This is Ministry’s best record since we were all young and good-looking. [Apr 2024, p.78]

AmeriKKKant feels like a measured response to the times.

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

A handful of tracks shoot for the anthemic uplift of vintage U2, but fall short. The only real left-field beauty here is Love Is All We Have Left, a token reminder of the Dublin quartet’s shimmering ambient avant-rock period.

[L7] still sound as toxic and ornery as ever, their songs sharp and savage, their solos short and sweet, their vocals still capable of freezing testicles at 50 paces. [Summer 2019, p.82]

Wicked Nature is a fateful folly that might just bear fruit. [Oct 2014, p.89]

While the album Widow's Weed has all the usual heavily layered atmospherics, there's an even inkier feel than before. [Summer 2019, p.83]

The Darkness’ return to form is a welcome surprise in these apocalyptically drab times.

California collects 14 hook-drenched punk-pop barnstormers that both reflect nostalgically on their youthful vigours (Bored To Death, Kings Of The Weekend, San Diego) and revisit them impressively (Teenage Satellites, No Future).

The result is less a coherent statement and more a collection of songs that simply show off their eclectic influences and their ability to reproduce them well. [May 2018, p.91]

Debut album Dark Black Makeup is a thrilling half-hour of punk rock with a small ‘p’ but a big UNK!--hooky, heavy and furious in all the right places.

White Bear, in its expertise and clarity, feels refreshing, like the shock of the new, despite its traditionalism. Better still, you feel they’ve got a lot more in the locker still to come.

Creepy and disturbing, but it’ll still make their mothers proud.

This album skips by far lighter than more ponderous collections like 2004's Together We're Heavy. [Sep 2013, p.88]

As equipment hums, bass rumbles and Robb bellows over joyfully insistent melodies, it becomes clear that The Terror Of Modern Life is the sound of a band hopelessly in love with the music that made them. [Jul 2013, p.88]

Thirty years later, Documents And Eyewitness works best in the way its name describes: as an account of a moment when bands would do the wrong thing and do it brilliantly. [Sep 2014, p.98]

Occupational hazards aside however, this is certainly the band’s strongest in recent memory, and what it might lack in edge or novelty is well countered by craft and assurance.

Pick and mix your own highlights, but as a one-sitting listen expect a bumpy ride. [Nov 2018, p.82]

At best, for a former superstar, returning to the creative fray, the record is mediocre. [Jul 2013, p.88]

The fact that The Fall are still going is remarkable enough; the fact that they're still making extraordinary records is even more so. [Jul 2013, p.92]

Listening to all 17 tracks in one go feels like going 12 rounds with a heavyweight boxer, a championship belt on the line. [Oct 2014, p.88]

For all his apocalyptic bleakness, Moby’s electropopulist instincts remain active, lending a euphoric rush even to suicidally glum Joy Division-style confessionals like Silence and All The Hurts We Made.

An extraordinary 11-track distillation of raw urban vitality that recaptures and resets the dizzying conversational street energy of 1972's On The Corner at the cutting edge of 80s soul. [Sep 2019, p.90]

What's surprising is that Anderson can kick up more menace with his flute than any number of hoarse roaring voices and thrashing guitars. ... The music lightens up when Anderson moves on to the sagas themselves, but the intricacies remain. As do the idiosyncratic allusions. [Jun 2023, p.78]

Great in parts, but flat and clumsy in others, Bellamy’s bid to become more serious appears to have stunted what he does best, which is operatic excess fuelled by volcanic emotion.

The allure and immediacy of the songs is remarkable, the stuff that translates into an instant classic. [Sep 2014, p.94]

Mostly it works. [Apr 2013, p.94]

Alas, by front-loading the album with the kind of numbers U2 would be proud of--witness Reverend--Walls grinds to a halt in tedious balladry, rather than scaling new heights.