It's a very New York record, It's an energetic record, and while the older listener would enjoy some guitar playing frm Gordon - that sort of thing seems to be supplied by Raisen and engineer Anthony Paul Lopez - it's her attitude. not the glitchy beats, that really give The Collective its aggression and fun. [Jun 2024, p.74]

Voivod have again recorded something that will appeal to those with an open mind. [Apr 2013, p.96]

Meir is bigger, bolder and broader in its sweep and scale. [May 2013, p.91]

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

This fine album could have been recorded at any time in the past 60 years, yet also could only have been recorded by this particular man at this particular stage of his career. [May 2015, p.107]

The Crystals, Ramones, Blondie, Television, The Strokes, The Walkmen and the Friends theme all feed into Never Enough, their suave, glitter-ball garage pop debut, full of synapse-shagging surf punk melodies like Summertime, In Our Blood and I Don’t Wanna Live In California.

There’s a joyous spontaneity behind the obvious discipline. What makes this such a damn fine record is that the band never allow themselves to get bogged down in minutiae; it’s the big picture which counts.

Jones’s vocal has gutsed-up, gained a gravel-gargling Waits-ian weight that suits TRM’s swampland boogie perfectly. Elsewhere No Fool swaggers loutishly, Aldecide sows a Bad Seed vibe and Boil Yer Blood delivers on its promise. Righteous stuff and then some.

The most focused, challenging singer-songwriter record in some years.

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.

Occasional bursts of fierce, psychotic guitar evoke the spirit of punk-rock alter ego, Rikki Nadir. Otherwise it’s voice and piano and very little else. The intimacy is at times so intense it’s almost frightening. It is, to borrow the title of a VdGG song, ’eavy mate. There are some clever subplots too, Hammill being at the very top of his lyrical game.

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.

A clearly more reflective Springsteen emerged on tracks such as Tougher Than The Rest and One Step Up, the songs’ minimal backing placing emotions front and centre. It was a more scatter-gun Springsteen on Human Touch and Lucky Town, released on the same day in 1992, his hired studio hands struggling to provide the same heft as their predecessors, but the likes of Better Days and If I Should Fall Behind from the latter album shone like diamonds in the rubble.

An excellent snapshot of the post-punk, post-Iggy-tour Bowie, consolidating his past and present incarnations for the faithful in significant style. [Aug 2018, p.96]

It's to her credit that this open-hearted material never comes off as cloying. [Oct 2018, p.85]

If you want to know what Hendrix might have done beyond 27, listen to this. [Feb 2019, p.91]

There's a sort of crazy idealism to their music which brings them tantalizingly close to such sources, while becoming increasingly indomitably themselves. [Apr 2019, p.84]

Like the best Stones songs, there’s never any dating Keith’s immortal spirit, and Talk Is Cheap holds its head high as it relentlessly reaffirms that that was indeed some knife.

Overall this is worthy addition to the Cale catalogue. [Jun 2019, p.85]

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

This is no means a case of Brock and co serving up space rock comfort food to the faithful. But at the same time the final, nine-minute The Fantasy Of Faldum would be welcomed onto any Hawkwind album of the last 40 years. [Nov 2019, p.80]

All are multi-layered, offering moments of both beautiful intimacy and blazing rage. For most bands, attempting this juxtaposition would be disastrous, but here it sounds sublime, seamless.

An unlikely triumph. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Cinematic, evocative and potently trippy. [Jun 2021, p.83]

Here Hiatt's palette tends a little towards country, but the best cuts still fall to the blues. [Summer 2021, p.83]

While it does start to get a little repetitive, it's good to hear a band straying off the beaten track too play timeless music just for the sheer hell of it. [Dec 2021, p.72]

Although there are 16 tracks here from four sessions at the BBC's Maida Vale studios between that date [June 8, 1994] and August 2001, there's something about the four tracks they recorded while riding high o Dookie's success that crackle with extra force. [Jan 2022, p.89]

His masterful combination of feel and technique reaches frequent peaks, with rousing, Jimi Hendrix-inspired rocker Death Of Me and slow burner I Found Her showcasing his fluid, emotive playing at its best.

Meld[s] jangles, loops, fuzzes, plucks and floaty introspections. Heavy on shoe-gaze, light on Gallagher swagger. [Apr 2022, p.83]

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

A clutch of powerful original songs. [Sep 2022, p.76]

As if his glorious slipping of the blues genre's straitjacket wasn't brave enough, Son Little's latest album is also an excavation of some pretty heavy-duty personal trauma. ... Consider our minds expanded. [Oct 2022, p.71]

It's been effectively produced to death. A cold, clinical experience. [Oct 2022, p.77]

Mykki Blanco pops up on Midnight Legend, but the highlights break out elsewhere when Alli Logout furiously punks the shit out of post-disco. [Nov 2022, p.75]

If not a classic tour de force, this pressure-cooker set remains an era-capturing document of the social turmoil and pressures Hendrix faced as the world's greatest rock guitarist. [Dec 2022, p.81]

Nude Party take things distinctly easy on this surprisingly more-ish collection and their overall growth benefits immensely. [May 2023, p.81]

The rollicking barroom swager of Undone And Unashamed, complete with sax solo, is similarly appealing, as is the sardonic strut of Centennial Perspective. [Jul 2023, p.84]

His vocal range and tone might now haunt the hinterlands often visited by Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, but the rasp from those hard-lived years adds a wonderful lustre to the songs and subjects he’s addressing and the things he’s chosen to write about now. [Jul 2023, p.82]

Be Right Here retains the simple formula that has made the band such a success: songs, tons of songs.

