Jack Wyllie's sax and Laurence Pike's drumming keep the feel raw and live throughout. [Oct 2018, p.89]

Futurology isn't just the best album the Manic Street Preachers have made this century, it's arguably the best album of the year. [Aug 2014, p. 206]

The music is taut, compressed and, in places, vulnerable and beautifully resonant. [May 2018, p.90]

A record imagined in youth, realised in maturity and vibrating with the thrill of possibility. [Apr 2026, p.75]

Packed with pop nuggets and the odd surprise. [Jul 2019, p.81]

It's the veteran's session, and with that stentorian voice Sweet Georgia Brown and I'm Just A Lucky So And So are highlights that warm any room you play them in. [Jun 2023, p.77]

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

settle back, we'll be here a while. [Jan 2022, p.85]

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

Existence Is Futile is vintage latterday Filth. [Nov 2021, p.72]

Bradfield’s invention knows no bounds as he shines light on the darkest corners of history.

Tumultuous, trippy and brilliantly untamed, Sonancy is a magnificent comeback.

In some ways the club-sized audience helps Hendrix, who hated large open-air shows, and he’s positively chatty at times on the first set, which includes a feisty In From The Storm and a trebly-sounding Foxy Lady. The second set is looser and in danger of falling apart at times, before Hendrix wakes up and rips through Stone Free.

Washes of keyboards, a thunderous tattooing of drums and great, empty atmospheric spaces make for an inestimable, all-consuming listen, not least in the fragile-sounding Lacuna/Sunrise and the roiling I.M.S.

When he's not letting loose with some typically emotive soloing on this mix of covers and originals, his voice is still every bit its equal. [May 2020, p.77]

Predictably lyrically recherche, self-consciously Fall-esque and potentially driven by weapons-grade PTSD-ah. [Jul 2023, p.86]

If you don't like jazz, this is another Metheny album that might change your mind. [Apr 2026, p.81]

Rich in reference to Greek mythology, teeming with restless spirits in various stages of rapture and sorrow. All this might suggest heaviness, but the music is unfailingly rhythmic and melodic, often sophisticated. [Apr 2026, p.79]

Thoughtful, compassionate, heartbreaking and more, it's a record that is above all, deeply human. [Jul 2023, p.84]

Blue & Lonesome captures the Rolling Stones--The Greatest Urban Blues Band In The World--in their element, doing what they do best. You’ll only wish they did it more.

This album finds them surrounded by squelching basslines, scattershott guitars and pop-eyed vocals, and it's brilliant.

Despite its lack of Pistols and Clash this is an accurate representation of the year punk broke, which wasn't quite as great as all those of us that were there like to pretend. [Aug 2019, p.88]

A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip is still a heartening example of a truly original and who continue to enjoy success on their own unique terms by refining and amplifying their youthful weirdness instead of mellowing with age. [Jul 2020, p.88]

It's an astonishing set. [May 2021, p.84]

In its second half, Crawler takes brave experimental swerves. [Jan 2022, p.82]

Among the out-takes, acoustic sketches, etc here, it's the a-capella versions of various tracks that touch the most, displays of harmonic unity in the midst of disharmony. [Dec 2022, p.83]

Bob Vylan have become the loudest, most vital voice of righteous rage in a beaten-down nation. [May 2024, p.78]

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

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

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]

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

Friar Tuck is a humorous and bewildered look at the modern world from a man who has never quite seemed a part of it. [Feb 2025, p.75]

A fitting coda for one of rock's great outsider voices. [Jan 2026, p.80]

Biley turns the controls a little more towards vintage soul on this eighth album. Her voice is still a formidable instrument. [Feb 2026, p.81]

This album is the high point of his career, and it could be one of the finest albums you'll hear this year too. [May 2024, p.76]

The Hives Forever Forever The Hives is vibrant, loud and sure to destroy dance floors worldwide. [Sep 2025, p.76]

Their rejuvenating effects make this the most rounded and melodic QOTSA album in a decade, a triumph snatched from the mortuary doors. [Summer 2013, p.88]

Lady Gaga adds majestic soul diva clout to Find Yourself, Nelson proves to be a sterling guitarist and the whole thing is hellacious, meaning good.

It’s not often anyone has the (albeit heartbreaking) luxury of being able to map out their own memorial, and Allman leaves us with his head held high and a record of rare beauty.

90 minutes of sensitive, surreal lyrics and wailing wig-outs which make J Mascis sound like Julian Bream. ... You'll enjoy it. [Feb 2019, p.90]

Cerebral and discomforting. [Aug 2020, p.89]

He elects to drag his material through the dirt, and the ramped layers of fuzz and distortion actually improves on the originals. [May 2024, p.75]

Proves that an evening sitting round Weller's record player would be an interesting one indeed. [Aug 2025, p.74]

yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell will melt you right into your couch, will jelly your brain. [May 2026, p.78]

As ever with the Maels, the relentless high-camp levity and heavily mannered, shrill, staccato delivery can sometimes jar on MAD! [Summer 2025, p.72]

The whole thing breathes fire. [Jun 2026, p.76]

Their second album sets its heart-on-sleeve emoting to some properly sweeping arena-sized tunes. [Mar 2025, p.75]

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]

Sun Racket is a worthy addition to a formidable canon. [Sep 2020, p.86]

Civil Wars’ John Paul White and Alabama Shakes’ Ben Tanner leapt at the chance to produce his fourth album in 40 years and results are pleasing.

