In the extensive sleeve notes, Gedge, with music writer Mark Beaumont, offers valuable insight into the songs that made the cut. [Nov 2025, p.98]

It's not that the music is especially innovative, but songs such as Darkness Always Wins and Like A Woman Can sound highly compelling, thanks in part to frontwoman Lzzy (sic) Hale's commanding presence. [Nov 2025, p.96]

It's an edgy, sometimes brilliant, jazz-meets-art-rock mash-up. [Nov 2025, p.92]

Here they come full circle, embracing the very essence of their classic ambient dub masterpiece Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld. Moreover, there's a return to the dancefloor of the early nineties. [Nov 2025, p.104]

A country classic (yet tempting for rock fans, too) made up of leftovers that would have been career greats for so many artists. [Nov 2025, p.97]

Poised and exquisitely crafted, Blight's mediations on the effects of human actions are delivered with a gentle sincerity that disarms cynicism. [Nov 2025, p.102]

This is a no-quibble five-star release and truly essential listening. [Oct 2025, p.120]

John Congleton's production energises the festival-ready ructions of Cowards Around, though the indifferent arrangements of Quiet Life and Nothing Better struggle to distinguish Shame's snapshots of suburban frustration. [Oct 2025, p.133]

It's a warm, happy-go-lucky record dominated by rinky-dinky pianos and honey-sweet harmonies. [Nov 2025, p.105]

Several songs misunderstood Molina's stripped-down approach as frailty, which leads to some rough and rickety performances, but overall, I Will Swim To You is a more than solid salute. [Nov 2025, p.98]

There's no way of guessing what's coming next. Americana doesn't do it justice. [Nov 2025, p.105]

It may take a while to get past opener I Shaved My Head, but once you do, the apocalyptic intensity of Environmental Catastrophe Film and unfolding drama of Sibling Fistfight At Mom's Fiftieth/The Un-Sound are absolutely stunning. [Nov 2025, p.103]

Conceptually distinctive album. [Nov 2025, p.103]

There's also a shiner, more recent 80s aesthetic shot through on (I Can't Help) Back Then You Found ME and the epic final End With Sunrise, for a catchy and affecting portrait of the many ages of Idlewild across one album. [Nov 2025, p.103]

While this long-gestating album bears very little for those artists' fans to immediately relate to, it conjures something new and different instead. [Nov 2025, p.103]

Deeply thoughtful, it's a raw, heartfelt work, articulated by Johnson's superb voice. [Nov 2025, p.103]

The rhythms are as timeless as they are tight. [Nov 2025, p.103]

It's a 17-song trip into beautifully strange music. [Nov 2025, p.103]

Of wider interest will be the small handful of demos (although they're hardly revelatory) and a full live show from the subsequent tour. It's here the songs seem less confined, more direct and powerful. .... Lamb... remains an album that relishes its ability to surprise. [Nov 2025, p.99]

Even if stronger records would follow, the fuel that energised them is on often glorious show here. [Nov 2025, p.95]

It's clear that the lines so easily drawn between this and the Fleetwood Mac epics to come give this not only a familiarity but a slightly spurious contemporary feel. [Nov 2025, p.90]

Ash balance the experimental and traditional like the seasoned pros they are. Ad Astra is a delight. [Nov 2025, p.102]

With Neil Tennant adding to the sense of occasion on a joyful Rebel Rebel, a celebratory There Is A Light... affirms Marr's undimmed bond with his audience. [Oct 2025, p.131]

A loving feat of minimalist yet atmospheric collaboration, executed with exquisitely controlled restraint. [Oct 2025, p.133]

The result is Case's finest yet: a record of fire, felling and finely detailed distinction. [Oct 2025, p.132]

Michelangelo Dying, her seventh, is her most refined accomplishment yet. [Oct 2025, p.130]

Saving Grace may sound organic, but make no mistake; this carefully curated mix of British and American influences, both ancient and modern, clearly bears Plant’s personal stamp. [Oct 2025, p.128]

Generous and unguarded, Twilight Override contains multitudes. [Oct 2025, p.133]

Each of the 14 songs here is a gem in its own right, packed with witty wordplay and sophisticated hooks. [Sep 2025, p.105]

Joy In Repetition carries on where last year's augmentation of their debut album, Coming On Strongerer, left off. [Oct 2025, p.122]

Hasn't sounded so confident since his 90s commercial peak. [Oct 2025, p.131]

With style, charm and feeling, Lekman's lush valentines to love songs revel in all they survey. [Oct 2025, p.131]

Although Alex Farrar's production is slightly more refined, that only means vocalist Karly Hartzman's conspiratorial storytelling is crystal clear and the North Carolina band's musicianship is thrown in sharp relief. [Oct 2025, p.133]

