Post-pop indie rock at its drabbest. [Jun 2020, p.89]

An elegant and accomplished treasure from experts in their field. [Jul 2022, p.80]

Inviting famous friends to help him give the songs a fresh coat of paint doesn't, for the most part, make any real impact. [Summer 2013, p.91]

They revisit a previous concept. ... Floating along on a wave of jazzy good vibes. [Nov 2022, p.75]

It's the album's embrace of retro-futurist video arcade electronica on The Doctor and Hooked, verging at times on a lascivious indie Prodigy, that keeps Franz Ferdinand surprising 20 years in. [Feb 2025, p.72]

This odd, understated record is both strange and affecting. [Feb 2014, p.94]

Thanks to Mark Lambert’s overly ostentatious and frequently intrusive production, Russell occasionally sounds lost within his own material.

The streak of familiarity that runs through the album is down to the way songwriters Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites construct their folk-pop melodies and arrangements, but they've given their sound a fresh impetus. [Apr 2025, p.70]

A gentle fleshing-out of tracks might’ve boosted it, but this is as close as the ever-youthful 74-year-old has yet come to doing an American Recordings. Autumnal, rather than valedictory.

Viewed as a whole, this set cements Harrison's reputation, not as a huge 60s phenomenon but as a human. [Nov 2014, p.104]

This is feeble stuff, more Benny Hill than Russell Brand. When they hit the target, The Darkness are untouchable, but too much of Pinewood Smile feels like a half-hearted wank when it should have been a mighty ear-shafting.

This record pumps Royal Blood forward without diluting their strengths. They might have to tweak something next time around, but by then they could well be the biggest young rock band in the world. Two boys making true noise. It’s in their veins.

Atmospheric to the hilt, you can almost smell the campfire. [Apr 2022, p.76]

These lost gems from the garage are given great care and attention by a band that clearly holds them close to their heart. [Aug 2021, p.80]

Pretty fine on record, this kinetic quartet sound like they would probably be explosively exciting live. [Aug 2020, p.87]

Walks For Motorists cascades, scalds, oozes ectoplasmically and revisits the rusting futures of rock past. [Jun 2015, p.92]

If there’s a disappointment about Genexus it’s that it only really delivers to hardened FF fans, that it’s essentially more of the same winning formula.

The weirdly comforting sound of an oddball genius proffering words of hope as the word burns all around us. [Summer 2025, p.78]

John Primer channels his inner Mud convincingly, but you’ll be peering past him at the A-list band.

Back in the saddle as bandleader, his tangible labour of love defiantly captures old-school New York’s cross-pollinating melting pot with rich infusions of Latin (Party Mambo), blues (I Visit The Blues), blaxploitation (Vortex), classic rock’n’roll (Superfly Terra Plane), Southside Johnny And The Asbury Jukes (Soul Power Twistin’) and still making a social point on Education.

It all makes for an entrancing half hour. [Summer 20219, p.86]

Screen Time is a minor but consistently engaging Moore release, crackling with kinetic tension, forever perched on a knife edge between easy listening and uneasy noise. [Apr 2022, p.77]

Fourth album The Night Creeper is their most convincing statement yet, a buzzing set of doomy psych-rock songs with great hooks and punishing riffs.

Occult Architecture is pleasing enough, if a little deodorised at times.

C91 is an overstuffed hit-and-miss banquet of bittersweet popstalgia, great in parts but far from definitive. [Feb 2022, p.86]

A clutch of fine torch songs (Iceman, Dead For Love, the title track) save the day, suaveness replacing the sordid sweat of old. Their youth was doomed, but their adulthood shows promise.

Another triumph. [May 2026, p.78]

The synth-heavy The Signal & The Noise shows they can still quest when the mood takes them, but overall the album plays to Simple Minds’ many strengths.