Weighing in at 133 tracks, Feel Flows' bulk may be harder to validate than existing sets for the Pet Sounds/Smile era, but as a locked-down summer's soundtrack its mellifluous existential musings are hard to fault. [Aug 2021, p.86]

This is bigger, bolder, and better in every respect. [Mar 2014, p.97]

These 45 songs on 3CDs comprise the best overview yet of NC&TBS’s unique and evocative voodoo.

There's a lot to take in, but Petty was at one of his many peaks and this is worth luxuriating in. [Nov 2020, p.92]

It's an extraordinary record, which stands, and reliably rewards, repeated listens. [Jan 2022, p.80]

A labour of well-deserved love. [Dec 2019, p.91]

This is a very good album. There might be darkness outside, but the barn is lit up by the old men playing country and rock inside. [Jan 2022, p.82]

While there's no getting around the fact that this five-disc set has been released to promote said film - even the Boss isn't above cross-platform media marketing - it still succeeds as the last revealing word on the album's gestation. [Dec 2025, p.83]

The highlights have lost none of their lustre. ... What's abundantly clear is that each of the band members was squirrelling away material for their respective solo projects. [Jul 2021, p.90]

His most rumbustious in years. .... He's peaking again. [Jul 2024, p.79]

Expressive, feral, soulful, sensual, explosive… On Air? On fire, more like.

All in all, this is a reissue as reissues ought to be done. A brilliant and familiar album remastered to perfection and bolstered by plenty of legitimately unheard material. Heavenly indeed.

It's hard to argue with this gloriously detailed reveal of a a band leaving the underground and taking flight, one bloody controversy at a time. [Summer 2018, p.96]

It perfects every element of the band’s sound and ensures everything is top-of-the-line. ... This is the Rolls-Royce of Alter Bridge records, and a high-water mark to which all rock hopefuls should aspire.

Single My Mind IS A Mountain may open the record in brash fashion, but by lush centre points Souvenir and CXZ, Deftones feel both comfortably themselves and completely unpredictable. [Oct 2025, p.72]

Demented, wigged out and stupendously mind-blowing, White Hills can't be Brooklyn's best-kept secret much longer. [Sep 2013, p.88]

Cue nuggets of advice from someone who’s had his own share of knocks, self-inflicted and otherwise, as Simpson and the band tackle brassy R&B, Memphis soul and swampy country, augmented by semi-orchestral strings and bound together by his extraordinary baritone.

An all-round triumph. [Sep 2013, p.90]

There’s a surprisingly thoughtful plague-themed concept running throughout, which, if you care to dig deep enough, equates the sins of the medieval church with today’s societal ills. All this elevates Ghost above the herd, placing them in the sacred company of Blue Öyster Cult and Marilyn Manson.

As The Love Continues sees Mogwai’s voyage into sound progress in a stately manner as tracks like Here We, Here We, Here We Go Forever and the misnomered Fuck Off Money tread an unlikely fine line between waft and heft.

Supple but robust at 50, Bowie's power glows undimmed. [Jul 2020, p.93]

It's the more textured and dynamic moments that raise this Herculean slab of cutting edge heaviness into the realms of a stone cold classic. [Jan 2015, p.114]

This beautiful album will continue to reveal more with every listen, and those repeated listens will be irresistible. [Jan 2026, p.78]

A divine meeting of minds, Reluctant Hero is a breathtaking trip unto the unknown. [Feb 2021, p.87]

I Hate Music is a fine addition to the canon, a little samey in places but it sweeps you along with its clattery blast and warm melodic hooks, [Sep 2013, p.93]

For diehard fans and the inevitable new army of converts, however, this blue period is one to marvel at. [Jul 2014, p.94]

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

Nathaniel Rateliff serves up a heavenly cloud of backing vocals on Beautiful Strangers. And while Eddie Hinton's Everybody Needs Love sounds a little trite written down, spiced by a Bonnie Raitt slide solo it's irresistible. [Jan 2026, p.79]

An incendiary cocktail of muscular grooves, designed to delight and thrill the metallic faithful. [Aug 2013, p.88]

Iggy is in fine voice throughout, raising a middle finger to both age and doubters. [Mar 2025, p.76]

Tunes like Autograph and Hometown Blues rush forward with purpose and verve. [Jul 2014, p.95]

Capped by the sublime You Trip Me Up, even in 2014 Psychocandy was a visceral burn around the very edge of listenability.

