This is an utterly brilliant collection. [Mar 2022, p.90]

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]

Cousins is in remarkable voice, his lyrics better than ever. [Apr 2021, p.87]

It's an astonishing, tour-de-force performance, ferocious and committed and dripping with confidence. [Jun 2015, p.90]

The Book Of Souls will doubtless be celebrated most for its epics, and if you thought Maiden had pulled out all the stops in the past, you may need to strap yourself in and say a quick prayer to Eddie this time round.

The energy and buoyancy never sacrifice Elbow's innate knack for emotional impact, as Garvey sings with poetic accuracy of the abyss, various hallelujahs and the meaning of love. [Apr 2024, p.82]

An unlikely masterpiece. [Apr 2021, p.89]

An hour of sheer roar-along brilliance. ... Stupendous. [Jun 2020, p.88]

For any given sideman, a Bowie gig was invariably an occasion to rise to, and on this particular night rise they did. ... “And it’s fucking great.” He’s not wrong. [Dec 2018, p.99]

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]

Oddly, the title track, a low-key ballad, is the least satisfying song on offer here. It's the only aberration. [Summer 2013, p.94]

Whichever level you enjoy it on, this folkie’s volte-face is less ‘Judas’, more ‘genius’.

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]

Villains, this deep and danceable delight, ends with two searing six minute tracks: the razor-blade blues of the White Stripes-ish The Evil Has Landed, and a sunrise-of-the-ancients pop finalé called Villains Of Circumstance.

This follow-up is, if anything, even more exquisite.

Wild God does what great art is supposed to do: it takes the artist's experiences, however dark, and makes them universal. [Sep 2024, p.70]

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.

This album is a vindication of the instinct that less is more. It’s a magnificent testament to a man who has been scarred and damaged by his journey, but whose lust for life remains gloriously intact.

Every Loser captures an Iggy Pop never more ready to be himself and never better equipped to deliver a stone-cold classic. [Feb 2023, p.78]

All told, a crowd-fuelled triumph. [Nov 2021, p.75]

Some tracks here might surprise on first listen, but surprise quickly gives way to joy. This is superb. [Aug 2020, p.84]

So, far from being another vault-raiding cash-grab by the label, it's a privilege and an honour. occasionally dreamlike. [Dec 2019, p.88]

One to drown in. [Sep 2023, p.85]

Hearing Southern Man played on a single acoustic guitar as opposed to the thrash of the album is one epiphany, while the windswept Don’t Let It Bring You Down is cataclysmic. ... Magnificent.

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

There won't be a better record released this month, and very few this year. This is one for the ages. [Nov 2018, p.84]

While it might be pushing it some to claim it, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is a “weirdly prescient precursor of punk”, as Alexis Petridis suggests in the sleevenotes to this reissue. And there is no doubt as to its influence or longevity. [Oct 2025, p.82]

Every second feels vital, vicious and vastly more exciting than a band approaching their fortieth anniversary has any right to be. [Oct 2020, p.84]