The result is an autumnal masterpiece to rank alongside anything by Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash. [Nov 2014, p.92]

There's no faking this kind of quality. [Nov 2014, p.93]

The whole damn album's as sweet as a pecan nut. [Nov 2014, p.93]

At their best, the Wizard can still makes you spurt blood from every orifice. [Nov 2014, p.93]

If the music's a bit uniform, it'd sound great scoring a scene in Sons of Anarchy. [Nov 2014, p.91]

The plastic punk with the cartoon sneer has made his grown-up masterpiece. [Nov 2014, p.90]

Here the irresistible tag masks some solid riff-heavy whoopee. [Dec 2014, p.107]

Primus are an acquired taste, but a taste worth acquiring. [Dec 2014, p.107]

There is still enough here to inspire hope for the band in the future, but this album is not quiet there yet. [Dec 2014, p.106]

Throughout, Williams walks the line between tough and tender, just as she cleverly negotiates the path dividing heartland American music and the alternative, counter cultural variety. [Dec 2014, p.106]

An inspired madman's tribute. [Dec 2014, p.105]

Primitive And Deadly is a whole other beast, perhaps the closest that core members Dylan Carlson and Adrienne Davies have ever come to a remotely conventional rock album. [Dec 2014, p.105]

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]

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]

While we can probably do without his appropriation of You Are My Sunshine, the covers of Edgar Winter's Dying To Live and Tell 'Em I'm Gone are both moving and powerful. [Dec 2014, p.104]

It gets a bit samey, as if noise alone is enough of a statement of intent. Thankfully, things pick up in the second half. [Dec 2014, p.104]

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

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

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

It's a pleasure to report his studio debut catches the spark. [Dec 2014, p.103]

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

The Fall, in the same old, and very different hands, remain freshly formidable. [Dec 2014, p.99]

Overall, too much of The Endless River is suffocated by prog-normative dreariness and a high, conventional varnish. [Dec 2014, p.98]

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

It's a great way of refreshing an often overly familiar catalogue. [Jan 2015, p.124]

In other hands, this would make for a frustrating listen, but there's a melodic warmth to mainman Stu Mackenzie's cosmic musings. [Jan 2015, p.120]

Necessarily lo-fi, one accepts the sonic limitations of cheap tape and the fact this material was never meant to be released. [Jan 2015, p.120]

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]

Lost Domain will leave the listener raw. [Jan 2015, p.114]

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]

Rock Or Bust is actually a very lean piece of work. [Jan 2015, p.114]

Glossy arrangements sometimes owe more to Foreigner than to Focus, but this is a prog affair. [Mar 2014, p.100]

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

Smart enough to avoid slavish imitation, Temples already sound strong enough to breathe new life into old forms. [Mar 2014, p.101]

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

Tracks like Drive, Novocaine and Black cloud sound like the soundtrack to a 1980s brat-pack comedy, nut the sheer vim and vigour with which they're delivered still make it a rock 'n' roll rush. [Jan 2014, p.116]

Back To Land lets the sun in through the grooves. [Jan 2014, p.116]

A beautifully constructed, artful and imaginative debut. [Jan 2014, p.116]

There's a delicious, deliberate irony to this atheist band putting their own 100mph spin on carols. [Jan 2014, p.115]

It begins promisingly, with weighty guitar and measured vocals, before losing the plot completely, descending into a kitchen sink of confusion and ending up sounding like an incomplete demo. [Jan 2014, p.112]

As a close-quarters portrait of a singer-songwriter at a relatively early stage of his ascension to true greatness, it's hard to beat. [Feb 2014, p.97]

Thunder, bottled. [Feb 2014, p.95]

This album may be a little unfocused, but it reveals mire and more with each listen. [Feb 2014, p.94]

This odd, understated record is both strange and affecting. [Feb 2014, p.94]

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

A distinguished, intriguing return. [Sep 2013, p.91]

This much MOR anguish does get draining.... Still, wonderfully cathartic for when you need a god cry. [Oct 2013, p.88]

A niche but strident record. [Aug 2013, p.88]

If you don't have [the original Live At The BBC set], get it. If you do and want more, here it is. [Dec 2013, p.109]

Bashed out between gigs, this music is vulnerable and diverse enough to be essential. [Dec 2013, p.108]

On the evidence of this quite brilliant record, brighter days lie ahead for one young American at least. [Dec 2013, p.103]

Here they're more rock than folk--or, to be exact, more prog than folk, extending the jams and minimising the survivalist backwoodsman imagery for more obtuse bong-flavoured lyrics. [Dec 2013, p.103]

