A mad, florid knockout. Strength through absurdity.

Bootsy shines brightest when the Big Daddy Kanes pipe down and he gets to consider mortality on the poignant Heaven Yes, pay tribute to fallen P-Funk comrade Bernie Worrell on A Salute To Bernie, or stretch out on the uncut funk he does best, bolstered by guitarist Eric Gales and veteran Funkadelic drummer Dennis Chambers on Come Back Bootsy.

Devoid of cynicism or sarcasm, The Silver Cord - Extended Mix revels in the sheer euphoria of unashamed hedonism. [Nov 2023, p.81]

d Three Men’s engaging mix of heaviness of duty and lightness of touch resonates timelessly.

The Residents are just as tricky and bewildering and (occasionally) irritating as they ever were.

The album fades a little towards the end, but it's exactly the daft-as-a-brush cheer-up we all need right now. [Dec 2021, p.72]

As ever, and in the best sense, Farrell aims high and wide. [Jul 2019, p.80]

Wolf Parade sound alert, ready for a bruising. [Feb 2020, p.88]

There’s no pretense of indie cool here. Drive Me Wild features a blaring sax for an 80s viewed through a prism of nostalgia for a decade they never knew, and a towering, phones-in-the-air chorus, while ballad Cry ups the overblown ante even further.

After initial queasiness at a moment of amorousness in Eraser (‘I’m just a toy waiting for you to play me’), it quickly becomes business as usual in terms of their shamelessly enormous pop-rock music.

If this is the last resurrected Hendrix studio material the world will see, then it’s a creditable send-off, yet we doubt it’s the last gasp it occasionally resembles.

The album is a monument to an eccentric, indefatigable, indestructible spirit who refused not to rock on. [Jul 2018, p.88]

While it might lack the golden glow of Shiflett's regular band, it's happy to bask in a bourbon haze a few seats along the bar from Blackberry Smoke and Whiskey Myers. [Summer 2019, p.86]

Somehow, his voice remains--a ghostly, spellbinding croon that swims through wastelands of strings and synths, making Noctunes unfold like an alternative soundtrack to Twin Peaks.

Overall it's a psychedelic delight. [Jul 2020, p.89]

It's not just the most svelte, direct and immediate Pumpkins album ever, it's the most misleadingly titled. [Feb 2015, p.94]

Not everything here grabs the attention first time around: the Anthrax of today often favour a slow burn to a startling slap. But as a cohesive and dynamic whole, For All Kings delivers the goods with swagger and style.

Eleven years into their career, Tesseract are still thriving. [Jun 2018, p.91]

The album suffers from the Lips' recent tendency for ambient, Blade Runner interludes, while jazzy plods and one-note vocoder drug confessionals drag things to a muted, half-baked crawl. [Apr 2020, p.87]

Lyrically this has all been done better before, but it does show that Beck is fully engaged with the world. Moreover, Loud Hailer’s often stunning tapestry of vampy rock, funk, Southern blues and wah-wah wizardry proves that all of his considerable faculties are as sharp as they ever were.

The stumbling block is that too many songs here never develop pasta dino-stomp riff, and that the vocals can be a little shrill. [Summer 2013, p.89]

In playing predominantly with familiar sounds, From Zero feels less like a step forward for Linkin Park than a rallying point to bring the band back from the brink. But in that, the album is nothing short of a triumph; measuring their angst and leaning on the communal heart that's always existed in their songs, Linkin Park have saved themselves to fight another day. [Jan 2025, p.78]

This album is as good as we could expect from the Mary Chain in 2017.

It has power, darkness and bucketloads of testosterone. [Sep 2013, p.92]

Dark, desperate and full of great tunes, this is rock'n'roll at its black-hearted best. [Nov 2013, p.90]

Dave Brock has long used his artistry with Hawkwind to entertain yet also to get us to think. This is among his most effective blows.

With the heft of rock and fat bottom of funk, Heavy neatly summarises the sound achieved by guitarist Dan Taylor, bassist Spencer Page and drummer Chris Ellul, while singer Kelvin Swaby adds the requisite guts and grit.

Bohemian Rhapsody's soundtrack is as dramatically paced, unrelentingly emotive and intrinsically cinematic as it's reasonably possible for any flat piece of circular plastic to be.