This heart-melting exercise in widescreen evocative soul-baring brazenly sets the controls for greatness. [Mar 2019, p.89]

Willfully off-kilter after all this time, The Used are still marching defiantly to the beat of their own drum. [Jun 2020, p.87]

A lockdown album like no other. ... From full-blown fuzz-pedal rock monster to drones and shimmering interplay, highs and stupefying lows. [Aug 2022, p.66]

It's been expertly manicured so you can either lie back and float up, up and away on a breeze of pedal steel, or get up close to the speakers and check the references. [Jun 2024, p.80]

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]

It's a remarkable evolutionary step forward. [Apr 2025, p.77]

Delicious. [Jun 2025, p.75]

Sure, there are no surprises here but then again, none are needed. [Dec 2025, p.77]

Black And Blue is the sound of an enduring rock’n’roll firm updating the business. .... Expanded versions of this reissue include loose workouts with Jeff Beck, who entertained himself on the Meters-like funk of Rotterdam Jam. [Jan 2026, p.84]

Heady stuff. [Apr 2026, p.79]

A sequel that first celebrates the blooming of a relationship, then self-flagellates for ruining it. [Aug 2020, p.87]

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

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

This is a work of beauty and beastliness in equal measure. [Nov 2021, p.71]

This is essentially raw, acoustic, heartfelt, a 21st-century blues, but heavily treated, clouded with atmospheres, immersed in dub, stretched across the skies, ground finely into the soil. [Sep 2018, p.86]

It's their finest by some distance. [Summer 2021, p.84]

It's another record to follow deep into the bayou, chasing the will-o-the-wisp harmonies. [Dec 2021, p.70]

Anything goes, and dizzyingly does. .... Taste that? It's fresh air. [Jun 2025, p.71]

This fifth edition's half-hour documents their second collaboration with Nurse With Wound and never fully recovers. [Sep 2022, p.83]

Feedback maestro Buck leads the layers of exultant guitar ideas, such as the T.Rex riffs deep in the mix of Shave The Cat, and they help Escovedo drink deep of his sources to climb back into the light.

There are brief pit-stops for pensiveness on the whirling Room 137 and the baroque Barstool Warrior, but the dominant thread is superior thrash.

Thrilling stuff from four Glaswegians with genuine hunger and real passion. [May 2020, p.83]

Bottom line is that live they sound life-affirming. [Jan 2021, p.85]

Anti-glory's an easy in, but you'll need to retune your ears to Horsegirl's particular frequency before this debut reveals its full brilliance. [Summer 2022, p.79]

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

It gets a touch ploddy in the middle, but the motorik of Shanty and electric pulse of Chained To A Cloud channel sanguine sunshine. Thriving. [Oct 2023, p.85]

Yorke's minimalist fragility fits the bill entirely. [Dec 2018, p.89]

This is one helluva return. [Oct 2022, p.77]

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.

Ever the magpie with a love for shiny trinkets, Weller slips in West Coast Santana-style guitar, Middle Eastern drone, hand claps and honking tenor. References are introduced and then discarded at will. ... Intriguing, to say the least.

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.

It's a mad house of friction, attitude and ambition. [Oct 2025, p.77]

It’s mood music for people who have not been taking their prescriptions (all of us, I reckon), and it’s full of bruised beauty.

Inevitably, the two extra discs are thick with superfluous alternative and extended mixes. But there are fine non-album singles here too, notably the glossy synth-funk stomper European Son and a plastic-soul remake of Smokey Robinson’s I Second That Emotion. Also included is the four-track Live In Japan EP first released in 1980, and a full live album recorded at the same show. ... Glorious.

Sunwatchers' third album takes no prisoners with squealing opener New Dad Blues,. [May 2019, p.87]

Their basic musical ethos - pounding, bass-driven punk brutalism delivered beneath a banner of love, compassion and unity - comes into its own, particularly when recorded in Le Bataclan, a venue with its own powerful stamp of solidarity. [Jan 2020, p.89]

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

Torture, disgust and danger are all here, but so too are some sharp-barbed observations on screwed-up modern living. [Sep 2013, p.90]

It's all delivered in a broad range of tech-rock colours. [Apr 2022, p.78]

Ultimately a completist's set. [Dec 2023, p.84]

This is a beautiful record, a reflection on an extraordinary 50-year career that's more a memory of life than a memento mori. [Mar 2019, p.89]

The results is at once joyous, poignant and heartbreaking. [Feb 2021, p.86]

This is a return they can be proud of. [Nov 2022, p.70]

A wonderful return. [May 2025, p.79]

Their pain is very much our gain. [Summer 2014, p.91]

The Overview is not so much a return to form (Wilson hasn’t been off it) as a return to full-fat, unskimmed prog from the man whose work with Porcupine Tree gave the genre a good name even before it earned reappraisals in more recent years. [Apr 2025, p.72]

Even if Earle occasionally falls back on roots music autopilot, the power of this work is undeniable. [Jul 2020, p.89]

Whether he's musing insightfully over alcoholism or parenthood, his band are blazing and Isbell takes a tired format and charges it up with passion and perceptiveness. [Jul 2020, p.88]