Concise, clever and at war with everything from alienation to greed and loss, it's a rallying cry in a world that's lost its voice. [Mar 2013, p.97]

Well worth (re)discovering. [Nov 2020, p.87]

The concept of this album is about following a path that is eventually going to lead 20 years down the line and wonder where it will take you. [Nov 2014, p.94]

A bunker-born double (their second) that keeps on giving. [Nov 2022, p.74]

There's a familiarity to much of the material which, while not quite formulaic, does sometimes hint at self-reference, brazenly so on Tears Don't Fall (Part 2). [Mar 2013, p.97]

Irresistible. [Nov 2020, p.87]

Lush and romantic, Evidence is the kind of timeless electronic album you can dream inside. [Mar 2013, p.98]

Frankly, your head spins. Unpick it all, though, this is one of the most probing and pioneering avant-retro-pop albums of the age. And when Furman swerves from his Seraphiel & Louise narrative to discuss his issues with religion, coming out and the rise of the Far Right on the album’s jauntier ditties, it’s one of the most provocative too.

As a project and as a reminder of a hugely talented lyricist this is a treat. [Nov 2014, p.96]

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

Young and Crazy Horse never perform their songs in quite the same way each night, of course, and Fu##in’ Up exemplifies that spontaneous, exploratory spirit. Listening to these geezers whipping up a hurricane of monolithic thud and skronk is always irresistible. [Jun 2024, p.74]

The songs on this follow-up to 2013’s Dig Thy Savage Soul rock harder than before while retaining the garage signature of ex-Lyres guitarist Peter Greenberg.

For the most part, Def Leppard is the sound of a band who have rediscovered their sense of purposes after a wobbly 25 years.

Space Invader has brilliant heavy rock tunes. [Nov 2014, p.96]

Otherness is a grand return from a gang of proud outsiders.

Their fourth album takes yet more detours, but without ever losing sight of the path. Devotees of lead-heavy riffs will be spoilt by the title track and Rites Of Passage, and the pace never exceeds sluggish.

Always Ascending is a class act, polished, honed, several cuts above the mewling herd. New guitarist or not, Franz Ferdinand abide.

This attention-grabbing, moshpit-rocking noise-bomb of an album is a tremendous first step. [May 2020, p.83]

Death Song (their first album in four years and one whose title neatly appends their name to the VU classic that first inspired them) is their heaviest to date, a toxic draught of garage-rock and booming psychedelia that buzzes with echo and reverb.

A consistently sparkling Weezer album. [Nov 2014, p.97]

While perhaps not as emotionally loaded as Ordinary Man, Patient Number 9 better captures the mischievous, defiant energy of heavy metal's original madman. [Sep 2022, p.72]

A vintage Bowie album for vintage Bowie people, of whom there are many; a reflection on his own journey and also on ours. [Apr 2013, p.92]

Dream-folkies will be transported back to the gauzy early days of Genesis or the Byrds, indie heads will be transported back to the most powerful skunk spliff they ever smoked along to Pond, Grandaddy or Neutral Milk Hotel.

Viewed as a whole, this set cements Harrison's reputation, not as a huge 60s phenomenon but as a human. [Nov 2014, p.104]

IX showcases a band with little interest in repetition. [Summer 2014, p.90]

[A] meaty pop debut album.

To Be Kind is evidence that they continue to grow and may not have reached their peak yet. It's superb for now, though. [Summer 2014, p.90]

Where a fug of overdriven psychedelic effects could overwhelm the message and the music--particularly on the ritualistic Call Upon The Fire and the exquisitely trippy Absolution Song-- he instead maintains subtlety, style and superb songcraft in a slow movement that’s all his own.

If all the album achieves is to serve as a playful reminder of the ramshackle brilliance of Stinson’s old band, so be it. But it deserves better. It’s joyous. And Paul Westerberg is nowhere to be seen.

The funk is solid in this one.

This eighteenth album, continuing the sophisticated air of their second era with its merger of plush future-rock, graceful gospel folk and organic electro-pop. [May 2024, p.74]

BRMC have transcended a past that was extremely full of the past and arrived in the present. [Apr 2013, p.93]

Light, airy, clear, strong, astonishing. [Jul 2022, p.83]

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

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

You can hear it in the creepy, lovelorn surrealism of Filter Me Through You’s hazy dream-pop. Then the eleven minute title track, with its ruefully fated protagonist, spidery keyboards, jaggedly interlocked parts and mantric end, proves decisively that this Dream isn’t over.

The thick fuzz of guitars is at the metal end of grunge, impact and volume kept almost oppressively in the red. But once you settle into Kentucky’s MO, the band’s songwriting strengths and musical reach are still here.

[Producer Glyn Johns] has given this album a shape and purpose, bringing out the full range of Clapton’s guitar tones. Recording the album on analogue equipment probably helped too.

It's a complete, rounded work; the 13 tracks dovetail into each other perfectly. [May 2024, p.74]

Bob Vylan arrive as a much-needed wake-up call, but it's one that's already electric. [May 2022, p.81]

Listening to all 17 tracks in one go feels like going 12 rounds with a heavyweight boxer, a championship belt on the line. [Oct 2014, p.88]

Art, love, personal and political ideology--all of it is delved into with gloriously unpolished gusto. [Summer 2014, p.91]

Dillinger remain a proudly unique proposition, and Dissociation is a thrilling, and apparently final, fuck you to the status quo.