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

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

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

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

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]

A bit mad, but utterly compelling. [Apr 2025, p.77]

Arguably their most concise record since 2009's hit-rammed Only revolutions. [Oct 2025, p.79]

Extensive sleeve notes featuring a perfect potted history by CR writer Mark Beaumont and background detail on each track by Gedge help make this a must have. [Oct 2025, p.87]

One of those rare and precious rock records: instantly bewitching but oozing with moments to feat on time after time. [Dec 2025, p.76]

Ascension hits the sweet spot between the gnarliness they've re-embraced over the last decade and the goth-tinged grandeur and sense of melody that has always been a part of their music. [Oct 2025, p.75]

Eric Bibb manages to steer his unique blend of blues and folk in fresh directions. [Mar 2026, p.79]

Nico-styled, Stereolab-crafted, stylishly kosmische-ed, pastoral near prog. [May 2026, p.79]

Heal is a triumph of cathartic rock. [Summer 2014, p.90]

‘NEVER ENOUGH’ covers a massive expanse whilst also maintaining the core of Turnstile we fell in love with on ‘Pressure To Succeed’. And succeed they have.

This is a remarkable album from a band that still has plenty to say and to offer. Its high point, Death Of The Celts, a fruity 10-minute-plus guitar showcase for the Three Amigos that could be the Iron Maiden equivalent of Thin Lizzy’s celebrated Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend, is little short of jaw-dropping.

The Tipping Point album is tip-top art-pop. [Mar 2022, p.80]

[J Spaceman's] rare communications (this is just his second album in a decade) are generally breathtaking events, and Everything Was Beautiful is no different. [Mar 2022, p.82]

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

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

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

By The Fire is a massive antidote to our age. [Oct 2020, p.87]

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]

A solid addition to the canon, but not quite a classic.

Among their best albums in a 30-plus-year recording career. [May 2020, p.76]

It makes for a lustrous, laid-back return that will frustrate those pining for Costello's brutal youth, but it befits his gracious age beautifully. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Dose Your Dreams is fucking ace. [Oct 2018, p.85]

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]

Collects three albums and apposite era odds 'n' sods. [May 2021, p.97]

Playing Favorites lacks the career-defining standout that will catapult them into a bigger league, and sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its intriguing parts. They're well on their way, tough. [May 2024, p.73]

For serious fans--and them only--this album is a revelation. [Oct 2018, p.83]

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

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

A fascinating and entirely listenable record of an imminently great talent. [Sep 2022, p.80]

Berlin is Kadavar 2.0; cleaner, more inventive production, broader palette (although still 70s-centred), stratospheric energy.

A whole album at 100 mph needs skill at the wheel not to start sounding slow, and for all the sensation of manic burn-out, every track has disciplined intricacy, using hairpin turns and jolting tape-slices to sculpt the gush of drums and feedback into prog-garage shape.

He's in fantastic, youthful voice, snarling, seducing and showing off. [Mar 2020, p.93]

A re-engerised record that sits comfortably next to is 'N' Hers and Different Class. [Summer 2025, p.73]

Lanegan is on daring and seductive form throughout. The Passenger-lite Emperor misfires but that’s forgivable with a strike rate this high.

It can't and shouldn't replace the original, but this is a fascinating insight into the band's creative process and latter-day regrets. [Dec 2025, p.79]

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.

He tops it [2021's Blue Hearts] with Here We Go, thanks to a stripped back approach and a more hopeful lyrical tone. [Apr 2025, p.76]

Live, earlier material, Welcome To The Occupation and Me In Honey especially, benefits from an increased aural muscular density, while several songs from Monster itself pack a greater punch than the studio versions. [Dec 2019, p.90]

When You’re Depressed is the jauntiest, most real song about depression since Paint It Black. Zelda’s In The Spotlight recalls genius early Mute made-up childlike electro-pop band Silicon Teens. If you can resist an album that features a glam-stomp titled 12 Knickers On The Line By 3 Chord Fraud you’re a better person than I am.

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

Songhoy Blues bring a joyful defiance to Music In Exile that transcends the language barrier.

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]

A case of more darkness required. [Mar 2015, p.94]

Hardcore doom-metal dummies may not get with this new plan, but the combination of airy psychedelia, lumbering riffs and shamelessly poppy hooks turn headbangers like Shockwave City, Bloody Runner and the epic, seven-minute title track into cinematic works of art. [Nov 2018, p.81]

Bleakness sparkles. [Sep 2024, p.68]

Stunning. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Their heaviest, most memorable and most wildly animalistic material to date. [Oct 2018, p.83]

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

All four musicians have their moment in the sun to shine, while their closing take on Joni Mitchell's Woodstock bring things circle. [Nov 2018, p.83]

While everything here echoes its maker's past, it all sounds new. ... The Boy Named If (And Other Children's Stories) is excellent. [Feb 2022, p.78]

Quality workmanship. [Mar 2024, p.82]

Dense and demanding, Soused will not be topping the album charts. But it is the kind of obliteratingly intense, glamorously weird avant-metal epic that Lou Reed and Metallica never made. [Nov 2014, p.94]

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