Art Dealers hums with life, its garage rock'n'soul bolstered by female backing vocals straight from the Phil Spector school. [Nov 2023, p.79]

Although lacking the shock of the new, Birthing is a far more thematic and aurally darning meditation than most. [Aug 2025, p.74]

Crucially, radioactive classics such as Blood Red River, Weird Love, Atom Bomb Baby, Swampland and their psychobilly spray-job on Jonathan Richman’s She Cracked still sound vital and audaciously genre-crushing. The Scientists well deserve this Mount Rushmore of a set.

Ohms is instantly familiar without replicating anything they’ve done before.

The 2LP set sacrifices the live cuts, which, while so competent they're not exactly bristling with edge, possess a different air to the out-takes. [May 2023, p.87]

Perrett sings like a man possessed on songs that manage to sound helplessly romantic and deal with everyday realities simultaneously, his expression undiminished by the ravages of time. .... His best-ever album? Could well be. [Nov 2024, p.73]

Now And Then, the last Beatles song has finally arrived, and it’s more than worth the wait.

It can, by nature, feel like drowning in melted marshmallow over 55 minutes, but great moments stick out like ice sculptures in a snowdrift. [Dec 2020, p.80]

This is shiny modern rock with a scuffed heart and a sense of constant restlessness of spirit. [Jun 2019, p.89]

It's probably the Rolling Stones' best album ever. ... Slim pickings of the expanded vinyl package border on the insulting. [Dec 2018, p.94]

The CD gives you the uninterrupted concert, the most focused of the lot. [Mar 2020, p.92]

V combines expansive arena-rock sonics with a heavy dose of lush electronics. Indeed, the stern synths and metal-bashing percussion of Hologram sound like vintage Tubeway Army, while the robo-riffing thunder of Machine falls between Suede and the Sisters Of Mercy.

Springsteen On Broadway is best when he tackles his fractured relationship with his father, whose boozy presence he credits with forging his tenacity, and by extension that of his own children, his sisters and his mother (“with Alzheimer’s these past seven years”) to whom he’s gloriously devoted. ... Equal parts communion and catharsis--an immaculate deception. [Jan 2019, p.86]

At times the effect is mildly schizophrenic, and Linda's personal lyric give the songs a feeling of listening to a diary, but overall it works, even if, as with the Thompson family's 2014 album Family, it seems a bit self-referential. [Aug 2024, p.75]

Harder, heavier and more cohesive than their Manifest Decimation debut, Nightmare Logic is precise and snappy enough to win over hardcore fans too.

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]

Diehards will thrill to the inclusion of hitherto unreleased versions of Some Kinda Love, Sweet Jane and After Hours, though perhaps baulk at having to shell out for material they already own. Still, this is historical, compelling fare.

Cue nuggets of advice from someone who’s had his own share of knocks, self-inflicted and otherwise, as Simpson and the band tackle brassy R&B, Memphis soul and swampy country, augmented by semi-orchestral strings and bound together by his extraordinary baritone.

Outstanding. [Summer 2021, p.82]

The quartet's explosive indignation is undeniably thrilling, as is their deft mastery of the genre's roaring dynamics. [Sep 2013, p.91]

Whether on a squelchy analogue wig-out or swaying in the breeze of apocalyptic desert rock, this is a Brit-psych absolute peach.

If their debut was dependent on painkillers, Reiðl is the sound of a band beginning to heal.

Dazzling, daring stuff. [Summer 2019, p.86]

A rewarding journey that delights in a celebration of friendship, inclusivity and 'this crazy dream of our utopia'. [Apr 2023, p.79]

That The Church remain so vigorous and vibrant is a delightful surprise indeed. [Jun 2023, p.75]

This album's exploration of very type of human relationship is more Blood On The Tracks than Love Actually. [Sep 2024, p.71]

The most thrilling of everything here is a newly discovered BC radio recording from 1964 that fizzes with the thrill of making music and being alive. [Oct 2013, p.92]

It’s a package that’s pretty hard to improve on but this anniversary edition tries its damnedest to turn things up to eleven.