It contains some of the band’s most ambitious and thought-provoking songs.

Citizen Zombie is more disciplined and linear than its epochal predecessors, yet it also reveals that its creators remain a force to be reckoned with.

Your Favorite Toy is more a reaffirmation of the joys of rock'n'roll as an outlet for catharsis. [Jun 2026, p.101]

Gorgeously sepulchral pieces such as Beste Freunde and Glasterlenspiel are perfectly suited to the church where they were recorded as longer improvisations to be edited down, suspending time as they hang in hauntingly contemplative reverie, which is still breaking boundaries. But, in a perfect world, it might even mark Roedelius’ commercial breakthrough.

Naysayers might dismiss it all as derivative, but who cares when it's despatched with such confidence and an innate understanding of pop's rich grammar. [May 2024, p.103]

There's a decent hardcore punk song, Two Fists. Elsewhere, there's too much mid-tempo chug to make this album fully adrenalised. [Jul 2024, p.105]

It's an album that shows, beyond any doubt, that Jon Hopkins is a singular electronic talent not bound by either his past or expectations. [Oct 2024, p.101]

Far from a mere collection of diffuse songs with big voices upfront, the result is a properly wrought album of dynamic contrasts, its singers fully committed to Marshall’s sense of big-rock drama. There’s darkness within, for sure, but it’s also a record that knows the value of letting the light in. [Aug 2024, p.102]

Oberst's lyrical palette bulges with literary references, Elon Musk critiques and confessional plaints, while spectral Chan Marshall duet All Threes hits a note of welcome restraint. [Dec 2024, p.106]

Tracks like the clipped, infectious Zombie Love and strutting, preening Cool People show that their ability to write catchy hooks with a sharp edge remains undimmed. [Dec 2024, p.108]

There's a certain amount of aggression here - see Purge, an homage to the horror film series - but otherwise Merciless is largely a toetapper rather than a headbanger. [Jan 2025, p.102]

The album teems with very well constructed, uncomplicated, what-it-says-on-the-tin indie, with the runaway, synth-led, The Strokes-y Like You Did Before a highlight. [Feb 2025, p.103]

The album doesn’t stray far from the pop template established by early single Chinatown; only now there’s a more self-assured swagger, backed with clear and confident production.

Command Your Weather is like a 40-minute bear hug from a band that peddle heaviness with heart and soul. Hurry up and get yours.

While you couldn’t say Inside The Rose goes beyond the furthest reaches of moments such as V (Island Song), from its predecessor, neither does it play things safe. Newcomers may feel that elements of Kate Bush circa Hounds Of Love or Hansa Studios-era Depeche Mode provide reference points, yet nevertheless, a track such as Beyond Black Suns is nothing but pure TNP: overlapping motifs, doom-laden beats, interweaving vocal lines and a song that resolves nothing, but does so with the utmost confidence.

It’s a bracing listen then, and one that forces you to suspend belief as it whips past. But just as with each and every White Denim record, it’s wholly rewarding, repaying repeated listens, letting you check off things you hadn’t heard in it before.

There’s no denying that he’s operating in a vastly oversubscribed field, but Rosewood Almanac delivers in an economical 34 minutes as vividly and as seductively as any other 21st century confessional singer-songwriter you care to mention.

It never feels quite enough to warrant the repeated listens that any one of Malkmus’ other solo records deserve, which feels something of a travesty.

While this 12-track set clearly comes from a Hoxton state of mind, there’s a liberated imagination running riot here.

Containing 10 songs and with a running time of 30 minutes, it’s tantalisingly brief but never short of quality.

At times, this record can come across as little more than a variation on one of those CDs of new age music designed for meditation and spiritual well-being--Marim, for example, is a collage of pan-pipe-like sounds and water noises, and Omar could feasily belong to the type of compilation called Rainforest Colours--but there are some treats here.

Well worth the extended wait.

Throughout, they’ve remained a surprising and, more importantly, single-minded unit.

His high, husky voice recounts tales of hope and desperation over immaculate production that combines the staples of guitar, bass and drums with restrained washes of strings--about as far from the stifling, mainstream Nashville Sound as imaginable.

