"Gabriel Ólafs understands how to craft short yet expressive piano pieces that recall the intimate sensibility of 19th-century salons as much as modern Icelandic indie groups" - PopMatters says in a review of the new album by the young Icelandic pianist. PM argues Ólafs "focuses on mood and emotive gestures to develop pieces, both concise yet brimming with beauty", adding he "shares more in common with the art-rock artists of his homeland (Sigur Rós, Sóley) than prominent contemporary classical pianists".

Debut album by the Canadian quintet is "one of those rare albums that does a convincing job of capturing the livewire energy of a band onstage. Clipped guitar rhythms meet warped vocal freakouts and gang-chant shoutalongs; the shapes of the songs tighten and tighten, worming their way into your body. It’s deeply physical music, but one from a strain of art-rock weirdos", Stereogum argues. It's "funk and punk and disco crashed together", by the band "committed to relentless grooves".

"This time I feel like the songs are wildly better because it’s me as an adult. I’m getting less afraid" - Phoebe Bridgers said in CoS interview about her new album, 'Punisher'. For her second record she made more energetic material - "I think it’s just more fun to play live. That might be something I learned from my collaborations: the more fun a song is to play live, the more I like it over time, whereas I get kind of exhausted playing sad songs over and over and over". Bridgers released the album earlier because - “I’m not pushing the record until things go back to ‘normal’ because I don’t think they should”, as she wrote on Twitter.

Critics really like former Savages' debut: "A sonic poltergeist with sentiment to boot" - Clash Magazine; "Beth’s ability to glide between vulnerability and intimidation is unnerving, and adds more shades of grey to a performer who’s previously operated in black and white" - Guardian; "Lyrically and musically, it vacillates between the corporeal and the ethereal, prudence and excess, softness and severity" - Pitchfork; "The music transforms from sweet and cinematic to harsh and claustrophobic, and Beth’s voice similarly vacillates between acidic and corrosive or lush and full of yearning" - Rolling Stone.

New EP by the non-binary Sudanese-American singer Dua Saleh was inspired by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, known as the Godmother of rock and roll, and it is "full of diverse soundscapes with hypnotizing synths and guitars for emotionally resonant trips through Dua’s candid memories", Hypebeast says. Brooklyn Vegan hears "the influence of loud, distorted rock on this powerful EP, but you can also hear modern R&B, auto-tuned trap, atmospheric art pop, and more. It breaks down boundaries left and right". Listen to the EP in full at Bandcamp.

"An artist who’s quite literally said nothing new for the last eight years, he suddenly turned very loquacious indeed, unleashing a series of dense, allusive tracks packed with thorny references to art, literature and pop culture" - Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote in a review of folk great's new album. "'Rough and Rowdy Ways' might well be Bob Dylan’s most consistently brilliant set of songs in years: the die-hards can spend months unravelling the knottier lyrics, but you don’t need a PhD in Dylanology to appreciate its singular quality and power". NME's Mark Beaumont is equally impressed: "Arguably his grandest poetic statement yet, a sweeping panorama of culture, history and philosophy peering back through assassinations, world wars, the births of nations, crusades and Biblical myths in order to plot his place in the great eternal scheme". In a rare recent interview in the New York Times Dylan said his songs "seem to know themselves and they know that I can sing them, vocally and rhythmically. They kind of write themselves and count on me to sing them".

GoGo Penguin "grew up in the era of techno and drum and bass, and have cannily adapted the rush of electronic music to a traditional acoustic lineup of piano, double bass and drums" The Observer writes in a review of electro-jazz trio's intense yet relaxing and gentle new album.

Colin Stetson has been making movie scores for a few years now, his latest, 'Barkskins' stands out as the richest and the most haunting. National Geographic's drama series investigates the subject of the deforestation of the New World from the arrival of English and French colonists.

"Love needs fury to fight hate. Clearly none of this is lost on the pair of indie, old head, no-fucks-giving, chain-snatching, self-professed menaces to sobriety behind this project. Their boisterous new album, 'RTJ4', makes time for trash-talking and chin-checking amid insurrection" - Pitchfork highly suggests Run the Jewels' new album (tagged it Best new music, grade 8.3). The P argues 'RTJ40 is closest to who Killer Mike and El-P are - "weary but unbroken, wary but not hopeless, eager to knuckle up".

Folk singer Ondara wrote and produced ‘Folk N’ Roll Vol 1: Tales of Isolation’ himself while in lockdown in Minneapolis in just one week, which is reflected heavily on this album with lyrics like "I'm not an essential worker" and "Hey Mr. landlord... I haven't paid my rent". Brooklyn Vegan compares the album to Bob Dylan, but adds "it feels just about as fleshed-out as its predecessor and Ondara's soaring voice and storytelling ability is still just as compelling".

"These songs are about taking action - using experience as a teacher and a guide" which makes for Medhane's "most present and clear-eyed project", as Pitchfork says in review (tagged it Best new music, grade 8,4). His raps got better - "there is even more force and focus behind his bars", as well as production - "the beats are gorgeously gritty, warped yet whole; he remolds jazz and soul samples as if from particles of sand, which brings the clarity of the raps into sharper relief".