It might not be the Melvins at their most essential, but their status as rock's quirkiest heroes remains irrefutable. [Apr 2018, p.55]

Dystopia does see Megadeth come within hailing distance of their dazzling best. [16 Jan 2016, p.50]

This is an interesting unexpected extra--pretty, rather than essential. [Sep 2011, p.51]

A quiet but definite triumph. [9 Jul 2011, p.51]

This is Steel Panther's most deliciously dirty release yet. [22 Mar 2014, p.53]

Like Patton's day job, Nevermen succeed in making the world a much weirder and interesting place. [13 Feb 2016, p.54]

An album that might not test the limits of artistry, but as with this closing track [Window], leaves you with a fuzzy feeling. [5 Aug 2017, p.51]

Lex Hives may not re-write The Hives' rulebook, it does offer proof that this band sounds heftier and, somehow, even more colorful than before. [2 Jun 2012, p.54]

It will probably prove overly sweet for some tastes but when they hit top form, they're an absolute joy. [29 Oct 2011, p.51]

Admittedly, the single-minded focus does get a bit repetitive, but Optimal Lifestyles makes for a defiantly fizzy soundtrack to growing old disgracefully. [6 Apr 2019, p.71]

Bottom-heavy power dynamic shines on tracks like Dark Horse, a parade of colossal bass drums and Demi’s pseudo-organ effects wizardry, which then reveals its true colours with a flourish of doomy, speaker-blowing riffs.

Alas, as with other City and Colour albums, this one suffers from moments of terminal blandness.

Very occasionally, such as during the first half of the otherwise excellent Crashed Out Wasted, that compulsion to pour honey in our ears can lead to a little too much saccharine. But on the whole, Race The Night is a journey worth taking, deftly hitting all of the touchpoints that make Ash such a special band.

Into Oblivion is the best thing to bear the Venom name since the ’80s.

It finds the band indulging their darkest urges, often using nothing more than noise and soundscapes. Like everything the Melvins do, however, it remains compelling, clever, and absolutely unique. [24 Jun 2017, p.53]

Everything fizzes and bursts and explodes with neon delight that sounds, genuinely, like nothing else on earth, but has a delight to it that's oh so familiar. [5 Oct 2019, p.53]

Thrilling, challenging, life-affirming rollercoaster of a record. [27 Jun 2015, p.50]

At its best, I Beat Loneliness is revelatory. Elsewhere, sadly, it’s rote. Gavin may claim to have beaten loneliness, but he’s been thwarted by his own ambitions.

Opener The Funeral presents a far less cartoonish performer than he was on 2020's overly-cute second album Weird!. This alone makes the whole thing magnitudes more enjoyable. The energised electro-pop of Memories (a duet with WILLOW) and the brooding Sex Not Violence continue on a similar tack, showing a width of creative goalpost while actually keeping things together.

In Silverstein's hands--a decade and five albums deep now--these very same, well-worn tricks work surprisingly well and it speaks volumes for the Ontario five-piece that this, their Hopeless records debut, fizzles with life and vitality from start to finish. [23 Apr 2011, p.51]

It's business as usual, then--even with a manic cover of 99 Bottles Of Beer. [2 Nov 2013, p.53]

What we're left with is an overlong, quietly ominous strumming set showcasing his twisted genius. [14 Jun 2014, p.55]

Its longer arrangements are glacial expressions of the grotesque; sludge-speed metal that taps doom for tonal contours but keeps the texture popping enough to remain compelling. [21 Dec 2013, p.70]

Hideaway could perhaps have done with a few more leftfield moments, then, because while it’s breezy and over before you know it, that’s largely because the majority of it is in one sedate speed setting.

Trauma Factory’s straight-up rap moments are more hit-and-miss, with the likes of exile and upside down feeling coherent enough but lacking in bite, demonstrating how nothing,nowhere. sounds best when the musical backdrop is thicker and leans more into the heavier side of Joe’s sound.

It's dreamy stuff, but it's nothing on their 5K-rated, self-titled 2012 debut album. [15 Nov 2014, p.54]

Vital for obsessives. [20 Jul 2013, p.53]

Even in the absence of the drum machines and sonic complexity of old, Esben And The Witch have the capacity to be seriously trippy. [23 Aug 2014, p.53]

If you want hits, there's already a better Best Of available--1997's A-Sides--while if you want a rarities album, this isn't it. [2 Oct 2010, p.51]

The main selling points of this album are a sleek production job and the technical performance of vocalist Conor Mason, who once again proves himself to be in possession of some serious lungs. The problem, however, is that despite the surface sheen, too many of Moral Panic’s songs fail to really go anywhere.

