It makes for a compelling listen. [Mar 2015, p.90]

Perhaps Korn's best album this century. [Oct 2019, p.89]

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

The duo's genre-mashing tracks remain reliably omnivorous an exhilarating. [Sep 2025, p.79

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.

The entire album's tremendous fun, uniquely brilliant and brilliantly unique. [Sep 2025, p.76]

Cartoony, authentic, moving and daft, and the true heirs to the Ramones, Shonen Knife are just great.

The original triple set contained an Apple Jam disc, featuring the notorious It’s Johnny’s Birthday sung to the tune of Cliff Richard’s Congratulations. Whether you need this is up for debate, but the jamming with pals such as Derek And The Dominos and Badfinger feels cleansing, exciting. Rolling Stone called All Things “the War And Peace of rock and roll”. That might be going a little far, but there’s no denying its pull and charm 50 years down the line.

Halestorm have never sounded more comfortably ‘themselves’ than on album six, so after two decades, it seems that their cage has broken at last. [Aug 2025, p.74]

The gold for hardcore fans still long-pocketed enough to remain completists 0 a 41-track Re:call segment corraling non-album alternatives, B-sides and soundtrack work. Of course, this is the only element proper Bowie fans truly want. But do they actually need it when it comes irrevocably bolted to eight CDS of stuff they've already got? .... The Rare stuff? All gravy. [Oct 2025, p.84]

For Free is anything but indulgent. ... David Crosby's late-career purple patch continues. Aug 2021, p.82]

The whole thing sounds like a great lost album. Which of course it is. [Summer 2019, p.93]

A proper ripper. [Mar 2023, p.76]

The fuzzy space rock of Same Hands and Know One Will Ever Know also prick up your ears, bearing testament to a songwriter who never quite fitted in but, for those who took the time to listen, always stood out.

Free is easily Iggy's most ambitiously left-field album since Zombie Birdhouse in 1982. [Oct 2019, p.90]

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

There are no glib solutions on offer, no political polemic, just the realisation that America is now a deeply divided nation and that this issue needs to be addressed. Elsewhere, the deep soul that Haynes has been mining on some of his solo albums has been brought into the Mule paddock with The Man I Want To Be and Easy Times, along with the more sprightly Sarah Surrender, which has, dare one say it, a Hall & Oates feel.

It's music to glue your arse to a Barclays to. [Sep 2019, p.84]

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

This is his biggest, brightest, most crackling and electric album since his Sugar days. [Apr 2019, p.86]

A quarter of a century on, Singles is still a landmark.

Nine albums and 12 years into their journey, Hey Colossus have never sounded better.

This line-up’s chemistry has reached peak levels here, however, leading to astonishingly wild, lysergic adventures in dynamic sound like sprawling opener Cloud Of Forgetting and the bleak, amorphous 21 minutes of Frankie M.

Each and every one of the songs on Priest’s latest full-length Firepower--and yes, we know Legs Diamond were there first--are three-way collaborations between fellow six-stringer Glenn Tipton, frontman Rob Halford and Faulkner himself. And hell, the latter doesn’t so much step up to the plate on this, the second album of Priest’s BOK (Beyond Our Ken) era, as trample it into tiny little pieces.

There is a desperation here, a helpless wonder and dread that lifts Pond above their alt.pop and psych-trance peers. [Apr 2019, p.87]

There’s a freshness in both words and attitude that’s more than welcome in a world of heritage and excessive respect. So until the long-awaited collaboration between Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown emerges, feast your ears on this hugely enjoyable album. [May 2024, p.78]

If you're partial to the glittering seam of music that runs from The Beatles through Badfinger, Alex Chilton, Todd Rindgren, Cheap Trick, Jellyfish and a thousand others, then you're going to love this album. [Jun 2026, p.76]

With Bloom, Larkin Poe prove they’ve got the whole authenticity thing locked down. [Mar 2025, p.76]

Blue Sky is 33 minutes of fearless, peerless and unvarnished brilliance. [Apr 2019, p.88]

Dazzling, daring stuff. [Summer 2019, p.86]

Vocalist Mark Stewart’s unending salt-and-vigour vocals on songs like City Of Eyes and Zipperface combine brilliantly with a space-dub electro palette, and the results are thrilling.