If at times Silver Eye is easy to admire yet difficult to love, you are never that far from a tremendous hook or captivating vocal.

Strutting arrogance is his game, and it’s sometimes an uneasy mix with the ghosts of those whose spirit he aims to evoke.

It has all the majesty one expects from the contributors, and all the ingredients that one expects to result in its pieces being used for indie film soundtracks and the like.

It’s never quite clear whether the album is an arch exercise throughout which Berry keeps an unimaginably straight face, or if any comic leanings are the fault of the listener, projecting “funny” on to what is a wholly accomplished work.

Van Morrison’s voice is in fine a form as ever. The important thing is that while he – and the rest of the crew – head down a well-travelled road, they certainly don’t sit in the middle of it.

All told, a rebel-rousing cut above today’s sludge.

The mellow-vibed Green Aphrodisiac also stands out with its succulent refrain and addictive, jazzy groove. The song’s introspective demeanour reflects the album as a whole, which mostly presents heartfelt meditations on love and life.

Above all, Los Niños Sin Miedo is an album made to soundtrack youthful exuberance--knowingly dumb in places, chaotically enthusiastic all over.

These are assured, solid songs by very good musicians, albeit lacking a killer punch or any wild, barrier-pushing inspiration. [Feb 2025, p.102]

Rarely dipping below engaging, Doris is a welcome return that could all too easily have been dashed off or worse, ended up morbid.

This is solid, satisfying modern metal for the kids, and maybe even some wizened oldies too.

It would have been good to have a wider selection of their work here. Surely such an enduring and eclectic band deserve more than a single disc for their admirable milestone anniversary.

It’s hard to imagine the masses rushing out to buy this, but any curious readers will be in very safe hands if they happen across it on their travels.

If Cardinal established Pinegrove as the punchy, poetic point where alt-country, US alterna-rock, beat-style lyricism and Sufjan Stevens-ish banjo meet, Everything maps a scenic route there.

There's delicacy, not least on the softly breathless title track, but sometimes much more... Witch, with thumping drumbeat, turns things up a notch, and by the time we get to Rats we have full-blown rock. [Jun 2025, p.105]

Opening track Woman IS The N***** Of The World has been quietly omitted, which will probably enrage Lennon completists, surely the set's biggest buyers. [Dec 2025, p.91]

It's the polar opposite of Moby's early hardcore punk and dancefloor output, so go elsewhere if that's your preference. [Mar 2026, p.104]

Boarding House is schizophrenic in the extreme. Despite being spawned in said room, later work has over-egged the pudding. While certain sections of songs work, they’re quickly thrown back into a maelstrom of hip-hop drums, Oh Sees squawks, fine gospel vocals from The McCrary Sisters and vintage synths.

Bang Zoom Crazy… Hello, their 17th album and first since 2009, is the latest in a number of stillborn attempts to recapture those glory days.

It’s A Holiday Soul Party is both celebratory and socially astute, comprising originals and traditional songs.

On Spirit, Depeche Mode aren’t quite repeating themselves, nor is there real revolution in their sound. But they are nevertheless going forwards, and fans will be happy to join the march.

Their sound is now more stark and metronomic than ever before.

A thoughtfully compiled career-spanning collection, performed solo on acoustic guitar.

Peanut Butter’s 10 songs fizz by in no time at all. A livid onslaught of pop suss.

Despite highly effective stabs at afro-jazz (Kingdom Come), highlife (One Life To Live) and salsa (the fiery Agoya), it’s on the spiritual jazz numbers that the band really come into their own.

It seems to exist almost in spite of itself, careening energetically down paths it desperately wants to avoid. To that extent, Blood//Sugar// Secs//Traffic is a cacophony of contradiction, but one very much worth investigating.

Everything is despatched with verve and attitude, respectful of country music traditions but filtered through a broader, more urbane worldview.

Herbert is right to want more from music and to deliver his messages accessibly, but the lyrics are sometimes (perhaps disingenuously) generic and devoid of sharp edges.

