The star of this set is Michael Karoli, whose freak-out guitar solos are the epitome of what 1977 claimed to be killing off. 1977 failed, but Can in 1977 were, in their own little big world, on fire. [Dec 2024, p.86]

What’s apparent immediately is that it’s a tremendous album, up there with turn-of-themillennium Opeth high-water marks Still Life and Blackwater Park. [Oct 2024, p.70]

The band’s rambunctious twentieth studio set stomps and shakes like an irreverent collision between Sam The Sham and The Stooges on Morphine Drip, Big As My Balls and Wah Wah Power. Druggy mantra Come On Everybody Getting High With You Baby Tonight evokes 60s Bay Area psych, The Hearse classic surf instrumentals. [Nov 2024, p.74]

Her splendidly named new album How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean is a forest of invention and great songs. [Dec 2024, p.78]

The new tracks – the first since 2022’s comeback album The Tipping Point – embellish their spacey pop melodies with skittering ambient beats (The Girl That I Call Home) and contemporary psych disco (Say Goodbye To Mum and Dad). Recent songs included in the live portion from Tennessee’s FirstBank Amphitheater also transplant their 80s elegance into today’s airy electropop and synthrock. [Dec 2024, p.74]

This isn’t completely terrible – duets with Willie Nelson improve anything – it’s just frustratingly unessential. [Dec 2024, p.75]

Most touching is the full-circle thrill of hearing P.P. belt out her 1968 standard, Angel Of The Morning. [Dec 2024, p.77]

For fans of Big Star (particularly their third album) or Gram Parsons, this album offers a similar unadorned beauty. The Super Deluxe Edition of this reissue includes a bonus disc with 12 previously unreleased early renditions of the album tracks. .... Some of the acoustic versions are quite the equal of their finished counterparts.

Differing from its predecessor by visiting 2021 studio album I Don’t Live Here Anymore (notably on Harmonia’s Dream) and showcasing a seven-piece band, there’s trickery afoot: some tracks are spliced from multiple takes. It’s hard to argue with the hugeness when it hits though. [Dec 2024, p.74]

So while the reverbed guitar strings of instrumental The Phantom Of New Rochelle evoke the early 60s, Don’t Travel Through The Night Alone brings things up to date. Terrific fun throughout. [Dec 2024, p.79]

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]

An intense, emotional soundscape rising gently from the chiming sun bath Sun Is A Hole Sun Is Vapors. [Dec 2024, p.74]

Refreshing, so refreshing - like a glass of ice water on a hot summer's day. [Dec 2024, p.72]

This is a delight, a cleansing. [Nov 2024, p.77]

A sombre treatise on disaffection and alienation grown old, Songs From A Lost World starkly expresses the post-punk generation’s hallmark traits of malaise and anxiety. Art reflects its era and that’s exactly what this album conveys. [Dec 2024, p.74]

Griffin’s wit, empathy and penchant for a simple folk tune remain life-affirming qualities. [Nov 2024, p.72]

An absolute pleasure of an album. [Nov 2024, p.83]

Dud tracks are unfortunate, as Come Ahead does contain some pretty decent music when everyone involved puts their minds to it. But even the album’s title - an old Glasgow colloquialism that basically translates as ‘Yes, I would like to fight you’ – fails to measure up to its intent as a triumphant comeback. Primal Scream: don’t remember them this way. [Nov 2024, p.74]

Utterly charming album, with Prophet’s ear for a keening melody still intact – the lovely Red Sky Night, the gentle rhythm of First Came The Thunder -and suffused with a lilting Latin charm. [Nov 2024, p.77]

Perrett sings like a man possessed on songs that manage to sound helplessly romantic and deal with everyday realities simultaneously, his expression undiminished by the ravages of time. .... His best-ever album? Could well be. [Nov 2024, p.73]

The nagging sense remains that way too much effort has been put into reinterpreting other artists’ material instead of writing their own. [Nov 2024, p.76]

Borrell tiptoes his trademark line between the wry and the ridiculous. U Can Call Me is a slice of Bowie-esque sass pop about how much he hates cocaine, Empire Service a slab of buzzsaw rock that argues with itself about what is and is not the ocean. [Nov 2024, p.76]

The emotionally charged (if musically sterile), genre-blending Cassyette is as emptily irresistible as MSG. [Nov 2024, p.79]

If the band’s grander statements are buried beneath the record’s bursts of crushing speed-punk and pounding buzz-rock, though, their vivifying passion and excitement for a genre too often ploughed through like a chore makes it utterly forgivable. Depths do emerge. [Nov 2024, p.78]

Hitchcock strips away all the production embellishments of its musical highlights and presents them as they would have been written. The resulting album is a decidedly mixed bag. [Nov 2024, p.73]

This album drops its bombs with honed precision, the band's experience evident as both the key musical genres - loud and quiet - are deployed with scorching smarts. [Nov 2024, p.77]

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]

Cantrell's voice remains as strong as ever, unwavering and carrying a portentous authority. similarly, Let It lie, with its pounding, doom-laden, Black Sabbath-influenced riff, is the punch in the nose none of us knew we needed. [Nov 2024, p.78]