Ultimately it's a winner. [Jun 2024, p.91]

The other Side [is] probably the most honest reflection of himself he's ever made. [Jun 2024, p.87]

A suite of songs that are more reflective than self-pitying, and unlike her last, beats-free album, often grounded by solid grooves that allow her bewitching melodies to soar. [May 2024, p.85]

Here they're presented as a crisp, razor-edged groove unit, with not a milligram of flab aboard. either instrumentally or melodically. [May 2024, p.84]

That Dark Matter succeeds so well is due to the and focusing their creative energy, just as Watt's sonic Nutribullet technique condense PJ's core rumble into punchy blasts. [May 2024, p.82]

Fabulously serious work. [May 2024, p.91]

Ramona has a very on-Broadway energy. There are occasional Blue Hotel lapses, but I'm Getting Married To The War or A Precious Thing come across like a rock opera Aldous Harding, while title track - inspired by Bob Dylan's 1964 song To Ramona - is the third curtain-call Patti Smith. The force of her voice alone earths these songs. [May 2024, p.86]

This edge, this acknowledgment of the stakes at play behind her messages of faith, pushes these songs past any risk of empty sentimentalism, and makes Sun Without The Heat truly uplifting. [May 2024, p.87]

They're more straightforward than they've ever been. .... They're not slackening. [May 2024, p.86]