These 45 songs on 3CDs comprise the best overview yet of NC&TBS’s unique and evocative voodoo.

It's hard to argue with this gloriously detailed reveal of a a band leaving the underground and taking flight, one bloody controversy at a time. [Summer 2018, p.96]

When real, life-changing tragedy strikes a master of dark musical arts, masterpieces can be made: Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs For Drella. Bowie’s Blackstar. Sufjan Stevens’s Carrie & Lowell. The Bad Seeds’ sixteenth album, Skeleton Tree.

There's a lot to love here. But there's an awful lot of attention paid to the Life House concept, when the actual key to Who's Next enduring brilliance is Riger Daltrey attaining his ultimate incarnation as an exemplary rock vocalist. [Oct 2023, p.92]

A labour of well-deserved love. [Dec 2019, p.91]

A vivid chronicle of his rapid ascent and growth as an artist, it captures the thrill of a young man finding his voice while making an indelible mark on history. .... A whole lotta Dylan for your dollar, and it's worth every cent. [Dec 2025, p.86]

Compiled with discipline, diligence and no little love, Archives Volume II is an immersive treat. It’s primarily for fans, but even the most casual of acquaintances will find much to adore here. [Jan 2021, p.93]

Ultimately, where Imagine wins over similar projects is the degree of access Yoko has given to source material. A Simon Hilton-edited, Ono-prefaced book is exceptional. And the core album? A masterpiece. [Dec 2018, p.94]

A sombre treatise on disaffection and alienation grown old, Songs From A Lost World starkly expresses the post-punk generation’s hallmark traits of malaise and anxiety. Art reflects its era and that’s exactly what this album conveys. [Dec 2024, p.74]

Although his french horn resounds like a signature motif throughout his work, Czukay's genius was as a discreet creator of space, in which ideas, energies, colours and found sounds could flow freely. [May 2018, p.98]

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

Playing those and more top-drawer songs including The River and Born To Run (previously mothballed footage of 10 songs from the two shows are included) and a superb E Street Band behind him, Springsteen gives it his usual all, at arguably the peak period of his career and live performances.

This immersive collection captures the excitement of an era sometimes overlooked between their twin peaks of Master Of Puppets and the Black Album.

Still the greatest run of pop-perfection punk ever produced. [Mar 2020, p.95]

These four coloured vinyls boast 18 unreleased gems. [Jan 2021, p.95]

This second album brings the heft and enormity to make them serious contenders. [Jul 2022, p.78]

First pleasure-shock come with previously unknown 1974 demos of the Shangri-La's Out In The Street, The Disco Song (Heart of Glass) and Labelle-like Sexy Ida. ... First impression on hearing this much remastered Blondie is how perfectly Harry unleashed beautifully nuanced sexualised dynamite over the band's tightly crafted power-pop bombs and genre diversion on what remains one of the last century's finest bodies of work. [Sep 2022, p.80]

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.

All six albums for Island Records generously expanded. [Oct 2020, p.93]

Their story is one of the great oversights of rock'n'roll and it's a joy to see it curated with such care. [Apr 2015, p.106]

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

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

The album's 2026 mix is revelatory. .... It's a bit of a trove, all told, a never more hard-rocking Queen in an iconic Mick Rock cover image for the ages. [May 2026, p.82]

Divine Symmetry for once does what it promises to do, which is track Bowie's progression in one extraordinary year. ... This is a comprehensive trawl through 1971 - and an extraordinary one. [Dec 2022, p.84]

Cave remains inspirational working widescreen miracles from cataclysmic events. [May 2021, p.85]

All in all, this is a reissue as reissues ought to be done. A brilliant and familiar album remastered to perfection and bolstered by plenty of legitimately unheard material. Heavenly indeed.

Punk never sounded more soulful. [Dec 2025, p.83]

Intense and stripped back, with only his own art to fall back on, Cave cuts a truly formidable figure. This is an album you will return to again and again. [Dec 2020, p.85]