The whole thing is done and dusted in just under 40 minutes, yet zips by so fluidly that it feels half as long. [2 Jul 2011, p.50]

There's nothing here that doesn't earn its spot or tell a story and as a grab at something great, Polar bear Club may have just succeeded. [20 Aug 2011, p.51]

Funeral For A Friend have always been ordinary chaps with ordinary ambitions. Yet That masks something important: there is extraordinary heart in what they do. And there is much of that here. [21 Mar 2011, p.50]

On Nine it feels like the band are finding a new lease of life in the dark days of 2019. [4 Sep 2019, p.53]

In Waves draws from the band's entire repertoire and shapes what it finds into a defining and definitive set. [6 Aug 2011, p.50]

This is an album packed not only with exuberant and quirkily innovative songs--songs that are busy with bounce and swerve--but also come equipped with a sense of energy and defiance that suggests that their authors are not going to give up simply because the terrain underfoot has become unsteady. [Sept 17 2011, p.52]

What this amounts to is a sharp and often exhilarating change of gear from the Green Day of the past eight years. [22 Sep 2012, p.50]

Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is an album best served whole. Sure, it’s packing some infectious, radio-ready choruses, but there is so much more to unpack, with each listen peeling back layers of heartache but also dexterity and adventure, and much-needed sense of danger that their peers are lacking.

Hydrograd is an altogether looser, more accessible creation. [24 Jun 24, 2017, p.50]

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]

When Måneskin tap into the youthful exuberance and fiery eccentricity that got them here in the first place, though, they’re still utterly unstoppable.

This is a staggering album, one that leaves you bruised, bloody and breathless. [11 Jun 2011, p.52]

We've had fights, emotion, sweat and pure punk righteousness. If only you could say the same thing about all live albums. [5 Sep 2015, p.51]

Boasting darker, braver, more thrillingly complex compositions. [10 Oct 2015, p.52]

This is a terrific album, a rich, sweeping 12-song set that features more potential hit singles than you can swing a pickaxe at. [18 Sep 2010, p.57]

Overall you might have to go back to 1989's The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste to find Ministry sounding quite as vital and engaged as they do here. [10 Mar 2018, p.55]

Truly emphasising how far they’ve come since emo’s heyday, these songs have as much (or more) in common with alt.pop icons like HAIM, Alanis Morissette or Fiona Apple as even they do with even Paramore’s poppiest ‘rock’ contemporaries like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco.

With only the occasional chorus in English, singing along is tricky for us gaijin, but melodically these might be Rivers' catchiest songs since The Green Album. That makes this a hit in anyone's language. [25 May 2013, p.53]

They've managed to serve up complexity in a deceptively digestible manner. [10 Oct 2015, p.52]

it is a wonderful thing to hear Weezer still actually sounding like Weezer here. That they’ve achieved this while pushing their creative boundaries with an orchestra only underlines it. And the best part is, when the time is right and we go back to stadiums again, they’ve still got what promises to be the perfect album to celebrate with left in the chamber.

It has to be said that this is more of a nice vibe record than it is one full of great standalone songs, but when the vibe created is as utterly charming as this, that can only be a minor gripe. [1 Jul 2017, p.52]

Just as Failure love to keep you on the edge of your seat musically, they also keep you guessing with their lyrics. Confounding, absorbing lines are stockpiled everywhere.

For music so clearly divested of hope, this still radiates soul, making it a stirring tribute to Mr. Steele. [2 Jul 2011, p.51]

What you get here are all-out, blastbeat-fuelled trashers--for every anthemic call-and-response hook and melody, there's a lurching spine-crushing breakdown to follow. [22 Sep 2012, p.51]

Death metal has rarely sounded as deliciously demented as The Faceless do here. [11 Aug 2012, p.54]

It might just be the most fun release in either band’s esteemed catalogues.

Some have suggested Les Savy Fav have become of late. Or is it just that they're more comfortable in their own skins now? [18 Sep 2010, p.57]

This is the release that finally sees the band hit their songwriting stride. [1 Jul 2017, p.53]