Not as romantic as their debut album, or as dynamic as the second, third album proper Eat The Elephant instead comes swathed in captivating coat embroidered by growth and maturation that doesn't unbutton easily. [14 Apr 2018, p.53]

True, some of the reggae songs a re a bit lightweight, but on the punk numbers, Bad Brains' righteous fevour remains undimmed. [24 Nov 2012, p.53]

Nonetheless, even if the follow-up to 2022’s Garageband Superstar isn’t wildly innovative, there’s a smorgasbord of catchy tunes fizzing with sugary energy.

It's a collection of eight good and great Foo Fighters songs. [15 Nov 2014, p.52]

Beautifully threaded together by Eddie's therapeutic strumming, mesmerizing voice and graceful transition between moods, this is a quietly understated masterstroke. [28 May 2011, p.51]

It's an album that will divide and delight. [2 Jun 2012, p.54]

They might nod to the past, but Creepoid's present is plenty bright. [20 Jun 2015, p.52]

This sharper, steelier focus simply ensures that every aural blow is fatal. [24 May 2014, p.54]

Not only is it moving, it's arguably one if the best records Chris has made in the last 15 years. [26 Sep 2015, p.53]

Conduit may not be an album to please those who fell in love with Tales... but for anyone pining for a return to Funeral For A friend's earliest EPs, it's very exciting. [2 Feb 2013, p.53]

Invented is a return to the creative peaks of yore. It's a record rich with twinkling sonic subtleties, timeless melodies and characteristically layered, epic tunes. [25 Sep 2010, p.52]

Where the joke on Feel The Steel has yet to feel old, the laughs on Balls Out grow stale. It's fortunate then that, once again, the music holds up. [15 Oct 2011, p.50]

It's probably Iwrestledabearonce's most accessible album. For former lovers, though, they seem a couple notches low on the batshit-crazy scale here. [10 Aug 2013, p.53]

They gather together the bit you might have missed to keep the good times rolling. [25 Jan 2014, p.54]

They present a skewed take on real life rather than some mystical ramblings. [27 Sep 2014, p.54]

It's brilliant stuff, and proof that when it comes to enormo-doom heaviness, few do it better. Still. [5 Sep 2015, p.53]

It's all formula though, and fresh ingredients are few and far between. [3 Oct 2015, p.52]

Sure, some songs are better than others, but Ego Trip’s a rare thing: a 14-track album that features not a single duffer.

Not all of World Below lives up to this early promise. You can find songs like Poor Old Me – wonky guitar, jaded sarcasm – filling out landfill indie releases from the ’00s. However, late highlight Midnight twists heads with grinding industrial rhythms.

True, it’s also an often familiar-sounding form – that same chord progression at varying speeds, faster than Bad Religion, slower than NOFX – but they also sound like themselves again.

The time when even twitter goes quiet and the world belongs to the insomniacs, the troubled and the drunk, all of who will find solace in the Thurlows' urber-moody noisepop. [2 Jun 2012, p.53]

This is both an unpredictable, risk-taking venture and the truest hearted Alice Cooper album in many years. [10 Sep 2011, p.52]

The overall effect is one of a versatile, diffuse, but somehow far more focused collection of songs than were present in Neighborhoods. [22 Dec 2012, p.68]

By their own ridiculously lofty standards, it's not quite good enough. Again. [11 Sep 2010, p.51]

While it’s not a classic of the Corgan canon, it does feel like he’s enjoying himself immensely doing it. And we’re happy enough to hear that. [7 Dec 2019, p.53]

This certainly proves that they are still a formidable force in contemporary metal. [11 Jun 2011, p.50]

Obviously, we'd much prefer to have a new Tool album, but in the interim, Money Shot won't leave you feeling short-changed. [31 Oct 2015, p.54]

It's got markedly better machine-gunning riffs than wilderness years albums like 1999's Speed Of Sound. [27 Feb 2016, p.53]

After a while the hell-raising wears thin, though, and Luke’s jugular-bulging yells start to sound indistinguishable between songs. But when the Nil’s no-holds-barred approach comes good, it’s glorious.

The uninitiated are likely to be overwhelmed by such a glut of material, particularly when it takes so many stylistic detours and about-turns. It’s worth the endeavour, though, because there’s some sublime music here, deep and diverse, which has plenty to offer nerds and newbies alike.