Even as they slip effortlessly into middle-age, their perennial prog tendencies are still evident on the demonic squall of I Told You I Was Crazy and the sprawling, trippy Dogs And Cattle Prods. [Dec 2013, p.99]

Corsicana Lemonade flips through a crateful of classic rock tropes, yet sounds spankingly "now." This extraordinary foursome just go from strength to strength. [Dec 2013, p.98]

Dark, desperate and full of great tunes, this is rock'n'roll at its black-hearted best. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Such Hot Blood sounds like a major label buff-up of their glowering, folk-flecked dusk-rock, the raw pomp of earlier albums given a national (anthem) gleam. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Snapshot consists largely of new material written to ape the 50s and 60s standards they've been covering live since puberty. And that's it's downfall. [Nov 2013, p.95]

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

Brothers of the 4X4 is as lively as a flea with ants in its pants, fizzing with tongue-in-cheek humour, and his lawless punk attitude runs through it like a poisoned river. [Nov 2013, p.89]

The highlight is a live DVD, Live And Loud.... When we get down to the demos--which are largely free of vocals--the sound of a barrel being scraped starts to overpower the music. [Nov 2013, p.101]

While the remastering is a major improvement on previous CD releases, it is the session discs that are of most interest to anyone who grew up with this timeless record. [Nov 2013, p.101]

Fans will alp up the spot-on menu, while newcomers can discover one of the most criminally overlooked musical titans of the last century. [Nov 2013, p.98]

The raging fires of Martyn's talent roar through the mix. [Nov 2013, p.97]

Though it's arranged into four old-school sides, lob on a download card full of bonus material and home movies and it's a retro-modern package to make old Muddy's eyes water. [Nov 2013, p.94]

While there's nothing here that will alienate fans or frighten the horses, there's no denying the power of songs like the crashing "Brave This Storm" or the rattling "Strife." [Nov 2013, p.93]

This is a welcome blast from an uncompromising band. [Nov 2013, p.93]

The soundboard mix of this version of an already much-expanded CD sounds gleamingly, unfeasibly fresh. [Nov 2013, p.93]

[An] agreeable, mildly self-indulgent album. [Nov 2013, p.93]

There are no dubstep breaks, string quartets or bursts of yodeling. But this is also the best Motorhead album for many years. [Nov 2013, p.92]

It's basically business as usual here. [Nov 2013, p.91]

As well as an intact ability to craft and deliver a song, is a sonic techno-armoury far superior to that of his Tubeway Army days. [Nov 2013, p.91]

Coathangers drives home the prevailing sense of compositional attitude meeting musical affirmation. Bravo! [Nov 2013, p.88]

Lightning Bolt could do with a bit more of that hot-wired sound. But its brutally hard-won optimism is satisfying enough. [Nov 2013, p.88]

Don't be intimidated by the heft; this is a tremendous thing. [Oct 2013, p.97]

The most thrilling of everything here is a newly discovered BC radio recording from 1964 that fizzes with the thrill of making music and being alive. [Oct 2013, p.92]

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

Yes aging is difficult but Elton and Bernie seem to be making a good job of it. [Oct 2013, p.91]

Sequel lacks any major melodic cornerstone in the vein of Kilimanjaro or Down In Abion but it's also without the dreary, narcotic ska rambles that made previous Babyshambles efforts only half-listenable. [Oct 2013, p.90]

The techno-noir sonic palette here is as eclectic as ever. [Oct 2013, p.90]

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

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

The clunky title track aside, swagger and confidence distinctively enhanced by the likes of Garth Hudson, Joan Wasser, Jim Keltner, JA keeps it all alive and diversely tuneful. [Oct 2013, p.89]

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]

Rhythm & Blues is a proper double album: each disc is notionally themed though, as you'd rightly expect, there's plenty of each. [Oct 2013, p.88]

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

The result: low-key mastery from a songwriting lifer. [Oct 2013, p.86]

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

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]

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

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

Sound System is quite the piece of work. [Sep 2013, p.94]

More high-quality psychedelic-doom musings. [Sep 2013, p.93]

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

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]

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]

It has power, darkness and bucketloads of testosterone. [Sep 2013, p.92]

Their return album is a fire-and-brimstone rock-and-soul delight. [Sep 2013, p.91]

The quartet's explosive indignation is undeniably thrilling, as is their deft mastery of the genre's roaring dynamics. [Sep 2013, p.91]