Mature in a good way, this is an excellent album. [Apr 2025, p.77]

A maximalist spectacle that ticks every Lamb Of God check-box yet still finds the space to become their most innovative album in years. [May 2026, p.77]

If you're partial to the glittering seam of music that runs from The Beatles through Badfinger, Alex Chilton, Todd Rindgren, Cheap Trick, Jellyfish and a thousand others, then you're going to love this album. [Jun 2026, p.76]

Biffy fan or not, there is much to enjoy on this album, such as the thundering North Of No South and the snap of Tiny Indoor Fireworks. But it’s the lingering beautiful sadness of songs like Space and Opaque that really stays with you.

The tone lightens marginally for the relationship rampages of the second half, with Baby Needs A Cookie bordering on pop melodies and Leather Dreams revelling in a sultry churn with a hint of S&M, but Blue Hearts is ideal fodder for smashing in the news channel to.

So engaging, you might even forget your phone for 40 minutes. [Mar 2024, p.83]

It's the glowering six-minute stormcloud of Numb that steals the show here. [Dec 2014, p.103]

A set that casts a smoky haze over a remarkable event were characters from the shadow kingdom of Dylan's past come out to play one more time. He'll be a hard act to follow. [Jul 2023, p.91]

Always engaging, occasionally magical. [Jan 2015, p.129]

It's getting late, but Springsteen's dusty art shows no sign of fading. [Summer 2019, p.84]

An album that equals the original. [Apr 2025, p.77]

All bets are off, all doors open and consciousness is expanded. [May 2019, p.86]

Things get rough and rocky in places. .... But the soft centres of Davina McCall and U And Me At Home keep Moisturizer a light and vivifying lotion. [Aug 2025, p.73]

Bags of melody, plenty of light and shade, and great songs. A cosmic triumph.

Loneliness has rarely felt so uplifting. [Jun 2018, p.92]

As elegiac, brutally minimalist, silent and hymnal, disturbingly open and ultimately rewarding as before. [Oct 2021, p.77]

While there's nothing radically off-blueprint in the finished article, it's obvious that every note has been pored over with love and respect. [Jan 2019, p.88]

The truth is that Carry Fire is about as good an album as we could reasonably expect from him in 2017.

The music is mostly luminous and spellbinding, but the slender 33-minutes us disappointing, a mini-album when such huge cosmic themes deserve deeper, broader consideration. [Jul 2023, p.78]

This follow-up is, if anything, even more exquisite.

For Free is anything but indulgent. ... David Crosby's late-career purple patch continues. Aug 2021, p.82]

What metal's fundamentalists will think of it is anyone's guess, but this is the sound of the genre's future. [Nov 2021, p.77]

Their creative studio peak might have (just) been behind them, but for a taste of the Stones at their down-and-dirtiest, Goats Head Soup will always be the dish of the day.

With Parker’s voice haloed in reverb, some of it sounds great, especially eight-minute epic Let It Happen and the gorgeous ’Cause I’m A Man. But quite what his regular audience will make of this change in direction is another matter entirely.

Mostly, Underneath is confrontational and exhilarating - just as metal should be when it's doing its job properly. [Jun 2020, p.87]

It's an incredibly busy, dense record, with few moments to come up for air from the maelstrom. [Nov 2021, p.73]

An hour in her company is still time well spent. [Sep 2023, p.79]