The result is enough to refresh the palate of even the most jaded garage-rock fan. [Jul 2019, p.84]

This is a clever hybrid of prog, hard rock and dance; there’s even a full-blown power ballad (that’s part The Tubes, part Kate Bush atmospherics) in the shape of All We Have Is Now.

Hold On! sounds utterly effortless: an effervescent streak of soul, bossa nova and rumba tunes.

The melodies are sweet and the lyrics still bear his adult-child cartoon whimsy, but there's a dark optimism beneath it all. [Dec 2020, p.81]

We’ve been here before, but we’re back and it’s great.

The classic stoner rock we know from QOTSA is alive and well, but on this record they've pushed themselves into the more experimental corners of their psyche. [Summer 2023, p.74]

A Pound Of Feathers is not quite as immediate, then, as Happiness Bastards, but repeated listens pay off. Its relationship to that record is similar to the way recently re-released Amorica sits alongside The Southern Harmony. The Crowes’ blessed resurrection keeps rolling. [Apr 2026, p.74]

The gritty stomp of Where The Devil Don't Stay and the anthemic thrust of Carl Perkins' Cadillac and Day John Henry Died still resonate. .... The restored extras also hit home. [Summer 2023, p.84]

The classically trained musician's virtuosity - he plays all the instruments - is impressive, and it's matched by his lyrical themes, which are infused with quasi-spiritual belief in positive energy. [Oct 2021, p.72]

Heartache has rarely been so touchingly danced away. [Jul 2024, p.79]

The music hits hard enough on its own. [Dec 2020, p.82]

Like all the best crate-dogging comps it also unearths a wealth of wonderful obscurities. [Apr 2026, p.87]

Electric Eye elevate to captivate, they have the power to seduce a soul ascendent. With a post-Roses spin on a 60s soundtrack vibe here, a celestial sitar there, the succulent fruits of this particular tree are as seductive as Eve’s apples.

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

Dave Brock has long used his artistry with Hawkwind to entertain yet also to get us to think. This is among his most effective blows.

The overall result is both sparse yet overflowing, in a fashion in keeping with the band’s reputation.

The best moments here find Thompson more restrained, particularly the sinuous, fingerpicked beauty of Beatnik Walking and the rueful, all-acoustic Josephine.

Potent yet poignant, bright if not blinding. [Dec 2019, p.81]

This is a record to cherish, driven by bright acoustics, gently overdriven electrics, the occasional pedal steel and fiddle, and, above it all, Taylor's voice and exceptional songwriting nous. [Jun 2026, p.73]

White Bear, in its expertise and clarity, feels refreshing, like the shock of the new, despite its traditionalism. Better still, you feel they’ve got a lot more in the locker still to come.

Every song is a standout.

It's strange, and wonderful, to hear these now-cherished songs take their first teetering steps. [Jun 2018, p.90]

There are 55 unreleased tracks here to tempt owners of the many previous Fairport box sets, and 2010’s Sandy Denny monument. What becomes clear, as Denny wanders in and out of the picture, is how she and Fairport defined each other.

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 Nightmare OF Being is up with the Swedes' finest albums. [Summer 2021, p.87]

The music on Dove finds a band not only reinvigorated, but also taking enormous pleasure in its activities. [Jun 2018, p.91]

The album itself is as fine a collection of infectious, genre-hopping melodic vignettes about random stuff as they've produced in recent years. [Nov 2021, p.70]

A few lesser tracks overplay the voyeuristic horror-movie violence, but otherwise Body Count are sounding much more like hardcore elder statesmen than a shock-rock side project.

