Merciless - their eighth - doubles down on that solid breakneck thrash metal/hardcore [heard on 2020's Carnivore]. [Dec 2024, p.76]

Eerie fingerstyle guitar playing decorates Bibb’s checklist for better living (‘Get to know your neighbours, especially the ones who don’t look like you’). [Jan 2025, p.83]

Sensitive and thoughtful doesn’t have to mean a lack of a good time. [Jan 2025, p.78]

Gabbard played all the instruments himself, which is admirable but limiting. He needs a band to break up the somewhat metronomic feel. And a producer who can bring a radio-friendly flourish. [Jan 2025, p.82]

Stephen Lawrie grumbles dutifully over the anticipated Spacemen 3 guitar squalls, and tracks like Shake It All Out and This Train Rolls On do their traditional misery-in-motion thing. Nothing Matters suggests an out-take from Iggy’s The Idiot that was ditched for resembling Dum Dum Boys too closely. [Oct 2024, p.74]

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

A CD of unreleased outtakes, which doesn’t just bring the creation of the songs to life, it brings the people behind them to life too. .... More than just a celebration of an album, Queen I provides a vivid snapshot of a moment in time. [Nov 2024, p.82]

Thanks to some multitrack tapes of exceptional quality, mixed by Young and Stills, we get to hear what all the justified fuss was about. Divided between acoustic and electric sets, this is a joy from start to finish. [Dec 2024, p.85]

All of his solo work is worth owning (These Foolish Things and The Bride Stripped Bare might be his best records), but this collection is a mighty big entry point (and there’s a great new track, Star). [Nov 2024, p.82]

The outtakes – live performances drawn from CBGBs (of course!), mighty raging debut single Love -> Building On Fire, various acoustic and alternate versions of familiar numbers – are damn near indispensable. [Dec 2024, p.85]

The star of this set is Michael Karoli, whose freak-out guitar solos are the epitome of what 1977 claimed to be killing off. 1977 failed, but Can in 1977 were, in their own little big world, on fire. [Dec 2024, p.86]

What’s apparent immediately is that it’s a tremendous album, up there with turn-of-themillennium Opeth high-water marks Still Life and Blackwater Park. [Oct 2024, p.70]

The band’s rambunctious twentieth studio set stomps and shakes like an irreverent collision between Sam The Sham and The Stooges on Morphine Drip, Big As My Balls and Wah Wah Power. Druggy mantra Come On Everybody Getting High With You Baby Tonight evokes 60s Bay Area psych, The Hearse classic surf instrumentals. [Nov 2024, p.74]

Her splendidly named new album How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean is a forest of invention and great songs. [Dec 2024, p.78]

The new tracks – the first since 2022’s comeback album The Tipping Point – embellish their spacey pop melodies with skittering ambient beats (The Girl That I Call Home) and contemporary psych disco (Say Goodbye To Mum and Dad). Recent songs included in the live portion from Tennessee’s FirstBank Amphitheater also transplant their 80s elegance into today’s airy electropop and synthrock. [Dec 2024, p.74]

This isn’t completely terrible – duets with Willie Nelson improve anything – it’s just frustratingly unessential. [Dec 2024, p.75]

Most touching is the full-circle thrill of hearing P.P. belt out her 1968 standard, Angel Of The Morning. [Dec 2024, p.77]

For fans of Big Star (particularly their third album) or Gram Parsons, this album offers a similar unadorned beauty. The Super Deluxe Edition of this reissue includes a bonus disc with 12 previously unreleased early renditions of the album tracks. .... Some of the acoustic versions are quite the equal of their finished counterparts.

Differing from its predecessor by visiting 2021 studio album I Don’t Live Here Anymore (notably on Harmonia’s Dream) and showcasing a seven-piece band, there’s trickery afoot: some tracks are spliced from multiple takes. It’s hard to argue with the hugeness when it hits though. [Dec 2024, p.74]

So while the reverbed guitar strings of instrumental The Phantom Of New Rochelle evoke the early 60s, Don’t Travel Through The Night Alone brings things up to date. Terrific fun throughout. [Dec 2024, p.79]

In playing predominantly with familiar sounds, From Zero feels less like a step forward for Linkin Park than a rallying point to bring the band back from the brink. But in that, the album is nothing short of a triumph; measuring their angst and leaning on the communal heart that's always existed in their songs, Linkin Park have saved themselves to fight another day. [Jan 2025, p.78]

An intense, emotional soundscape rising gently from the chiming sun bath Sun Is A Hole Sun Is Vapors. [Dec 2024, p.74]

Refreshing, so refreshing - like a glass of ice water on a hot summer's day. [Dec 2024, p.72]

This is a delight, a cleansing. [Nov 2024, p.77]

A sombre treatise on disaffection and alienation grown old, Songs From A Lost World starkly expresses the post-punk generation’s hallmark traits of malaise and anxiety. Art reflects its era and that’s exactly what this album conveys. [Dec 2024, p.74]