These albums aren’t grand artistic statements, nor do they need to be. Nothing’s gonna touch him in these silver years (wah wah wah), and he’s tossing them out there for fun alone. He also sounds like he’s enjoying himself, chatting and joking, on the much-seen Montreux Jazz Festival gig from 2002, preserved here (and featuring a near-complete performance of Low). Montreux isn’t the only extra: Reality Live is also here, as well as Re:Call 6. .... His next two albums were grand artistic statements. [Oct 2025, p.116]

Dim Probs engages with deeply rooted truths. [Oct 2025, p.133]

This is intelligent easy listening in a band setting. [Oct 2025, p.132]

His most compelling album in almost a decade. [Oct 2025, p.131]

A career high to match her attention-grabbing 2016 debut. [Oct 2025, p.133]

There's an abandoned sense of mischief and good times here that doesn't automatically come with overdosing on Rumours. [Oct 2025, p.133]

Throughout, Amos' playing is brilliant, ranging from savagely intense on Life Signs to Nights In Amor's classic FM radio pop. Yet the highlight is full-on techno monster Playing Classics, six minutes of delirious abandon. A beautiful place is right. [Oct 2025, p.133]

It benefits from listening in stillness rather than on a speedy walk. [Oct 2025, p.132]

Byrne isn’t on fire here: while the songs do sometimes deal with biggish issues with elan, the music’s just too merry, too jovial. Of course, that contrast is deliberate, but – perhaps it’s the times we live in – it feels pat in context, even glib. [Oct 2025, p.132]

It's a metaphor for absence, loneliness and disconnection, which Harding explores via eleven songs whose retro soul feel is enhanced by Steve Hackman's lavishly elegant string arrangements. [Oct 2025, p.131]

The overarching sentiment of the album - that development isn't linear, and healing is often cyclical. [Oct 2025, p.130]

The Beaches get their points across by grafting moody alt-rock textures - looking at you, The Smiths-esque Dirty Laundry and Cure-reminiscent Sorry For Your Loss - with explosive chorus hooks. [Oct 2025, p.130]

To the end, Saint Etienne have never faltered on their mission statement. Magic is here. Believe. [Sep 2025, p.103]

Los Angeles and Double Infinity evoke the stream of consciousness brilliance of R.E.M.'s E-Bow The Letter, while Happy With You finds blissed-out rapture in repetition, All Night All Day is the lusty country song of the year and No Fear achieved Zen enlightenment in dub. [Sep 2025, p.103]

Improbably, they've pulled off the rarest of feats: a middle-aged rock band who remain interesting and invigorated, going from strength to strength. [Sep 2025, p.101]

As with previous albums, the musicianship is impeccable, but Cooper's vocals often fell too polite, the guitars bloodless. [Sep 2025, p.105]

A little more variety in tone would allow the album's heavier tracks to hit harder, but if it's high-quality heavy rock you're after, Beth has delivered it consistently. [Sep 2025, p.103]

The Irish singer's third album smartly juxtaposes the traditional and the modern. [Sep 2025, p.103]

Give or take a couple diversions (Bad Call, Legalize Living) into stomping 70s glam, the Swedes deliver the usual hi-jinks with the remorselessness of an overwound clockwork toy. [Sep 2025, p.103]

A record which explodes Yorkston's typically understated, open-hearted songwriting with a fierce emotional interplay between the three voices at work here. [Sep 2025, p.105]

What’s most remarkable about Revival revisited is perhaps not the attention to detail of the arrangements, nor the determination to recapture every last fuzz, thrum, reverb and flourish heard on the first studio versions. Anyone listening to Fogerty’s testifying rasps on Have You Ever Seen The Rain? or Bad Moon Rising 50-plus years ago, might have expected him to have roared himself mute by now. But no, the power and presence of the voice haven’t weakened in the slightest. [Sep 2025, p.104]

The melodies may be a little more complex, but only rarely does Guitar sound as beguiling as 2023's Five Easy Hot Dogs. [Sep 2025, p.103]

An album of layered, witty and fully felt elisions. [Sep 2025, p.105]

These reinventions work best when Campbell's invention pushes Allison's gorgeous voice to the fore. [Sep 2025, p.103]

It sounds immaculately like now and yesterday all at once. [Aug 2025, p.103]

While the subject matter is never less than serious, Carving The Stone can be commended for its boldness in addressing it without losing sensitivity, conveyed through Balfe's skillful lyricism. [Sep 2025, p.103]

Her eighth and arguably most satisfying musical adventure to date. [Sep 2025, p.92]

On early takes of I'm Not In Love (slathered in squelch) and Found A Job (crowded with delay effects) you hear how judicious restraint and the fastidious dispositions of all involved would make the final songs, like the words Byrne brings to them, seem somehow both precise and spontaneous at the same time. [Sep 2025, p.95]

Much of it goes beyond kitsch. With a favourable wind and a Rushent, Horn or Moroder at hand, some of these guys (it mostly is guys) could have made it. [Sep 2025, p.98]

A worthy addition to the Kuti legacy. [Sep 2025, p.104]