It’s a consistent and intermittently inspired set but while it flows seamlessly throughout, the strident Roll It and intricate, Before Hollywood-esque Don’t Be Right are arguably the keepers here.

Musically, it’s primarily beefy, anthemic business as usual--fine for the most part, even if Road Rage and the glitterati-decimating Hollywood Goof Disease veer perilously close to predictability.

Luneworks works best when the Rhodes, laptop and ennui work in harmony, seemingly unguided, providing moments of pure blissed-out release.

At its best, the record touches on a manic, countrified rock that very early Kings Of Leon might’ve deemed too farmyard to get away with. Occasionally it bleeds over into a blander, stadium sound that seems unbefitting of its creator. But it’s never dull, and in fact often white-knuckle. It’s just a shame it took so long.

Fusing those 60s influences with rich electronica creates a tableau that’s familiar in parts, but offers a distinctive twist to the predictable.

With its strings, horns and woodwind corralled into transformative shapes by Brit orchestrator Chad Kelly, the result leaves behind its predecessor’s heads-down retro-rock for a more expansive, if introspective offering. [Aug 2025, p.104]

Sonically, it boasts richer textures than recent albums, thanks largely to the pair’s expanded touring line-up playing a greater role in the studio; a more fleshed-out sound than the occasionally irritating minimalism of yore. Arguably, the decision to beef up the instrumentation is designed to bring heft to the lyrics’ serious topics, even though the band are, as ever, likely to be preaching to the choir.

There is plenty here to remind you of their previous triumphs, as well as those of similar labels such as Estrus and Crypt.

Like its clumsy title, this release finds itself falling between two stools; stuck in mid-Atlantic, perhaps. It does have its moments, but may fail to win new converts.

Like most covers albums, though, this collection isn’t designed to bear serious analysis, so have some fun with God Save The Queen, Cat Scratch Fever and what have you. The real Motörhead is to found elsewhere.

True, the stoner-rock Passengers interrupts the flow - but not for long. Ironically, it makes for Kasabian's most epic album since Empire 18 years ago. [Aug 2024, p.104]

Here's he's reimagining his own work, and not necessarily the best known. [Dec 2024, p.98]

Little here quite matches the inquisitive methodologies of Allison's Consciousology, but this like-minded pairing's double vison is a beguiling place to lose yourself in. [Feb 2025, p.102]

If her more country rock-slanted work for Mount Moriah could be read as a measure of that distance from her roots, Lionheart closes the gap. By trawling her Appalachian background’s feelings, beliefs, experiences and details, McEntire has reclaimed country music for her own personality.

Golden Teacher aren’t quite there yet, just missing a tune or two that really defines what they do. They haven’t produced something that is manages to simultaneously play to their strengths; as catchy as opener Sauchiehall Withdrawal, as rhythmically engaging as the West African-inspired Diop, as pumping as Spiritron.

If you sometimes miss Tigers’ unruly improv-tumult, the pay-off is an album of poised beauty with its own pocket-universe logic, exemplified by the softly searching communion of synthetic/organic sounds on Marsh Chorus.

The tracks drift by like soporific imitations of past glories--for the most part there’s nothing especially wrong with the songs, they just sound as if they could have been composed using a Van Morrison Song Generator.

So, yes, good album, with some obligatory pratfalls, very few longeurs and several quality flashes of the innate melodic gift that, after all, put him precisely where he is. During those best bits, the “he’s 76, after all” qualifier becomes utterly redundant.

The overall feel is accomplished and often catchy, but it’s not as intriguingly esoteric as some material in this vein.

We Disappear is the brashest, most mainstream-sounding alt-rock record The Thermals have pulled off to date. It rarely pauses in its pursuit of hook-laced, punk-pop anthems such as The Walls and the bittersweet Thinking Of You, but it sounds especially jubilant on the best of its Grim Reaper-related numbers, Hey You.

While slightly inconsistent--perhaps the result of having four different singers – overall, this is a record full of hope and sadness and all the space that lies in between.