Polished production courses through veins of Zig, with each track elevated above its component parts, as the genre-muddling star incorporates elements of industrial, metal and jungle amongst the record’s heavier junctures, with piano and cello bolstering the album’s more delicate passages.

This is the best album You Me At Six have made. [1 Oct 2011, p.50]

The Ghost Inside still smack like a wrecking ball. [16 Jun 2012, p.53]

Most of it's the aural equivalent of a shoulder rub, but when it's good, it's very good indeed. [21 Mar 2015, p.54]

Relapse finds them wielding those familiar sledgehammer beats and streamlined thrash riffs in a most effective fashion. [7 Apr 2012, p.52]

Musical joie de vivre courses through Dos!, along with enough variety to ensure this is more than just, um, Uno! Part 2. [10 Nov 2012, p.52]

It's a hella mega good time from start to finish. [1 Feb 2020, p.53]

While this is as trying and testing as it is unique, it's certainly not without its charms. [4 Jun 2011, p.51]

The reassuring thing about Self/Entitled is that NOFX are still gobby, snotty and obnoxious for punk's sake. [29 Sep 2012, p.54]

Volbeat still sound like a band desperately searching for an identity to call their own. [3 Aug 2019, p.59]

It's an easier to admire than to love. [18 Sep 2010, p.58]

The quartet have concocted an irresistibly anthemic collection of songs. [2 Apr 2011, p.51]

It's very difficult to dislike music this unashamedly cheery. [8 Oct 2011, p.52]

Here Finch seem like a band unpausing rather than pressing into new territory, This is therefore a somewhat confused oblivion. [27 Sep 2014,p.53]

Venomously good stuff. [10 Jan 2015, p.52]

Limitless is often thwarted by its execution rather than its ambition. [27 Feb 2016, p.50]

Challenging, but intriguing. [15 Apr 2017, p.52]

The results are much as you'd expect, with crazy lyrics and the occasional brilliant riff. [21 Oct 2017, p.52]

The result is a superb, invigorated record that invites you to wake up, as they have done, in a brave, bold and beautiful new world.

The sextet have stepped up their game on this record, boasting some real song writing chops too. [2 Jul 2011, p.51]

Somewhat surprisingly, it lacks some of the droning, distorted fuzz of yore. [21 Jul 2012, p.53]

If the Devil really does have all the best tunes, he's loaned a few of them to Ghost B.C. [6 Apr 2013, p.55]

On Women And Children Last, the Murderdolls retain the same sense of big, dumb fun they had before, but this time around the more knowingly vicious elements makes it an even more invigorating ride. [14 Aug 2010, p.48]

When Black Veil Brides have made an album as fist pumpingly anthemic and as downright fun as Set The World On fire is, you'd be incredibly foolish to bet against them doing just that. [18 Jun 2011, p.50]

It's not bad but Bleeding Through have proved they're capable of a lot, lot more. [11 Feb 2012, p.51]

Korn haven't reinvented their own here, but it's still a worthy addition to their canon. [22 Oct 20163, p.67]

Order Of The Black will keep diehard Black Label Society fans happy, but it's still some way from being a truly classic release. [28 Aug 2010, p.53]

Here is something far looser and more fun, while still being brilliantly crafted and played with absolute power. [15 Sep 2018, p.53]

For the first time in too long, it is a Weezer record that rocks exactly how a Weezer record should.

There's a monochrome coolness to everything and a slick, minimal production. There's a newfound calmness and thoughtfulness noticed in the band's songwriting. [14 Jan 2017, p.50]

A little of their usual magic may have evaporated, but it's still a pleasure to hear these awkward buggers playing it straight. [22 Nov 2014, p.52]

5 Seconds To Summer are clearly at their best when drummer Ashton is let loose behind his kit and the band are powering through huge, catchy choruses. [17 Oct 2015, p.52]

You get exactly the sort of greasy grooves you'd expect, but with a whole lot of Cuban cool thrown in as well. [14 Nov 2015, p.52]

Deceiver Of the Gods is bold, manly metal with a beard, a beer belly and a big old cry to it. [22 Jun 2013, p.51]

What emerges from the new City And Colour album, then, is the sound of a man with frailties who makes sense of it all through song. [1 Jun 2013, p.54]

This 10-track effort is rammed with classic moments. [28 Jan 2012, p.53]

Tears On Tape isn't bad, then--it's just not as seductive as HIM can be. [25 May 2013, p.53]

It's boisterously nostalgic noise. [18 May 2013, p.55]