Every aspect of the band's sound coalesce on a series of stunning songs that have massive melodic grace and power. [Aug 2019, p.84]

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

As ever, this band find their joie de vivre in jadedness. [May 2026, p.78]

What's missing is just a little more "WTF?" [Sep 2013, p.90]

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

As the soundtrack to the black mass ritual of their ardent followers, From the Very Depths more than delivers. [Mar 2015, p.89]

It's an astonishing, tour-de-force performance, ferocious and committed and dripping with confidence. [Jun 2015, p.90]

Resolute if hardly revolutionary form. [Jun 2015, p.96]

Strings stutter and fall, the tone can best be described as lush, gentle and reassuring.

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.

Resist is more an evolution than a revolution in the band's sound, which tightens up and augments everything that was great about 2014's Hydra. [Feb 2019, p.91]

There awaits a winning collaboration between band and singer, but this isn't it. [Feb 2022, p.79]

The re-inclusion of guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch to the band has seen Korn embracing their dense roots and they’re all the better for it.

It has arena-rock attitude, but contained within songs and performances that are a lot more intimate and highly charged than you might expect. Slash’s punchy guitar style complements Kennedy’s passionate vocals, and in doing so brings to mind what Aerosmith achieved in the late 80s. [Sep 2018, p.88]

The Leeds-launched provocateurs still sound sharp and lean. [May 2019, p.88]

Van Weezer is a Lightweight guilty pleasure, but mostly delicious pleasure. [Summer 2021, p.80]

Aside from this one minor flaw [rapping in the title track], Gibbons has totally nailed it with Perfectamundo. It’s what a solo project should be: a new adventure.

By making new albums like this, the band sidestep the entire revival punk circuit ethos and create something new, again. [Summer 2014, p.88]

Their hooks seem to call to you from misty, far-off shores, promising mystical rave-ups. Drift in. [Oct 2019, p.91]

It's a pleasing patchwork of echoes of the past. [Feb 2014, p.92]

It's rock'n'roll for aging urchins who don't know how to quit. [Apr 2015, p.98]

A glorious return to form for one of the world's most peculiarly successful bands. [Jun 2013, p.92]

Much of the record is set to a reflective key--providing a flexible canvas for subtle mood changes, sassy alt-rock grooves and space to cultivate retro but relevant, non-cliche rock. [Summer 2013, p.91]

The fourth album is a joyful tornado of shamelessly old-school indie pop. [Feb 2014, p.97]

This brilliant and beautifully captured set positively vibrates with the atmosphere and thrills that incandescent Warren and his funk 'n' fury-informed cohorts bring to the material. [Mar 2015, p.89]

Nobody will pretend this album is among the most inventive you’ll hear in 2015. But Buckcherry just wanna pump up the volume and get the groin shifting. And they do it well enough to put some zest in the tank.

All the emo-rooted, posthardcore stylistic hallmarks are present and correct, embellished with a load of electronic arsing about on top, but the almost constant use of the same soaring ‘wo-ah’ pop hooks will soon have you wanting to hack your ears off with a pair of blunt scissors.

Papa Roach's not entirely convincing attempt to music in on the action. [Feb 2019, p.88]

Noise & Romance offers a much more disjointed, disorienting and unpolished experience. [May 2019, p.84]

A polished vista rock for anyone in urgent need of a Foos stopgap. [Sep 2019, p.83]

A hit-and-miss affair padded out with too many Fred Durst-style shouty tantrums. [Apr 20202, p.88]

An elegant set of sweeping rock anthems, not a rough edge to be found, and yet there' soul amid the aural perfection. [Jul 2021, p.85]

Although Donald Fagen's vocals have mellowed, there's no decline in quality. [Dec 2021, p.73]

Mo’s resonant vocals and articulate guitar work shine across the styles.

Each song title is followed by a reference to specific verses from the Bible that have spurred Anderson into lyrical action. The connection is not always easy to make, and sometimes you’re better off just going with his words, although they can take some unravelling at times. But that’s all part of the plan.

'Zingers exhibit a whole lotta heart. But sometimes heart alone's not enough. [Dec 2023, p.79]

The majority is syncopated lightweight pop, as if selected by algorithms for mass consumption. [Aug 2024, p.72]

Things take a kitschy turn for the sickly sweet. [Dec 2024, p.79]

Curious Ruminant will not sate anybody’s desire for a tub-thumping Tull album, but Anderson seems to be beyond that now. Instead his mind is overflowing with lyrical tangents and still capable of dispensing hooks, and he’s entering the final stages in fine fettle. [Apr 2025, p.70]

The band's sixth album is another uneven mix, but with enough fresh twists and smart cameos to save it from redundancy. [Jun 2015, p.90]

The skeletal arrangements allow the controlled frailty of Doherty’s voice to pack a stronger emotional punch.

