Twee and tuneful, self-consciously oddball and so indefatigably alt. [Jun 2022, p.83]

Musically, tracks like My Cleveland Heart achieve an effortless quintessence with the swing of a practised elbow. [Aug 2021, p.81]

Gravity Stairs is not an easy listen, but it is worth sticking with. [Jul 2024, p.76]

It can't and shouldn't replace the original, but this is a fascinating insight into the band's creative process and latter-day regrets. [Dec 2025, p.79]

It finds him in a reflective mood. It's a smart musical move, because Storm Damage showcases what a good lyricist he is. [Mar 2020, p.86]

Each of its five segments finds nascent chaos metamorphosing into funk-fuelled crescendo as if by inspired osmosis. [Jul 2021, p.93]

The default setting of these thunderous doom lords from Sweden's far north remains the expansive, melodic, lavishly arranged anthem, layered densely with clobbering drums and shuddering riffs. [Apr 2022, p.79]

These four coloured vinyls boast 18 unreleased gems. [Jan 2021, p.95]

Biley turns the controls a little more towards vintage soul on this eighth album. Her voice is still a formidable instrument. [Feb 2026, p.81]

I Delete more than stands up on its own. [Jan 2015, p.123]

Actually, You Can is business as usual, which translates into a 'gloriously unusual racket'. [Jan 2022, p.83]

Sure, there are no surprises here but then again, none are needed. [Dec 2025, p.77]

It's clear that this form of musical self-help will have even the most mixed-up fan feeling slightly zen. [Mar 2020, p.89]

Charming result. [May 2025, p.74]

Continues to make some of the sweetest and most self-assured AOR-inflected power-pop going. [Aug 2021, p.82]

Dawson's heavily mannered delivery and maximalist verbosity requires patience at times, but Silene is one of the most straightforwardly beautiful songs he has ever recorded. [Jan 2022, p.83]

Following the metaverse music hall of Step Outside, however, normal bombastic synthrock service resumes. [Mar 2022, p.81]

Turn It On! is the rock'n'roll equivalent of a dazzling ray of sunshine. [May 2022, p.84]

Their seventh album is clever, arch and compelling. [Mar 2026, p.79]

From the woozy menace of No Air and the Killing Joke-tinged Shadows through to the doomy rampage of Living In Lye, this rocks harder and smarter.

It finds them on classic BJM form--a warm, densely analogue journey through inner space punctuated by churchy keyboards and tambourines that rattle like bones. [Summer 2018, p.86]

Passwords is full of lustrous folk, as on My Greatest Invention and I Can't Love, with the odd innocuous AOR moment, though there's hidden bite. [Summer 2018, p.89]

It's highly agreeable background music for those who prefer to keep the curtains closed. [Nov 2014, p.91]

Eschewing Young’s work recorded with Promise Of The Real – or indeed anything written this side of 1995 – Noise & Flowers’ nine crowd pleasers offer exactly what that brilliant title suggests.

Chuck is Berry’s last inimitable flare, delivered in the nick of time.

Their seventh album doesn’t stint on the Wagnerian bombast, from the Ritalin-powered kick drum assault of Astral Empire to the epic Guitar Hero duels of, well, pretty much everything on here. But there are pop smarts amid the silliness.

Earns its place. [Jul 2023, p.87]

[It picks] up precisely where they left off in 1990. [Sep 2013, p.88]

It’s not all hits--there’s the borderline derivative glam-metal of Two Birds, and the wholly less arresting pop-punk of Side Effects--but this is loud, proficient punk rock which should leave even the most curmudgeonly listener fist-punching with glee.

A good chunk of this Comet is heaven-bound. [Summer 2018, p.92]

[Doesn't] reinvent any wheels but flesh out the blues/pub-rock format with quick wit and keen observation. [Oct 2018, p.86]

Clever without being too clever, but only just. [May 2020, p.83]

This second solo album dissects an array of internal torments in scarifying style; more gruesome and brutal than ever, and often glitching like a fractured psyche. [Oct 2025, p.72]

No-wave dislocations take the B-52's around the back of CBGB to be savaged by Le Tigre. [Jan 2022, p.85]

Manson’s nihilistic take on 2017 is interwoven with glimpses of personal darkness, wrapped up in mutually constrictive and damaging relationships on epic dirge Blood Honey and the closing Threats Of Romance, ordering a partner to do his murderous bidding on the Muse disco blues Kill4Me, and mourning the loss of his father on the seven-minute centrepiece Saturnalia. But even here there’s a renewed crackle to Manson’s attack--a viper regaining its bite.