All dozen tracks are winners. [Dec 2020, p.80]

Retains naive charm while delivering occasional brilliance. [Feb 2021, p.87]

Since 1983, The Melvins have been a wonderfully unstable constant on the rock fringes. Still fronted by Buzz Osborne of the explosion-in-a-mattress-factory hairdo, they continue to make good on that paradox with Hold It In. [Jan 2015, p.116]

Gabriel’s most consistent and cohesive post-80s record and the most philosophical of his life. [Jan 2024, p.78]

Another album, another triumph, then, and rarely more richly deserved. [Summer 2019, p.84]

For those who remain strangely tickled by their frivolous, heart-felt one-offmanship, every track here will prick your ears. Easter might be cancelled, but for rock fans Christmas has come early. [Oct 2019, p.86]

Crosseyed Heart actually delivers.

Fourth album The Night Creeper is their most convincing statement yet, a buzzing set of doomy psych-rock songs with great hooks and punishing riffs.

No longer on the run, Mother Nature is instead "pushing Earth in a baby carriage." This recurring theme in Young's work is echoed in the equally powerful yelp of Shut It Down and the altogether more downtempo Green Is Blue. [Nov 2019, p.80]

You couldn’t call it ravishing (although the way the guitars trickle and scratch over sepulchral bass on Come Bring Your Love before exploding in distortion certainly is). It is, however, an unbidden delight: hypnotic, breathtaking and quite, quite beautiful.

When You See Yourself is their most clued-in record in a decade. [Apr 2021, p.88]

It's not easy or cheery, but it's loaded with old gold. [Oct 2013, p.85]

They manage to skillfully maintain the the same semblance of being perennially on the verge of collapsing in a heap of broken guitar strings, trashed drum kit and feedback, while retaining the visceral gut-punch of the tightest, heaviest metal badasses. [Jul 2014, p.95]

Louche rumbles such as Death And Destruction echo the furious rockabilly assault of a Jim Jones, without the obligatory quiff or preacher schtick, but that doesn’t stop leader Adam Weiner sing smouldering piano ballads such as Forever and Montreal.

Paramore have successfully remoulded the cornerstones of their music not only for the new times we find ourselves in, but also for a personal evolution, and maturity evident across This Is Why. [Mar 2023, p.76]

What The World Needs Now... continues where 2012’s This Is PiL left off.

Rundgren is possibly the only musician for whom a lack of any thematic coherency across a record doesn’t result in total disaster. It works - don’t ask me how.

Oddly archaic yet thoroughly modern. Which is to say he still sounds pretty timeless. [Apr 2026, p.80]

A handful sprawl and meander a little because, hey, who would dare edit two revered avant-rock overlords? But otherwise quality levels are reliably high. ... This is the best Radiohead album in over a decade.

Always engaging, occasionally magical. [Jan 2015, p.129]

von Haysswolff achieves a new drone nirvana with her unique mix of soprano wail and minimalist-but-grand gothic church organ. [May 2018, p.91]

The vibe remains constant and satisfying. [Oct 2013, p.86]

Now And Then, the last Beatles song has finally arrived, and it’s more than worth the wait.

An elegant and accomplished treasure from experts in their field. [Jul 2022, p.80]

A good deal more than alreet, for sure [Mar 2025, p.75]

It charts its course with verve and accessibility, offering a masterclass in powerfully economic guitar rock. [Jul 2014, p.97]

This is a strange kind of beauty. [Summer 2018, p.88]

Plant's journey continues ever on, and it's one worth falling in step with. [Oct 2025, p.72]

Confirm[s] that not only is this one of Gorillaz's best albums, but also that there's plenty of life in this cartoon outfit yet. [Apr 2026, p.76]

An absolute pleasure of an album. [Nov 2024, p.83]

Even dislocated from the TV show, Sonic Highways remains among the most concise and powerful Foo albums yet. [Dec 2014, p.102]

Eight short, sharp shocks in 30 minutes provide a perfect stun-blast soundtrack for today’s shattered society.