Plodding, overwrought gospel epics like Shine and Tempted are the order of the day, pale passionless shadows of the Mode’s mighty, desperate Condemnation.... Things improve on the starker latter half.

In Another World is a remarkable album and another marvellous continuation: power and pop. [May 2021, p.88]

Repetitive chants and moments of unfettered melodic joy further bolster or confuse the situation, depending on your mindset. [Jun 2013, p.93]

A fine tribute to a timeless songwriter of our times. [Apr 2015, p.95]

Ship Of Fools is a gloriously and unapologetically joyous listen, and one that serves to remind us how the Flaming Lips lost their mojo, while simultaneously showing Empire Of The Sun the way forward.

An intricately crafted return to form. [Nov 2020, p.85]

With the other 10 tracks, featuring Roger C Reale’s gruff blues shout and robust brass section, he’s more content to let his liquid economy embellish, deliver spine-tingling solos and drive the funky soul grooves of She’s So Fine and The Go-Getter Is Gone, deploying Soul Man-style hammer riffing on the title track and evoking his Dock Of The Bay on One Good Turn

The worst thing is, for all the nauseating country-rock-lite choruses, this is agonisingly catchy. [Summer 2013, p.89]

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.

Chunky but not over-egged at 14 tracks, Bury Me In My Boots is packed with honed tunes, new ideas and loveable old tricks.

Retro rock with rage and aspiration. Follow that, Astley.

Ready To Die suggests Iggy is anything but. [Jun 2013, p.90]

While Showdown and the Lennon cover feel almost jaunty in their lightness of touch, his cover of Guns N’ Roses’ Patience is a broody, brooding acoustic ballad, lonely and haunting.

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]

By-the-book, yes, but still a page-turner.

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.

Temples' fourth leaps from the speakers tapping veins of electro-psych, hypno-kosmische and soft-focused unreality. [May 2023, p.81]

Kudos to Pure Love for taking a ludicrous concept of comedy commercialism and successfully straightening its face. [Feb 2013, p.95]

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

A lot of this record sounds like Psalm 69 if you turned the drum machine to the ‘Blur’ setting, a snarling hyperspeed punkdustrial vomitorium of choppy samples and churning metal riffs. It’s not all armed audio warfare, though.

There’s an intimate warmth glowing throughout the 20 tracks on these two discs as Steve audibly lives every subtle nuance he sings or plays, maybe still with some disbelief that he’s now able to headline Wembley Arena by his lonesome self.

Stripped of the sonic chaos of Mastodon and ATD-I, the rhythm section are free to just let go and pummel, proving a perfect foil for Sanders’ caveman roar. Meanwhile, the frequent quieter, more considered moments, such as the creeping, ghostly Dublin, have an underlying sense of spaced-out dread.

Anyone not expecting a retread of his former glories will find enough here to enjoy. [Summer 2018, p.90]

Long-overdue, and quite delightful footnote to San Fran's illustrious rock history. [Dec 2018, p.87]

Rundgren tricks abound in the sonics--he’s a master of the synth and the Beach Boys chorus, but the overall mood is on point.

The winners prove to be the moments where the participants hold back on the bombast to groove. ... Alas, Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground suffers from heavy-handedness, a fate that awaits I Just Want To Make Love To You. Not quite a harvest for the world but no spoilt crops either.

Thanks to the band’s own accumulated expertise and the masterly stitching qualities of Danger Mouse, it’s a tightly woven affair, never messy or maudlin or self-indulgent; a dreamcoat of many colours, a marble rye of genres.

