There's a remarkable sense of interplay, open space, hard rock and ambition that suggests other bands might as well pack up their tents and think about heading home. It's hard to pick gems from a sea of diamonds. [Oct 2022, p.72]

While the remastering is a major improvement on previous CD releases, it is the session discs that are of most interest to anyone who grew up with this timeless record. [Nov 2013, p.101]

The nine-song eulogy assumes the quality of a heady elixir. All told, a very wonderful thing. [Summer 2021, p.83]

Such is Taylor’s bristling conviction, and the mastery of his sparse instrumentation, that he holds you transfixed.

Bohemian Rhapsody's soundtrack is as dramatically paced, unrelentingly emotive and intrinsically cinematic as it's reasonably possible for any flat piece of circular plastic to be.

The guitar tones and drum sounds are worthy of a review in themselves, micro-nuanced even within a track, and set in a 3D space that both breathes and is right up in your face at the same time.

Automatic impresses in its scope and daring. Certainly, the drone-like Drive was a surprise choice for first single and opening cut, as if R.E.M were wilfully avoiding the rock god game.

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

1976’s Presence was both the nearest Zeppelin ever got to recreating their live power in a studio setting, and the album that bears closest inspection and repeated listening when the familiarity of earlier high spots has been exhausted.

Instead of losing intrinsic magic, Martin's enhanced it. ... Everything sounds more emphatic, more...everything. ... Bin your bootlegs, [the Esher demos are] exceptional. But the gold for completists comes on discs 4-6: the sessions. [Nov 2018, p.90]

A masterful companion piece to Lanegan's unflinching memoir. [Jun 2020, p.88]

It's surprisingly excellent. [Oct 2021, p.79]

These now achingly familiar songs never sounded so good. ... An immaculately packaged, multi-format tribute.

A break from the band’s soundtrack work, ironically, Every Country’s Sun sounds, like a brilliant soundtrack in its own right. To what is up to you.

The outtakes – live performances drawn from CBGBs (of course!), mighty raging debut single Love -> Building On Fire, various acoustic and alternate versions of familiar numbers – are damn near indispensable. [Dec 2024, p.85]

All the songs get the live treatment from an already available concert recorded in Montreal. Work tapes and a live Sweet Jane and Walk On The Wild Side add heft, but the main work is the thing here.

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]

Really it should get 10 but nobody’s perfect.

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

Hard to find fault with, and much to find pleasure with.

All 10 songs – here remastered by Andy Pearce and Matt Wortham, also credited on re-issues by Deep Purple, Rory Gallagher et al – sound rich and timeless. ... The fourth CD (discs four and five on vinyl) re-sequences live performances from the March 1973 UK tourheard previously as Live At Last (1980) and part of Past Lives (2002) – but former Free engineer Richard Digby Smith’s new mix proves third time lucky and outshines even the glorious 60-page booklet.

The songs are great. ... This is a collection of brilliant, swinging rockers. [Jun 2023, p.76]

Like all great albums, it reminds you of everything that made you fall in love with this crazy thing called rock’n’roll in the first place.

This is much more raw Manic Street Preachers, fuelled by despair as usual but also simplicity. .... Critical Thinking shows that with the Manics, rage never sleeps. [Feb 2025, p.72]

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]

It’s all cracking stuff. The early Motown song Money (That’s What I Want) and Muddy Waters’ Rock Me, Baby add soul, and the studio chatter is worth hearing if only to catch Morrison calling out for Kentucky Fried Chicken and announcing that The Doors’ next album will be called Ride Out.

If you've followed his career the evolution makes perfect sense. .... Roll on Vol.3. [Nov 2023, p.79]

A triumph. [Dec 2023, p.76]