[The] duo show a passionate reverence for the album format, from the artwork that took over 18 months to create to the songs that boast both style and substance. It’s one of 2024’s most engrossing listening experiences.

If it weren't for the stalker-punk of 'Pussywillow' and 'Time Passing', both glowering oddly from the mess and nodding towards early B-52s, we'd shove this in the wardrobe.

Teenager is simply more wonderful, bittersweet laze-pop of a hue at which The Thrills have become grand masters.

When you constantly remind the world how great you were, it rather detracts from the good stuff you're still capable of.

The fact that these titans of the US underground have collectively hoovered enough drugs and booze (and clocked enough jail time) to make Pete Doherty sit up and wonder makes their sheer longevity something to be marvelled at.

The sonic range on display is certainly a stark departure from the twisted world of Chvrches’ thrilling 2021 album ‘Screen Violence’, but at times, it can feel more like an ideas workshop than a bold artistic statement.

An affectionate, fuzzy-felt melodic alt.country rocking affair with sugarcane barbed lyrics. [26 Jun 2004, p.54]

They're most fun when they're really letting loose, though, which is pretty much always.

Each song is so powerful and crafted you can’t help but buy into whatever it is Ava Luna are trying to sell you.

Sadly, it's an isolated gem ['Dejalo'] that can't lift Under The Blacklight out of its dull AOR mire.

It's no classic, but perhaps the surprise here is that Manson’s music can work without the shock shtick.

A far more accomplished work than anyone suspected this bunch of deadbeats capable of.

Kelly shows how easy it is to keep it simple, melodious and un-synthesised; and on these occasions, Kelly's lyrics come to the fore.... when he shelves his obsession with opening your legs and opens his mind, that he is capable of making thought-provoking material.

Look beyond the spasm-inducing bass solos to Scott herself: a frequently magnetic performer, with a certain brave, defiant spirit that her peers lack.

It feels self-consciously downbeat and rustic, with a Gomez-style, recorded-in-a-shed sheen which belies Nigel Godrich's pristine, state-of-the-art production.

This record is a triumph of belief and dogged determination over those people who thought he was a barnacle on the coattails of his famous friend.

For the first time in years, Pet Shop Boys sound thrillingly modern. The songs, too, are the finest in years.

Like their too-cool-for-school foremothers, they kind of miss the point of what Italo is about. Unlike them, however, over 10 tracks, they can’t even muster one bleedin’ catchy choon.

They stake a firm claim for parity with arguably their most consistent set yet.

They have clawed their way back with an album encapsulating much of what initially made them such an exciting group.

While Reputation packs heavy artillery that was almost entirely absent from ‘1989’, it’s actually a helluva ride.

This is how you really do summertime sadness.

Just when you thought Chi-town loner Owen Ashworth couldn’t trump his previous four efforts in terms of schmindie obscurity, he goes and wheels out a bunch of twee reinterpretations of oldies and rarities.

Why are you half-arseing your way through such a thick slurry of clod-hopping ska-by-numbers? Or wallowing in pits of cliché?

Constant jangle blurs the songs, and a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Revolution Blues’ only emphasises Ranaldo’s newfound likeness to the Canadian in one of his dirgier moods.

Glory is no masterpiece, but it’s a marked improvement on 2013’s ‘Britney Jean’, a messy attempt to merge thumping EDM tunes with supposedly reflective midtempo songs.

Sometimes, on Magick Songs, you may wish they would--there’s a little alienating insularity here, but it’s still inspiring to see the band follow their instincts.

Stuffed with superfluous features, the Chicago rapper's 22-track debut studio album sags somewhat, but is almost saved by his infectiously optimistic outlook.