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.

Simulation Theory treads a thin line between cheesy chart-chasing and genuinely innovative pop rock. [Dec 2018, p.86]

Mariani's ear for melody lifts it above the ordinary. ... Terrific. [Jun 2020, p.86]

Tumultuous, trippy and brilliantly untamed, Sonancy is a magnificent comeback.

Live, earlier material, Welcome To The Occupation and Me In Honey especially, benefits from an increased aural muscular density, while several songs from Monster itself pack a greater punch than the studio versions. [Dec 2019, p.90]

Avenged Sevenfold have lost any previous limitations and inhibitions, and they’ve crafted a landmark metal album.

Drive-By Truckers have never been angrier, but, just as crucially, they've never been more musically eloquent. [Mar 2020, p.86]

Unfeigned and irresistible.

Plenty of pallid indie math-rock imitators--from Godspeed! downwards--have attempted to do what Boris do here, and all have failed. Boris abide.

Satirising the music industry itself as impressively as The Fall, The Sherlock Holmes... is classic Headcoats. [Dec 2025, p.77]

It's no surprise party - and less giant leap than consolidatory glide - but Can We Please Have Fun has its fair share of high times. [Jun 2024, p.74]

In its second half, Crawler takes brave experimental swerves. [Jan 2022, p.82]

Their best album yet. [Apr 2023, p.78]

Simms certainly knows how to deliver Wire energy - compact, disciplined, no waste, no spray, as on Primed And Ready. There are also lovely moments of Wire pop here. [Mar 2020, p.87]

Ash still put out heart and reliable joy. [Oct 2023, p.86]

A fearsome riffstorm of therapeutic venting. [Summer 2021, p.87]

Michael Brauer’s interpretation – same songs, different mix – alters the texture of familiar songs like Love Sick, the spectral Cold Irons Bound and Make You Feel My Love, now something of a standard thanks to Adele, Michael Bublé and, er, Nick Knowles. ... The live pieces are more informative, with songs performed between 1998 and 2001.

When Marshall calls himself Madman Butterfly and sings The Presence Of Haman and The End, you’ll wonder why he doesn’t do it more. He may have allowed himself to be overshadowed by his guests, but Marshall is the star here. [Oct 2024, p.77]

While Larkin Poe are worthy, though, they’re never dull. [Jun 2020, p.87]

Ultimately still mesmerising, enhanced by photos and memorabilia-stacked book plus 36-page reproduction of Bowie’s notebooks, the box set provides a suitably chaotic time capsule of a magical period now bathed in extraordinary poignancy. [Summer 2024, p.82]