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Mountains finds the 71-year-old Lofgren railing at a world in which the progressive values of the 60s have been superseded by Trumpian self-interest, all in typically melodic fashion.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