Although a couple songs don't fully capture Neale's compositional skills, the closing track There From Here is a tremendous highlight. [Sep 2025, p.105]

Panic Shack are the antidote to sad-sack girl singers: they make being a young woman sound absolutely brilliant. [Sep 2025, p.105[

It's a gorgeous, reflective, surprising listen. [Sep 2025, p.105]

Perhaps surprising in its straightforwardness, although the sound of him warbling and MCing through swatches of distortions all over these more amenable tracks was always likely to be incomparable. [Sep 2025, p.105]

A sublime soundtrack for summer nights. [Sep 2025, p.104]

The title track is suitably dreamy and orchestrated and Ghost Of You has a hint of 70s John Cale in its enjoyably opulent chord sequences. There's still room for a little Welsh. [Sep 2025, p.103]

Yep, that good. It's obvious we're in the presence of greatness, and the rest of the album doesn't disappoint. [Sep 2025, p.103]

It all makes for a mouth-watering amalgam of rock, country and soul that gets richer with every listen. [Sep 2025, p.103]

An abundance of never previously heard material casts fresh light on these initial efforts, revealing ideas and arrangements in gestation as Drake experiments with tempo shifts and subtle melodic variations. .... This wonderful compendium is akin to eavesdropping on that magic being born. [Jul 2025, p.97]

The result is an often joyously multi-hued meeting of minds, mixing the duo’s initial no-nonsense nods to The Troggs/Stooges with glitter-band swagger, splashes of psychedelia and the subconscious eruptions of Haines’ ingenious lyrics. [Jul 2025, p.100]

The Manticore Tapes is a fascinating insight into the early days of the band. [Aug 2025, p.96]

Throughout, this is the sound of the Alice Cooper band playing with revitalised vigour and tangibly loving soul, riven with the unexpected “left turns” Alice credits to Dunaway and Smith. .... The Alice Cooper band and Ezrin have produced 2025’s most faith-restoring rock’n’roll set, that does their fallen comrade proud. [Aug 2025, p.100]

A compelling snapshot of the group in their infancy, but already on their way to being fully formed, it captures then in a joyous mood. [Aug 2025, p.94]

There's a lot to digest here. .... Tracks II is a formidable testament. [Aug 2025, p.97]

Barnes and a cast of collaborators rebuild tracks powerfully and atmospherically using free jazz, hip hop, drone, acid funk, breakbeat and ghetto house, Barnes using a mix of rapping, sprechgesang and soulful falsetto, to create a powerfully atmospheric album. [Aug 2025, p.103]

This uniquely personal set will resonate with the wide fanbase she's gathered. [Aug 2025, p.103]

It's strictly old-school, in a good way. .... Streisand still sings like a dream. [Aug 2025, p.102]

An album that shows humour and fortitude in the devastating loss of innocence. [Aug 2025, p.103]

While the album (understandably) feels fragile in spots - Furman's falsetto vocals in particular exude sensitivity - Goodbye Small head bolsters its serious subject matter with sturdy, gorgeous musical statements. [Aug 2025, p.103]

Focusing at times on loss and life's cruelty, the tone is often sombre though always dignified. [Aug 2025, p.103]

Never less than compelling, it confirms im as one of hip hop's most compelling stylists. [Aug 2025, p.105]

2t2 is divided between rhythmic and meditative material, and it is never less than enthralling. [Aug 2025, p.105]

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]

Moisturizer is a strong stab at something else: permanence. [Aug 2025, p.104]

A joyous release that's as eclectic as the vinyl selections in a first-rate junkshop, anchored by long serving ex-R.E.M. sideman McCaughey's exuberant yelp. [Aug 2025, p.105]

Musically, it is akin to a stack of chairs balanced precariously on a tightrope. [Aug 2025, p.105]

With diss track No Fruit as a droll closing note, the result is a seductively shape-shifting affair: sometimes affecting, sometimes witty, always captivating. [Aug 2025, p.105]

The result is where the primordial meets the cutting edge. [Jul 2025, p.105]

Swallow unfurls as an impressively sculpted soundtrack for dystopias real and imagined. [Jul 2025, p.105]

The result is her finest work yet. [Jul 2025, p.103]

The ballads are less effective at keeping Thomson's troubles on track, with six-minute closer Go All The Way lacking a hook to justify its dramatics. But it's easy to root for a band plainly so committed to aiming for grandeur. [Jul 2025, p.103]

Where they step into new territory is with Skin's restrained vocals and more electronic elements: whether you enjoy the ethereal synth of Shame and This Is Not Your Life will depend on your taste for stripped down beats and dark textures. [Jul 2025, p.105]

Eclectic in all the best ways. [Jul 2025, p.105]

Throughout, Shura blends acoustic guitar with melancholy synthesisers as beautifully as she blends her vocal harmonies, which, along with a sprinkling of woodwind and funk bass, come together in muted catharsis. [Jul 2025, p.105]

Gorgeous. [Jul 2025, p.104]