What they lack in scope is more than made up for by the physicality of their attack, chopping out jagged chords and rank fumes of garage-y noise. [Sep 2013, p.89]

The electronic drive and mildly gothic atmospherics of 2018's acclaimed Call The Comet survive, albeit transferred away from songs of Trumpian horror and sci-fi utopia on to tracks about friendship and empathy (Ariel) and staying strong through the pandemic (Spirit Power & Soul). All These Days intrigues. [Jan 2022, p.82]

Envisioning sci-fi detective themes (Chasing The Tail Of A Dream), mariachi manhunts (It’s You) and Wall-E Of Arabia (Connector), it’s an imaginative if one-level album, animating only for the scuzzy motorik blues pop of Million Eyes, Fear Machine and Holy Revelation or the crisp, catchy psych-pop of Miss Fortune.

Torture, disgust and danger are all here, but so too are some sharp-barbed observations on screwed-up modern living. [Sep 2013, p.90]

This album reflects its maker--a restless spirit that now and then stumbles on something special.

There are plenty of great songs on here, but no stone-cold classic. [May 2018, p.86]

[L7] still sound as toxic and ornery as ever, their songs sharp and savage, their solos short and sweet, their vocals still capable of freezing testicles at 50 paces. [Summer 2019, p.82]

Visceral stuff, but here's hoping their post-Fitzsimmons (RIP) era takes The Hives on further unexpected journeys. [Sep 2023, p.80]

With Shooter Jening's outlaw holler and Sheryl Crow doing her backing-singer bit, the results are country slick but the execution is flawless. [Summer 2019, p.82]

Black And Blue is the sound of an enduring rock’n’roll firm updating the business. .... Expanded versions of this reissue include loose workouts with Jeff Beck, who entertained himself on the Meters-like funk of Rotterdam Jam. [Jan 2026, p.84]

So J did his usual effortless stand-in thang on guitar, and with Lou writing two beautiful soft rockers and Murph powering away on drums created another album to stand if not quite the equal of the original Dinosaur albums that around the end of the 80s helped change the face of US alternative rock, then somewhere close.

While the album Widow's Weed has all the usual heavily layered atmospherics, there's an even inkier feel than before. [Summer 2019, p.83]

The best 1983 album released in 2025. [Nov 2025, p.78]

It’s 1984 forever for the Scorpions, a return to slick, semi-hard rock and power ballads.

Taken in a single sitting, the rewards from this record are manifold. [Summer 2019, p.83]

Idlewild remain as dependable as ever. [Nov 2025, p.78]

This overdue follow up to debut What Is? proves that years of touring a live show described as an "aural orgasm" hasn't blunted their sense of humour. [Sep 2013, p.92]

The music is taut, compressed and, in places, vulnerable and beautifully resonant. [May 2018, p.90]

Ninth album Quiet And Peace is roughly one third quiet, peaceful and Chris Stapleton-like. ... elsewhere, All Be Gone and Lonely Fast And Deep recall the lumberjack Lemonheads of '93, but there's forward motion too. [May 2018, p.90]

It’s all a bit glazed over, grungeless, too well finished, lacking the sense of suppurating wounds.

It's wise, but rhythmically, musically, it feels Byrne's age. [May 2018, p.91]

Alcohol And Cocainemarijuananicotine, is borderline endearing, while Love Thyself reminds us that Taylor-Taylor can still write pop hooks whenever he can be bothered. [May 2024, p.77]

[The album] runs from garage rock to impressive reggae-tinged fuzzstompers. [Sep 2013, p.93]

Perfection, though, remains unattainable thanks to Barney Sumner, whose enthusiasm is such that he adds an uncommon amount of whoops and yelps to songs that really do not need any. [Aug 2013, p.89]

While nobody would mistake it for the work of a man who's trying too hard, it's not without its charms. [Sep 2020, p.87]

The result is less a coherent statement and more a collection of songs that simply show off their eclectic influences and their ability to reproduce them well. [May 2018, p.91]

The song titles may be a little lacking this time round (although The Sordid Soliloquy Of Sawborg Destructo makes up for it), but The Blood of Gods is more of the same monstrous bilge.

Dependably solid. [Nov 2019, p.85]

For all its flaws, Rewind The Film shows they're not ready for the glue factory just yet. [Oct 2013, p.86]

Highlights are the punchy pop-metal of Got The Power and the greasy glamorama of The Reverend, replete with satisfyingly fuzzy guitar, but Zipper Down misses as much as it hits.

McCauley strains a little too hard for unpolished authenticity over originality, but he still hits the emotional bullseye half the time. [Oct 2013, p.86]

It might not be essential, but it's not without merit. [Apr 2026, p.80]

Ironically, these more daring forays emphasise the inoffensive blandness of some of the other tracks, but if the future holds more similarly brave experimentation then ZBB are on a fascinating career trajectory.

