Arab Strap songs mostly have a strong, vinegary flavour, and this is abracingly sour album over the long haul. The relentless misanthropic grind can drag in places. But as ever, Moffat’s withering scorn is sweetened by beautiful poetry, tender emotion and self-aware, bruise-black humour. [May 2024, p.36]

At its best, like the gorgeous, nine-minute “Round The World”, his bittersweet sound feels like the work of an art-music auteur. [May 2024, p.30]

So how does that chaos translate into making music in your fifties? With greater depth and variety, it would appear. [Jun 2024, p.36]

What strikes you is the sheer variety of styles and textures that Keenan and Cargill were playing around with. It’s a shimmering patchwork of ideas and moments, some more realised than others, some beautiful, some stark. .... Spell Blanket is a glimpse at what might have been. A memory of the future. [May 2024, p.42]

This merging of hypnotic rhythms with pulsing electro is apparent throughout, especially on squelchy tracks like "Got To Be Who U Are", and the result is a potent fusion. [Jun 2024, p.36]

Tracyanne Campbell still writes exquisite songs that don’t sacrifice melancholy for cleverness, and the band still provide smart arrangements that nod to country, Motown, Brill Building pop and other distinctly American sounds. [May 2024, p.32]

A cresting, rolling record of complexity and depth. [May 2024, p.24]

Ranging from explosive Afro-funk workouts by Petelo Vicka et Son Nzazi and Les Bantous de la Capitale to more psych-influenced stunners by Abeti et Les Redoutables and Zaiko Langa Langa, these rediscoveries are thrilling enough for Congo Funk! to deserve a place next to African Scream Contest among Analog Africa’s most indispensable collections. [May 2024, p.53]

Despite remarkable playing and energy that charges through much of this record, it’s also contemplative, varied and tender at times, with the gentle sway of tracks like “Takoba” hitting as hard as the noise and fury of “Sousoume Tamachek”. [May 2024, p.38]

The LP opens with “My Golden Years”, a delectable mélange of Harrisonian 12-string riffs, Wilsonian harmonies and layer-cake hooks, and reaches its apex with the glorious Beach Boys homage “In The Eyes Of The Girl”, with Sean Ono Lennon co-producing and playing bass. [Jun 2024, p.35]

Jazz remains the root of his sound, with Washington’s saxophone as bold and vibrant as ever. But the grand orchestral sweep of albums past is pared back, replaced by adeeper engagement with hip-hop, funk and soul. [May 2024, p.41]

Though Chasny’s folkier inclinations generally prevail over Six Organs’ equal affection for psych explosions, it’s still thrilling to hear him set the controls for the big red sun in the final minutes of “Summer’s Last Rays”. [May 2024, p.41]

An album that has bite and snarl but also a wonderfully woozy and unfurling sense of groove. [Jun 2024, p.36]

There’s something galvanising about the way they’ve signed off with their best album in decades. This is not to slight previous albums like Perpetuum Mobile or Alles In Allem, but the group are on particularly excellent form. [Jun 2024, p.26]

Opener “I Suck At Grieving” is a musical marvel, a song about losing a parent that’s genuinely fun to sing along to. “Jealous” is a garage-rock Gen Z remake of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated”, while “Pretty Good For A Bad Day” – a duet with All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth – offers a clever sense of perspective. [Jun 2024, p.33]

Throughout, Rademaker's tremulous vocals and endearing slacker persona imbue his songs with a heart-tugging humanity. [May 2024, p.34]

“Stock Horror” offering aghostly absence, its additional sepulchral weight midway through welcoming what could be ameteor shower, while the amorphous “Dim Hopes” ultimately brings brighter skies too. Similarly, “We Were Vaporised” effects alanguid transubstantiation. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Another radical musical/ psychological metamorphosis. [Jun 2024, p.39]

Muttered vocals and jazzy trumpet combine on the unsettling “God Save The Queen”, and even Mary Lattimore’s harp and Lonney Holley’s graceful voice can’t disguise “Guilty”’s uncomfortable challenges. [Jun 2024, p.37]

Rhett Miller’s quartet crank up the cowpunk on the likes of “This World”, “Falling Down” and “Chased The Setting Sun”, but time, inevitably, has tempered their collective experience. [Jun 2024, p.37]

There’s acreaky Sunset Boulevard synth-pop air of nostalgia to much of Nonetheless, but just when you’re ready to dismiss it, they pull out “Love Is The Law”, adream collaboration between WH Auden and John Barry, which shoots straight into the Top 10 of their indisputably greatest songs. [Jun 2024, p.37]

Jain often subverts the placid mood with playful details, like the fractalised vocals that fill "Our Touching Tongues" or the synth arpeggios that add a sprightly energy throughout. [Apr 2024, p.35]

The music here swells, surges and rages without ever losing the vulnerability at its core. [May 2024, p.31]

Forgiveness Is Yours sometimes becomes too diffuse, hampered by a surplus of bold ideas that do not get all the necessary follow-through. But it Abounds with queasy pleasures all the same. [May 2024, p.32]

Light Verse rejoices in its playful details. [May 2024, p.35]

Fu##in Up captures Young and the Horse on blazing form. Nelson makes acapable duelling partner for Young, working intuitively alongside Old Black’s grizzled solos, while Lofgren’s honky-tonk piano lends ashimmying quality to these craggy, elemental songs. [May 2024, p.41]

A sublime composition. [Feb 2024, p.37]

At just 25 minutes, it’s very much a listen-through, though the percussive clattering and ominous synthesiser hum of “Names Make The Name” constitute a standout. [Apr 2024, p.41]