If it’s dumb fun in the sun you’re after, these are the rodents you’re looking for. [Sep 2024, p.69]

Three CDS of ace JA sides (Culture, Dillinger) and some plucky punky stabs at the genre (Clash, Ruts et al). [Aug 2024, p.83]

Always surprising, entirely entrancing indie-rock ingenuity. [Aug 2024, p.77]

New remastering bolsters the album’s strengths, adding warmth and definition to King Of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger and Every Breath You Take. .... With an album’s worth of period B-sides and bonus tracks, the set’s two discs of unreleased material strike gold with Sting’s brisk, electro-pop demo of Murder By Numbers, and a slinkier, horn-driven funk arrangement of O My God from the Synchronicity sessions, both infinitely more enjoyable than the bland album versions. [Aug 2024, p.81]

Frontman Brandon Coleman is alike a more muscular, less reedy Neil Young. .... A turbulent album. [Aug 2024, p.72]

At times the effect is mildly schizophrenic, and Linda's personal lyric give the songs a feeling of listening to a diary, but overall it works, even if, as with the Thompson family's 2014 album Family, it seems a bit self-referential. [Aug 2024, p.75]

The core message here is that Soft Play are back harder than ever. [Aug 2024, p.74]

The band's greatest strength has always been that combination of voices, and when Avett brothers Scott and Seth swirl around each other, any shortcomings are quickly forgotten. [Aug 2024, p.70]

A bleak album for the times, but a refreshing one. [Aug 2024, p.70]

It's senses-batteringly wonderful. [Aug 2024, p.70]

Couldn’t Love You More begins like Blackbird and has McCartneyish vocals, with Ringo on drums. Rock guitar royalty includes Brian May on Floating In Heaven, Hank Marvin on When You Find Love, and Albert Lee pops up on an Everlys-inspired number. [Summer 2024, p.73]

The songs themselves are among Lennon's worst. .... This reissue comes in a box full of new mixes - several CDs or vinyl LPs of Raw Mixes, Ultimate mixes and Out-Takes, none of which add anything much other than a sense that one's ears have been syringed for no good reason. [Summer 2024, p.83]

It’s the heaviest shit Fu Manchu have ever done, and it’s fantastic. The second half is a slight return to their 90s heyday, with easier tempos and mellow(ish) vibes. [Jul 2024, p.81]

The majority is syncopated lightweight pop, as if selected by algorithms for mass consumption. [Aug 2024, p.72]

By placing the emphasis on Cash's then-overlooked songwriting flair, the album plays like a cohesive lost gem. [Summer 2024, p.79]

This, somewhat muted, first album in 20 years lacks much of the Beck-like shuffle and experimental pop lustre of that early era, but boasts a mature earthy seam thanks to Barlow lacing its noirish alt.folk, 80s-inflected crypt rock and melodic drone and dub experiments with touches of Middle Eastern instrumentation. [Summer 2024, p.72]

Their self-titled ninth studio album find them, if anything, in even finer fettle. [Summer 2024, p.74]

The fine line between contemplation and navel gazing has always been a difficult balancing act to achieve, but here Nathaniel Rateliff, ably backed by the soulful Night Sweats on their fourth studio album, does so without the use of a safety net. And that this collective of musicians does so by breathing new life into established formats is to be applauded. [Summer 2024, p.76]

Brilliantly bright-side. [Summer 2024, p.75]

It's music to stop you in your tracks. [Summer 2024, p.75]

Pond continue to make high-quality records on their own terms, and Stung! is undoubtedly one of their most enjoyable. [Summer 2024, p.77]

Climaxes with a haunting 20-minute prog epic complete with a musique concrete middle section. It's by far the most powerful piece of music they've ever made. The rest of the album is a mixed bag. .... But it's the scattered highlights you'll remember. [Summer 2024, p.76]

It's a record modernised, ironically, by its more timeless moments. .... The Mysterines deepen. [Jul 2024, p.78]

Every song on this fairly short but very sweet album sticks. [Jun 2024, p.76]

From Hell I Rise is more than just a retread of past glories. Part of the credit goes to Death Angel singer Mark Osegueda, whose vicious performance consciously avoids referencing Slayer's Tom Araya on the title track and the anti-war Trophies Of The Tyrant. [Jul 2024, p.78]

Ultimately still mesmerising, enhanced by photos and memorabilia-stacked book plus 36-page reproduction of Bowie’s notebooks, the box set provides a suitably chaotic time capsule of a magical period now bathed in extraordinary poignancy. [Summer 2024, p.82]

An impeccable, emotionally undulating, ultimately defiant set of songs from an old master. [Jul 2024, p.82]

Forever sounds like a Bon Jovi album. Rock songs, power ballads, it's a big-sounding record designed to be played to big rooms. Admittedly it's no New Jersey, but that's like expecting to still fit the T-Shirt you bought on that late-80s tour. [Jul 2024, p.76]