Lowery's man-child playfulness feels overly mannered at times, but the album settles down in its latter half. [Sep 2014, p.91]

This lone soldier is at his best when the cavalry arrives, with Jagger honking on a languid You Di The Crime, and Keef tussling with Jeff Beck over a fine Cognac. [Summer 2018, p.89]

It makes sense with the book on your lap, but otherwise, the album may not convince. The acoustics are peculiar on tracks like Pride and the vocal mic seems compressed, rather than expansive. Something to do with surrender, perhaps. What remains of it, when you give yourself away. [May 2023, p.80]

predictable guests like Royal Blood, Biffy Clyro and Slipknot's Corey Taylor deliver disappointingly straight, dutifully respectful covers. Fortunately, artists less bound by metal convention fare better. ... The album's less celebrated deep cuts also encourage adventurous reworkings. [Sep 2021, p.84]

Strange Fruit is a nervy choice, respectfully done. Like most of the record, it's also pretty redundant. [Summer 2013, p.92]

Though the record’s real strength is the deft vocal interplay between Elsenburg and Jana Carpenter, who imbues things with a new sense of depth and, on Chasing Horses and the achingly lovely Tyrekickers, a nuanced sensitivity.

Songs From The Black Hole is unlikely to mean much to anyone not already dialled in to Prong’s gnarled, existentialist world view, but it’s difficult to begrudge them this indulgence. [Jun 2015, p.92]

Ghost hammers Merseybeat into grotesque new shapes and closer Easily Misbled, an elegant mariachi acoustic noir, is a refreshing respite. But too much here is sub-Dinosaur Pile-Up slush, dredged, ironically, from Britrock’s bottom end.

A must-buy, if only for the brilliant soap-opera twist of watching Johnny Borell rise from the ashes. [Nov 2018, p.81]

They approach this fourth album with typical irreverence. [Jan 2019, p.89]

The Medicine Show is her biggest-sounding album this century. [May 2019, p.84]

They rely on their own successful turbo-operatic formula for large sections of this 80-minute-plus double album, and from the moment five minutes in when Music gets over its overtures and bursts into anthemic flame, the blend of guttural riffing, machine-gun bass drum and Floor Jansen’s perennially startled soprano is always captivating.

The album emerging as willfully lo-fi, bouncing along on cheery electronica while McTrusty's almost spoken-word panic attack showcases his rich Glaswegian vocals. [Feb 2022, p.79]

At first it’s disorientating, but gradually--it’s 90 minutes long--it becomes mesmeric, relaxing and not unlike a Laurie Anderson or Brian Eno ‘sound installation’.

23 tracks is too many. ... But when it's good - as on Marc Almond's ballady Teenage Dream or David Johansen's R&B stomp through Get It On, it's great. [Oct 2020, p.84]

Fans of Santana’s first trio of albums have wished for this project to happen for years. Now it’s here, most are likely to be very pleasantly surprised by how successfully it’s been done.

Devotees of blues-rock and the trio’s past glories will relish taking a spin in their new model.

On TFF, NIN and Cab-Volt industrialism nag at Rileyesque rave while referencing The Beatles’ Because. Clever.

On the raw, muscular opening Notches it’s the ‘notches on my walking cane’ as Bonamassa’s guitar sends out a series of flares from the powerful blues boogie that propels the song. ... It’s a headlong rush to the final slow, melodic Known Unknowns, where his angst drains into an acceptance that he will never beat the ticking of the clock. It was a journey he had to make and now he’ll have to follow it.

Guitarist Russell Lissack counters the intoxicating synthetics with some of his most powerful work yet. ... Elemental. [May 2022, p.80]

Chaosmosis is not an explosive comeback, but it does at least contain flickers of the band’s lysergic disco-punk magic.

BRMC have transcended a past that was extremely full of the past and arrived in the present. [Apr 2013, p.93]

It's Korn's most significant album in a long time. [Nov 2013, p.94]

None of the 17 songs waste any time getting where they're ultimately going. ... Seriously, it's time to believe. [Apr 2023, p.74]

It's an undeniably intriguing and often inspired collection, shining with genuine heart and humanity. [May 2013, p.86]

It’s Silversun Pickups rolling up their blazer sleeves, plumping their shoulderpads and cruising out of Silver Lake, LA with a fourth album that buzzes like pink neon and rolls like convertible wheels on steaming tarmac.

Straining a little too hard for intellectual depth and emotional intensity, The Hunting Party is ultimately let down by its lack of focus and poor quality control. [Summer 2014, p.93]

This is a fine album which continues to plough the Gong furrow with seasoned aplomb.

Clearly inspired by the recent critical upswing, but beholden to no one, this is the creation of a band with an utterly focused sense of identity. The result is gloriously uneasy listening for the masses.

What it lacks is a pulse-quickening ‘showcase track’ – a Fire And Water, a Mr Big, a Running With The Pack, a Burning Sky… a (to continue the 12 o’clock theme) Midnight Moonlight, even. It’s all rather countrified and subdued. [Oct 2023, p.84]