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

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

Dud tracks are unfortunate, as Come Ahead does contain some pretty decent music when everyone involved puts their minds to it. But even the album’s title - an old Glasgow colloquialism that basically translates as ‘Yes, I would like to fight you’ – fails to measure up to its intent as a triumphant comeback. Primal Scream: don’t remember them this way. [Nov 2024, p.74]

Utterly charming album, with Prophet’s ear for a keening melody still intact – the lovely Red Sky Night, the gentle rhythm of First Came The Thunder -and suffused with a lilting Latin charm. [Nov 2024, p.77]

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]

The nagging sense remains that way too much effort has been put into reinterpreting other artists’ material instead of writing their own. [Nov 2024, p.76]

Borrell tiptoes his trademark line between the wry and the ridiculous. U Can Call Me is a slice of Bowie-esque sass pop about how much he hates cocaine, Empire Service a slab of buzzsaw rock that argues with itself about what is and is not the ocean. [Nov 2024, p.76]

The emotionally charged (if musically sterile), genre-blending Cassyette is as emptily irresistible as MSG. [Nov 2024, p.79]

If the band’s grander statements are buried beneath the record’s bursts of crushing speed-punk and pounding buzz-rock, though, their vivifying passion and excitement for a genre too often ploughed through like a chore makes it utterly forgivable. Depths do emerge. [Nov 2024, p.78]

Hitchcock strips away all the production embellishments of its musical highlights and presents them as they would have been written. The resulting album is a decidedly mixed bag. [Nov 2024, p.73]

This album drops its bombs with honed precision, the band's experience evident as both the key musical genres - loud and quiet - are deployed with scorching smarts. [Nov 2024, p.77]

Some pretty satisfying final testaments, then, but you also get the impression that Kramer in particular spent his final years having more fun than most septuagenarians can reasonably expect. [Nov 2024, p.72]

Cantrell's voice remains as strong as ever, unwavering and carrying a portentous authority. similarly, Let It lie, with its pounding, doom-laden, Black Sabbath-influenced riff, is the punch in the nose none of us knew we needed. [Nov 2024, p.78]

Crisp, strident, brutal. [Nov 2024, p.79]

You don't come to this band foe an easy rode and a soothing soundtrack to while away the hours; you come to them to be pummelled with some horrible but mesmerising noise. And on Synthesizer they deliver in abundance once again. [Nov 2024, p.75]

A must for serious Velvet-heads. .... Something of a mixed bag. [Nov 2024, p.87]

Weird, but adorable. [Nov 2024, p.79]

A compulsive half-hour montage of dynamic Metric buzz-pop, Garage tech-rock, drivetime soundtrack sounds and pummelling grit metal. [Nov 2024, p.79]

It's the pace breakers that stand out most. [Nov 2024, p.78]

They mix things up with restrained, pondering songs like the acoustic-driven Armchair View and the album's jaunty title track. [Nov 2024, p.73]

There are no new tricks, but there’s plenty of life in these old dogs yet. [Nov 2024, p.72]

Goat's ouroboros cycle repeats, with added bite. [Oct 2024, p.76]

Powder Dry is a new career peak. [Aug 2024, p.73]

When Marshall calls himself Madman Butterfly and sings The Presence Of Haman and The End, you’ll wonder why he doesn’t do it more. He may have allowed himself to be overshadowed by his guests, but Marshall is the star here. [Oct 2024, p.77]

Good things abound. [Oct 2024, p.73]

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]

If that’s code for giving the people what they want, he’s delivered. From the moment Edin opens proceedings with 83 seconds of fearless fretwork, there’s guitar everywhere. Sighommi gallops like Iron Maiden taking on Black Sabbath, Goeth The Fall overflows with cascading hooks, and 999 is a reminder that Smashing Pumpkins were always masters of a slow-burner. [Oct 2024, p.74]

The album tapers off towards the end, but this still a likeable - albeit slight - confection. [Oct 2024, p.77]

Feels both reassuring and stirring. [Sep 2024, p.71]

A lively return to fun. [Sep 2024, p.69]

Rack is one of the most fascinating records you'll hear this year, and it's up there with their best. [Sep 2024, p.74]

All told, a refreshing update of 90s guitar rock for a headier age. [Sep 2024, p.72]

A dream experience, Born Horses canters at a fine pace. [Sep 2024, p.75]

Sound-wise there's a gravelly, mature, post-punk bluesiness about The The in 2024, some of the blackness of Johnny Cash. But there are silvery moments of hopelessness. [Sep 2024, p.71]

Home In Another Life may have sadness running through it, but it's also very cool indeed. [Sep 2024, p.69]

Bleakness sparkles. [Sep 2024, p.68]

Amelia is the work of a true auteur at the very height of her craft. [Sep 2024, p.74]

Relentlessly experimental ear bashers, just an infectious childlike excitement in the exhilarating combined power of mangled pop and apocalyptic noise. [Sep 2024, p.68]

Wild God does what great art is supposed to do: it takes the artist's experiences, however dark, and makes them universal. [Sep 2024, p.70]

This album's exploration of very type of human relationship is more Blood On The Tracks than Love Actually. [Sep 2024, p.71]

An exhilarating and unexpectedly uplifting record. [Sep 2024, p.71]