Lacks the energy of old Rammstein, but makes up for it in controlled tensions and excellent material. [Summer 2019, p.87]

What is great about this album is that it conveys a feeling of lethargy, tiredness, the onset of old age, while never sounding tired, lethargic or clapped out. [Dec 2020, p.80]

An album packed with absolute love and admiration that is moving and inspiring in the extreme. [Aug 2023, p.79]

Even if their calculated brand of mullet-haired kitchen-sink amateurism occasionally feels like unshaven drunken shambling, TFS are consistently inventive, thrillingly unpredictable and steeped in deadpan Australian humour. [Sep 2021, p.78]

A clever way with melodies over and above what they achieved on debut Higher Power, and lyrically there's more than welcome cheeky sense of irony. [Sep 2018, p.93]

Triumphal stuff. [Oct 2019, p.91]

Wasteland's conceptual breadth, depth and complexity may challenge convention but offers rich rewards. [Feb 2021, p.87]

It's the glowering six-minute stormcloud of Numb that steals the show here. [Dec 2014, p.103]

The Blue Hour is shot through with Suede's trademark gritty-yet-gracious melodies looped around the throats of outsider escape anthems. [Sep 2018, p.90]

The rehearsal tapes (appended as ‘Bonus Discs’ for some reason) are a raucous mesh of noise and then stabs of brilliant invention that cut through like a radio signal coming out of white noise. The unpublished photographs, nuanced liner notes and, deliciously, a download code for yet another concert (Hyde Park, 1971) not only reaffirm Fripp’s tenacity to keep creating and doing things in his own way, but to also frame those moments, hold them forever and see them sparkling in the light.

Halford and the latest incarnation of Judas Priest are still rattling rafters with this new album of pristine and dauntingly powerful heavy metal. [Apr 2024, p.76]

Overall a thoughtful hoot. [May 2022, p.83]

Whether on a squelchy analogue wig-out or swaying in the breeze of apocalyptic desert rock, this is a Brit-psych absolute peach.

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.

Perrett sings like a man possessed on songs that manage to sound helplessly romantic and deal with everyday realities simultaneously, his expression undiminished by the ravages of time. .... His best-ever album? Could well be. [Nov 2024, p.73]

Griffin’s wit, empathy and penchant for a simple folk tune remain life-affirming qualities. [Nov 2024, p.72]

Musically the album is AB's heaviest so far, but it's never heavy handed. [Oct 2013, p.90]

Diehards will thrill to the inclusion of hitherto unreleased versions of Some Kinda Love, Sweet Jane and After Hours, though perhaps baulk at having to shell out for material they already own. Still, this is historical, compelling fare.

Compulsive melodic momentum is the band's blood, but Hammond's experimental leanings keep it rich, surprising and deeply rewarding. [Summer 2023, p.74]

Gloriously unpolished--and it feels very one-take--this is vintage American indie rock from experts in the field. [Oct 2013, p.90]

The Width Of A Circle displays brilliantly, he's not so much planning his next move as constantly shape-shifting. [Jul 2021, p.92]

With Lamar Williams Jr at the mic, there's a funky drift to See The Moon and Rabbit Foot, while Stax legend William Bell claims a stellar credit with the sad and sweetly sung Never Want To Be Kissed. [Feb 2022, p.79]

Blacktop Run reminds us that he is more of a musical rebel than his tattooed brethren. [Mar 2020, p.89]

Perhaps The River could have been even better had he used a couple of the outtakes--Restless Nights and Whitetown--in place of fillers such as Sherry Darling and Crush On You. But the two biggest decisions he got absolutely right. In the end, The River was more than big enough.

Arctic Moon is an album that works for both the long haulers and the novices. [Oct 2025, p.79]

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.

This Church is worth a visit. [Nov 2018, p.85]

If nine discs of REM is too much for the wallet, the collection is available as a two-CD highlights pack which includes a full disc of sessions, and a second disc focusing on a chronological selection of live broadcasts. Recommended, any which way. [Dec 2018, p.95]

Bright New Disease weaving delightfully through disparate sonic territories, not so much pushing boundaries as booting them off a 100-story building and capturing the ensuant mess. [Summer 2023, p.76]

As soon as that marvellous voice opens up on the gorgeous chorus of this album's Don't Lose Sight you already know he's fashioned another one [great record]. [Oct 2025, p.72]

It’s the heaviest shit Fu Manchu have ever done, and it’s fantastic. The second half is a slight return to their 90s heyday, with easier tempos and mellow(ish) vibes. [Jul 2024, p.81]

That Repentless is coherent and persuasively powerful is a tribute to the identity of the band.

If Charlie's Spahn Ranch girls had formed a band that was part-Stooges, part-Bikini Kill, all groove. [Nov 2018, p.85]