While a valuable document for nostalgic attendees, is, unsurprisingly, a hit-and-miss affair. [Summer 2023, p.74]

The sound of a very classy singer, and her smokin' band, having a fabulous time. [Aug 2014, p. 209]

A measured, but unwaveringly honest, portrait of middle age with all its elation and tribulations. [Aug 2020, p.82]

It takes a few listens to hook in its claws, but when it does they're fixed forever. [Feb 2015, p.98]

It may not quite give you the sheer electric shock jolt of their classic Meantime and Betty albums, but Helmet are still capable of bloodying your nose from 100 paces.

It's a record modernised, ironically, by its more timeless moments. .... The Mysterines deepen. [Jul 2024, p.78]

The Chilis are back together, having fun. And it feels good. [May 2022, p.80]

Past Lives is a wilfully uncommercial record, made for the sheer love of the tight-knit scene that spawned them. [Dec 2022, p.74]

Dream-folkies will be transported back to the gauzy early days of Genesis or the Byrds, indie heads will be transported back to the most powerful skunk spliff they ever smoked along to Pond, Grandaddy or Neutral Milk Hotel.

Some fans may miss the hobo simplicity of yore. [Summer 2013, p.92]

Two or three weaker numbers drag quality levels down, but Pollinator contains enough vintage Blondie spirit to get the old juices flowing again.

Echo is a lustrous cosmic echo of Walk On The Wild Side, while the Doorsy atmospherics and celestial hooks of Ninth Configuration and Question Of Faith shroud personal and religious soul-searching that suggest Wrong Creatures is actually a conversation with their younger, wronger selves. Certainly the dark carnival of Circus Bazooko and stirring postrock finale All Rise prove they’re tackling their crippling Psychocandy addiction, making Wrong Creatures something of a colourful rebirth.

That search for perfection, his own predilection, goes on, gorgeously lit by this. [Feb 2015, p.99]

While you may never be able to fully forget that Berry's tongue is in his cheek, the love, attention to detail and panache of Kill The Wolf make it a trip worth taking. [Summer 2013, p.95]

From tension-riddled songs like Two Places to the instrumental Outromistra (EM Forster with guitars), this is a confident and exciting high for the band, at a time when most bands of their era are looking for their reading glasses.

It’s all great if you’re willing to strap on some cowboy boots and hop on the nearest hayride, but hardcore rockers are gonna wanna sit this one out.

For its place in his canon, the 4 1⁄2 album is a relatively scant 37 minutes of sessions created around the recording of Hand..., and it’s easy to see where the songs might have fitted into the conceptual jigsaw of the original work.

[Rise] sounds like it’s been designed solely with American radio very much in mind. Things pick up quickly from there though, You Have Come To The Right Place, puts things very much back on track, wilfully over-the-top, a grand façade covering the band’s broken veneer.

Motorik psychedelia at its finest, The Lucid Dream have stepped up.

As with their nine albums before it, Get Rollin’ is crafted to satisfy their fan base rather than to pick up new but casual admirers. And they’ve succeeded completely. [Dec 2022, p.74]

This is the maturing of cute metal, and it's still nuts. [Apr 2023, p.76]

Johnny Cash starts with Johnny 99, the title track of his 1983 album released just a year after Springsteen's Nebraska, with his own distinctive drawl and guitar twang, demonstrating that the Boss's songs have all the necessary country ingredients. The more traditional Travis Tritt then employs an arsenal of cliches on Tougher Than The Rest. .... [Steve Earle] delivers a brooding, almost menacing live version of State Trooper. [Jul 2025, p.86]

He now sounds much calmer, serene even, on Shearwater's tenth, which floats where 2016's Jet Plane And Oxbow raged. This never means it's predictable. [Summer 2022, p.78]

Dense, rich and deeply rewarding.

Gloriously unpolished--and it feels very one-take--this is vintage American indie rock from experts in the field. [Oct 2013, p.90]

They’re not world beaters yet, but Starcrawler’s creepy appeal shouldn’t be underestimated.

Kane's appeal remains in relishing the retro. [Mar 2022, p.80]

Some pretty satisfying final testaments, then, but you also get the impression that Kramer in particular spent his final years having more fun than most septuagenarians can reasonably expect. [Nov 2024, p.72]