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]

A hilarious throwback to the days when bands didn't take themselves too seriously. [Dec 2018, p.89]

While wonderfully idiosyncratic, Oddfellows finds them at their most accessible to date. [Apr 2013, p.95]

Weird, beautiful music to get lost in space--or at least a hammock--to.

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

It takes a few listens to hook in its claws, but when it does they're fixed forever. [Feb 2015, p.98]

It’s the pastoral style of Pentangle overlaid with crazed early-70s wah-wah duelling--think a pistols-at-dawn affaire d’honneur between Larry Wallis and Mick Bolton--and it’s very good indeed.

There's a straight-forward brilliance to this covers set. [May 2022, p.85]

Lovely flamenco guitars, the slightest rhythms and subtle splashes of steel guitar and accordion are the backdrop for a voice that remains as pristine as when he made his mark in Blighty touring with The Clash.

Album of the month. [May 2020, p.83]

The woman's on fire. [Jun 2025, p.70]

With their warm, evocative, hot fuzz production, muted vocals and keening atmospherics that set them down somewhere between Slowdive, Mew and early Radiohead (see the surely deliberate echo of Creep in Eaten By Worms for evidence of the latter), they sigh their way through a set of tracks that are simply billowing with maudlin beauty.

Suede sound like Suede again. [Apr 2013, p.97]

Boris are still finding new ways to discomfort, disorient, and discombobulate. [Summer 2014, p.92]

His joy at being reacquainted with his music is obvious right from lively opener One More Time. [Dec 2021, p.74]

Locating the sweet spot where spontaneity and polish meet, Widdershins swings in all the right directions.

The Leeds-launched provocateurs still sound sharp and lean. [May 2019, p.88]

You sense in his raw outpourings the memories of the joy they had in making the original record and the joy it has at last seen the light of day. [Oct 2018, p.93]

As Clark wraps up with the formulaic 12-bar of Dirty Dishes Blues, you realise how much the rest of the album pushes the envelope and applaud him for it. [Mar 2019, p.88]

A fine album by any standards, not least the Chili Peppers' own. [Oct 2022, p.70]

Williams’ anger is reflected in the music, which tempers her primal electric blues and country with garagey punk and heaving rock. Yet there’s also empathy, hope and an unyielding sense of humanity at work here.

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]

The result is masterful: unsettling, retro-futuristic, beautiful and intense, but deeply immersive and listenable.

Starcatcher feels like their most consistent and complete record yet. [Aug 2023, p.74]

It has given a cerebral clarity and garage pop edge to tracks that would otherwise be buried in slaughterhouse riffs under inaudibly angry lyrics. [Summer 2014, p.93]

Mountains finds the 71-year-old Lofgren railing at a world in which the progressive values of the 60s have been superseded by Trumpian self-interest, all in typically melodic fashion. [Aug 2023, p.75]

With a golden voice at work, this is luscious sunshine-filled Californian rock with storm clouds on the horizons. [Oct 2014, p.91]

The volcanic glass the album takes its title from is said to protect against negative energy, and here Paradise Lost pull the same trick by turning the bleakness in on itself to create something beautiful.

III is the sound of a less restless McCartney simply doing what he does best. [Jan 2021, p.86]

There's enough brittle punch to Blood & Lemonade to freshen even the stuffiest cliche. [Oct 2014, p.93]

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.

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.

Their interplay of conventional instruments is unconventionally jagged, pastoral, abrasive, exotic, heavy and light in equal measure. [Jan 2021, p.82]

They ramp up the melodicism and play with all the gusto of musicians who have been separated for far too long.

Five CDs is probably too much intensity for anyone to take, but Superunknown itself is a pitch-black delight. [Summer 2014, p.95]

This is a cavalcade of curiosities, a den of delight, a whole other world where grunge stayed open-hearted and open to misinterpretation. [Aug 2023, p.75]

The songs are deceptive, displaying a rare sense of craft and erudition. [Oct 2014, p.94]

Overall it's a psychedelic delight. [Jul 2020, p.89]

Hi is a renewed statement of intent. [Jul 2021, p.87]

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]

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

Grounded by explorations into dark electronica and swathes of cascading guitars. ... A coherent journey. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Delicious. [Jun 2025, p.75]

Magical. [Jun 2023, p.74]

Daughters have never sounded so strong and they've never got it so right. [Dec 2018, p.86]

Raitt has once more demonstrated her ability to distill the essence of human emotion down to its most potent form.

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

predictable guests like Royal Blood, Biffy Clyro and Slipknot's Corey Taylor deliver disappointingly straight, dutifully respectful covers. Fortunately, artists less bound by metal convention fare better. ... The album's less celebrated deep cuts also encourage adventurous reworkings. [Sep 2021, p.84]

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

Throughout, this album is a defiantly un-laddish joy. [Aug 2023, p.78]

A worthy addition to one of alt.rock's greatest canons. [Jul 2014, p.92]

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

They rely on their own successful turbo-operatic formula for large sections of this 80-minute-plus double album, and from the moment five minutes in when Music gets over its overtures and bursts into anthemic flame, the blend of guttural riffing, machine-gun bass drum and Floor Jansen’s perennially startled soprano is always captivating.

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

All told, this is a finely detailed and lovingly curated tribute to one of the true greats.