There are sonic surprises: The Prodigal is sheer orchestral euphoria, Sad White Reggae should be called ‘Electrofunk Strutrock, Actually’ and Hugz comes on like RATM raging against the metaverse. But it’s the themes that most intrigue.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is a collection of outtakes, this is acid/blues rock at its pinnacle, Joplin at the very height if her primordial, unfettered powers , with Big Brother contributing a psychedelic backdrop that still stands firm five decades on. [Dec 2018, p.92]

His vocals might lack memorable character, but right now the forceful energy he throws into his songs is enough. [Jul 2021, p.86]

The odd latter-half song gets lost in the sonics, but mostly Kiwi's stew hasn't lost its taste. [Sep 2022, p.73]

Amid all this doom, Therapy? sound reborn, utterly at ease with a sound they largely abandoned 20 years back. [May 2015, p.106]

Sophisticated follow-up. [Aug 2020, p.83]

An exhilarating, blustery document. [May 2021, p.84]

This is shiny modern rock with a scuffed heart and a sense of constant restlessness of spirit. [Jun 2019, p.89]

Great work. [Summer 2019, p.84]

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

Their most convincing album since 2000's sickness. [Nov 2018, p.80]

By returning to their sonic roots, The Black Keys sound revitalised, urgent and gloriously unrefined once again. [Jun 2026, p.72]

The heaviest tracks of a surprisingly rocking outing find Santana sounding more energised than he has in years.

An album of quiet, immense beauty. [Jun 2026, p.72]

Big Mess is dense and discordant and wilfully ugly at times, but also a richly original and impressively ambitious musical response to a nightmarish pandemic. [Jul 2021, p.84]

A grower, this. ... It's Tim Buckley to Beefheart to Bert Jansch and beyond. [Jun 2018, p.87]

This is his best record yet. [Sep 2019, p.87]

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

If only all music were this thrillingly inclusive. [Jun 2026, p.72]

Great modern music. [May 2021, p.88]

Just plain beautiful.

Visconti busies it up, eking out build-ups and layering the ambient sound of a crowd arguing on We’re So Nice, while closer I Don’t Care gets jazzy. Overall, though, this is a well-behaved, orderly Damned: stoic, steady-handed and spirited.

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

An ambitious, album worth investing in. [Jun 2026, p.75]

The band’s forthcoming album has a little bit of everything for everyone. It’s been seven years since the last Pearl Jam studio album, and the world has changed irrevocably since then. But thankfully some things remain reliably the same. ... Pearl Jam have given us an unexpected album of hope. Welcome back.

Infinite Granite resounds with delights in its own ingenuity. [Oct 2021, p.78]

The barrage of noise that results is undeniably epic, oddly stirring and gloriously daft. [Aug 2019, p.81]

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

Heavy music rarely feels this absolute. [Jun 2026, p.75]

Devoid of cynicism or sarcasm, The Silver Cord - Extended Mix revels in the sheer euphoria of unashamed hedonism. [Nov 2023, p.81]

Foxx sounds just as vital as he ever was. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Restored and mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell – who worked wonders with The Beatles’ Get Back footage – it’s a pristine listening experience, with little between-song chat. It showcases Creedence Clearwater Revival’s many strengths.

It takes a few listens, but once it swims into focus it's another knockout. [Oct 2023, p.82]

Loneliness has rarely felt so uplifting. [Jun 2018, p.92]

All in, it’s superior stuff, brimming with self-effacement and fun that belies the quality and seriousness from which it’s constructed.

On sturdy, soulful vocals, Richard Watts is again Trower's mouthpiece for these well-observed songs (his concerns include culture wars and the clock's now-deafening tick). But the truest expression comes from the guitarist's extended freeform solos. [Jun 2025, p.77]

Steadily onwards through a flawless second side worth of classic, never-more-accessible Libertines in excelsis, before Songs They Never Play On The Radio causally encapsulates everything The Libertines were and, thankfully, still very much are. [Apr 2024, p.79]

The result is the most varied album that Gov't Mule have made, and certainly the most concise. There is no room for noodling, even when the tracks go over the seven-minute mark. [Summer 2023, p.76]

This is a fine monument to Sonic Youth's undimmed, anarchic, arthouse rock'n'roll fury. [Oct 2023, p.82]