This album reveals something new with each spin. [Sep 2024, p.69]

An absolute blast. [Sep 2024, p.68]

The obscurities provide the real delight. [Aug 2024, p.81]

McBride is no Ritchie Blackmore facsimile, although the chunky opening riff to Lazy Sod momentarily suggests otherwise. Instead he brings relatively youthful energy, and when he lets loose on I’ll Catch You and sizzles his way through A Bit On The Side it’s clear he’s both his own man and the right man. Alongside McBride, the other band members are reinvigorated too. Gillan’s voice is richer than it’s sounded in years. [Summer 2024, p.72]

If it’s dumb fun in the sun you’re after, these are the rodents you’re looking for. [Sep 2024, p.69]

Three CDS of ace JA sides (Culture, Dillinger) and some plucky punky stabs at the genre (Clash, Ruts et al). [Aug 2024, p.83]

Always surprising, entirely entrancing indie-rock ingenuity. [Aug 2024, p.77]

New remastering bolsters the album’s strengths, adding warmth and definition to King Of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger and Every Breath You Take. .... With an album’s worth of period B-sides and bonus tracks, the set’s two discs of unreleased material strike gold with Sting’s brisk, electro-pop demo of Murder By Numbers, and a slinkier, horn-driven funk arrangement of O My God from the Synchronicity sessions, both infinitely more enjoyable than the bland album versions. [Aug 2024, p.81]

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

At times the effect is mildly schizophrenic, and Linda's personal lyric give the songs a feeling of listening to a diary, but overall it works, even if, as with the Thompson family's 2014 album Family, it seems a bit self-referential. [Aug 2024, p.75]

The core message here is that Soft Play are back harder than ever. [Aug 2024, p.74]

The band's greatest strength has always been that combination of voices, and when Avett brothers Scott and Seth swirl around each other, any shortcomings are quickly forgotten. [Aug 2024, p.70]

A bleak album for the times, but a refreshing one. [Aug 2024, p.70]

It's senses-batteringly wonderful. [Aug 2024, p.70]

Couldn’t Love You More begins like Blackbird and has McCartneyish vocals, with Ringo on drums. Rock guitar royalty includes Brian May on Floating In Heaven, Hank Marvin on When You Find Love, and Albert Lee pops up on an Everlys-inspired number. [Summer 2024, p.73]

The songs themselves are among Lennon's worst. .... This reissue comes in a box full of new mixes - several CDs or vinyl LPs of Raw Mixes, Ultimate mixes and Out-Takes, none of which add anything much other than a sense that one's ears have been syringed for no good reason. [Summer 2024, p.83]

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]

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

By placing the emphasis on Cash's then-overlooked songwriting flair, the album plays like a cohesive lost gem. [Summer 2024, p.79]

This, somewhat muted, first album in 20 years lacks much of the Beck-like shuffle and experimental pop lustre of that early era, but boasts a mature earthy seam thanks to Barlow lacing its noirish alt.folk, 80s-inflected crypt rock and melodic drone and dub experiments with touches of Middle Eastern instrumentation. [Summer 2024, p.72]

Their self-titled ninth studio album find them, if anything, in even finer fettle. [Summer 2024, p.74]

The fine line between contemplation and navel gazing has always been a difficult balancing act to achieve, but here Nathaniel Rateliff, ably backed by the soulful Night Sweats on their fourth studio album, does so without the use of a safety net. And that this collective of musicians does so by breathing new life into established formats is to be applauded. [Summer 2024, p.76]

Brilliantly bright-side. [Summer 2024, p.75]

It's music to stop you in your tracks. [Summer 2024, p.75]

Pond continue to make high-quality records on their own terms, and Stung! is undoubtedly one of their most enjoyable. [Summer 2024, p.77]

Climaxes with a haunting 20-minute prog epic complete with a musique concrete middle section. It's by far the most powerful piece of music they've ever made. The rest of the album is a mixed bag. .... But it's the scattered highlights you'll remember. [Summer 2024, p.76]

It's a record modernised, ironically, by its more timeless moments. .... The Mysterines deepen. [Jul 2024, p.78]

Every song on this fairly short but very sweet album sticks. [Jun 2024, p.76]

From Hell I Rise is more than just a retread of past glories. Part of the credit goes to Death Angel singer Mark Osegueda, whose vicious performance consciously avoids referencing Slayer's Tom Araya on the title track and the anti-war Trophies Of The Tyrant. [Jul 2024, p.78]

Ultimately still mesmerising, enhanced by photos and memorabilia-stacked book plus 36-page reproduction of Bowie’s notebooks, the box set provides a suitably chaotic time capsule of a magical period now bathed in extraordinary poignancy. [Summer 2024, p.82]

An impeccable, emotionally undulating, ultimately defiant set of songs from an old master. [Jul 2024, p.82]

Forever sounds like a Bon Jovi album. Rock songs, power ballads, it's a big-sounding record designed to be played to big rooms. Admittedly it's no New Jersey, but that's like expecting to still fit the T-Shirt you bought on that late-80s tour. [Jul 2024, p.76]