While we should never compare a solo artist with their band’s work, when the template they’ve already set over the years is so very strong, and when they don’t at any juncture try to reset it, the feeling of missed opportunity is perhaps potent and hard to escape.

The rhythm guitars remain acoustic and there are country-style embellishments from piano and pedal-steel players. The overall impression, though, is that the circles in the Venn diagram of Mascis' solo and Dino works are overlapping more than ever. [Feb 2024, p.101]

At just 10 songs Do To The Beast is concise and enjoyable, but doesn’t have the cohesive energy and poetry of its predecessor.

This is effectively juxtaposed with ominous understatement, and the shifting moods, combined with varied instrumentation including harmonium, banjo and electric piano, make for an intriguing, satisfying listen.

On this latest effort, Edwards conjures echoes of various esteemed mongers of sweet-melodied sadness but never manages to equal their miserable majesty. At the same time, he fails to stamp much of his own individuality on the collection.

He has certainly struck gold. This is out-and-out the best pop release so far this year.

Conceived in antithesis to the tediously technically proficient metal that’s abundant these days, EW’s ninth album takes joy-doom to another level. Their riffs match the fuzziness of their weed-fogged minds.

What stands out most from this time is the sense of possibility and spirit of adventure. [Feb 2026, p.96]

While a far from conventional listen, this may still be Presley’s most accessible album to date.

Dusk goes nowhere, basically. It ambles, seems happy to hide behind the sofa, but is charming, feels totally complete and when it ends you feel the urge to hit repeat. Again.

Though it may take several listens before you realise how comprehensively it’s seeped into your pores. It’s a subtly fetching, minor-chorded, soft-pop sepulchre, conveyed with stealth and tranquilly defocused implication, as opposed to sturm und drang.

So the album remains a solo project, despite the welcome input from Robyn on Hang Me Out To Dry. The duet hints at how human Metronomy can sound when more life is squirted onto their palette.

Cooper ventures further out, navigating abstract naval routes plotted by lonely hearts and plagued by daydreams, his tides of burbling static and deftly deployed lap-steel influenced by the solitary missions of real-life sea salts such as Vital Alsar and William Willis, their adventures a certain metaphor for Cooper’s own singular musical path.

The Specials remain adept at appropriating the songs of others to further fuel their message.

Imaginative, reflective and confident, complemented by Thomas Healy and Samuel George Taylor's empathic production work, there's fine songwriting here. [Mar 2025, p.105]

Opener If You’re Here is a perfect encapsulation of his art. Languorous, gentle, slightly off beat, its discordancy is offset by gorgeous harmonies sung with customary fragility by Oyamada. The rest of the album rides his well-established line between indie and electronica, with the quirk-heavy Sometime/Someplace and Helix/Spiral--a neat take on krautrock by way of Stereolab – providing the highlights.

Thankfully, while pouring out his soul into three or four-minute measures he never loses sight of his attractive Americana-goes-pop sensibilities, most perfectly realised on Over The Midnight and the title track.

Brasher, younger-sounding than the band’s previous records, but with the hard-won wisdom that experrience brings.

Take your cues from Twin Peaks and find solace in their best effort yet.

Though it falls some way short of the arid, acid-fried surreality of their key early releases Meat Puppets II and Up On The Sun, their 14th studio set, Rat Farm, is one of their better post-millennial efforts.

Singer’s Grave works as a great record in its own right and--perhaps surprisingly, considering its gestation--could be the best starting point for those yet to explore his work.

While Steve’s fingerprints continue to leave a few smudges, six albums in, Justin looks like he’s better equipped than ever to step out of the shadow--and he’s apparently done so by exorcising a few ghosts.

It’s an absorbing, plaintive record that gets under your skin.

Hayman’s lyrics, vocals and musicianship add up to a frequently touching whole. One wonders though if the presence of others has previously helped smooth out any little wrinkles.

It’s infused with enough rhythmical disturbances and difficult time signatures that it ends up straying far from that path. It’s still full of joy and wonder, but there’s an extra element of wilful confusion. While it makes these songs less accessible at first, in the long run, if you stick with it, it actually adds to their clout.