The Mule's taste and experience largely wins the day. [Oct 2013, p.87]

Overall ATW seem "smaller" somehow, where previous records were... well, bigger. If it were anyone else we'd be more impressed, but ATW can do better. [Nov 2018, p.80]

It turns out these eternal survivors have gone out with neither a whimper nor a snarl. [Apr 2026, p.76]

While this album is unlikely to win them many new fans at this stage, there's plenty of the old charm twinkling away to get fans back on board their wonderfully strange little ship. [Oct 2013, p.89]

Tunes and sound both stay below the Gold Standard. [Dec 2014, p.104]

A case of more darkness required. [Mar 2015, p.94]

It’s all great if you’re willing to strap on some cowboy boots and hop on the nearest hayride, but hardcore rockers are gonna wanna sit this one out.

This is a more conventional album. [Dec 2014, p.104]

Overall these Merseyside extreme-metal veterans sound a little unfocused and uninspired on this record, falling back on tired retro-metal tropes. [Oct 2021, p.72]

It's a fine line between hypnotic and soporific, but he's usually on the right side. [Nov 2018, p.83]

Too much of Big Music seems to be reaching for a gravitas it can't back up with emotional or musical substance. [Dec 2014, p.104]

Independence Day is normal for Neil: he tests the climate and the atmospherics are depressing. Terrorise Me, a response to the Bataclan outrage, is the key piece. The rest is no faffing and easy listening.

Language Of The Dead is a 21st-century wake-up call, dismissing the knowledge of a civilised past and demanding we toss our "idols into the sea," to catch some of the rock'n'roll "lightning" slashing throughout the skies instead. At such moments, the cathedral-sized keyboards don't sound quite so fake. [Dec 2014, p.105]

It's the sound of a man and his chums enjoying each other's gifts as they rattle out some slightly scuzzy slices of rock delight. [Feb 2026, p.78]

The album suffers from the Lips' recent tendency for ambient, Blade Runner interludes, while jazzy plods and one-note vocoder drug confessionals drag things to a muted, half-baked crawl. [Apr 2020, p.87]

There are many less rewarding experiences than hearing Springsteen thirstily sing his favourite songs, but there’s a sense here that all concerned hope it would catch fire and amount to something more. [Dec 2022, p.76]

Ronnie Radke's lyrics are convincingly nasty. [Oct 2013, p.91]

Hums Of The Lovin' Spoonful ('66) and Everything Playing ('67) include the odd classic, such as Nashville Cats, but don't gel so well, despite Yanovsky's flamboyant playing. The constant style shifting suits the soundtracks for What's Up, Tiger Lily? and You're A Big Boy Now, with groovy themes a-go-go. [May 2026, p.85]

Somewhat lacking in real character of its ow, there is nevertheless a certain charm to this album, and it's sure to trigger a nostalgia trip in those who came of age at the turn of the current century. [Oct 2019, p.89]

By occasionally confusing drabness for darkness, they've fallen short of their own lofty standards. [Aug 2018, p.86]

The rest of the album is all over the map, from electro-rocker Let’s Get The Party Started (featuring Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon) to Charmed I’m Sure’s dub-step metal. It’s fun hearing Morello stretch out, though all but the most broadminded RATM fans are unlikely to feel the same way.

Frontman Brandon Coleman is alike a more muscular, less reedy Neil Young. .... A turbulent album. [Aug 2024, p.72]

A quaintly dated second set haunted by cliche. [Apr 2019, p.89]

Here, White Manna have created grown-up lullabies of the most primal kind.

Sign O' The Times might be Prince's apex. .. The extras on this eight-CD/13-LP set, however, include a lot of dry-humping, second-rate material that hints at the decline he would go into in the 90s and beyond. [Oct 2020, p.91]

Treasured songs suffer repeated acts of vandalism. On many nights, Dylan and the guys howl the chorus of Like A Rolling Stone frat party-style. Conversely, the 1974 release Forever Young (from the Planet Waves album) gets regular care and rises in stature as a Boomer benediction. [Oct 2024, p.83]

Doherty himself remains endearingly cack-handed and poetically confessional but uncontrollably wayward. By the final third, the band appear to have given up and gone to the pub. [Jun 2019, p.84]

Sprightly mid-life Americana. [Jun 2019, p.89]

Peace Trail is a wide-open-sky gem that feels wild and free, while Cowgirl Jam s stupendous, a vintage Young showcase of instrumental assault and battery. Frustratingly, these highlights are punctuated by the six Paradox Passage instrumentals, which desperately miss a visual accompaniment to hang off. [Jun 2018, p.90]

It's a roguish enough distillation of Aussie rock's most okish corners. [Sep 2022, p.73]