[The] third album's title is a funfair metaphor for life - sometimes scary, sometimes cathartic. The record stands firm in between. [Jul 2025, p.103]

Big names bookend this collection, courtesy of Johnny Cash's stately narrative on Johnny 99 and Steve Earle's pleading State Trooper (both songs originating from Bruce's Nebraska album), but the remaining 18 tracks are a mixed bunch. [Jul 2025, p.99]

It's as widescreen as anything he's ever done. He's back. [Jun 2025, p.105]

The mid-tempo results and on-the-nose lyrics can wear thin over 15 tracks, but Haim's melodic ease provides fitful featherweight uplift. [Jul 2025, p.104]

Where Rubin as co-producer, threaded some cohesion through the playful instrumental idiosyncrasies of Yiung and his long-running cohorts, Talkin To The Trees is, like the idea of a "chrome heart" itself, an uneasy hybrid. [Jul 2025, p.104]

Stupendous stuff. [Jun 2025, p.104]

Simz takes on several different genres, handling punk, samba and soul. The atmosphere is dark at times, but emotional honesty is always the priority: whatever style Simz tackles, she delivers it with impressive commitment. [Jun 2025, p.103]

As ever, a feeling abides of Cocker looking around him at the stuff of life – parenthood, divorce, marriage, loss, religion, class – and turning it into relatable and (yep) grown-up pop music. [Jun 2025, p.100]

Get Sunk is a return to the energy of early National. The driving, New Order-indebted single Bonnet Of Pins is a case in point, all vivid and surreal wordplay delivered deadpan till pent-up frustrations burst through. [Jun 2025, p.103]

These 10 tracks will undoubtedly please longterm fans, even if there's little here that doesn't revisit already well-trodden ground. [Jun 2025, p.103]

MAD! is ‘just another’ adroit, bold, clever, distinctive, epigrammatic, fascinating, groundbreaking, highbrow, inventive, jocund, kaleidoscopic, lowbrow, maverick, nonconformist, observational, piquant, quizzical, ravishing, smart, tough, unconventional, versatile, witty, xenodochial, youthful, zeitgeisty Sparks album. [Jun 25, p.102]

Five albums in, These New Puritans are still finding new ways to startle and surprise. [Jun 2025, p.104]

While the lyrics are typically sharp, reflecting righteously on "Systemic Extortion", the parlous state of truth and more, the music unspools along almost cosily familiar tracks. [Jun 2025, p.105]

It's an album which rewards repeat visits, and whose creator sounds more vibrant than a man of his noble vintage has any right to do. [Jun 2025, p.104]

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]

It becomes quickly apparent that Weirdo is a more personal record - gut-punchingly so, at times - but for all the pain that inspired it, it feels like a celebration too. [Jun 2025, p.105]

Returning to their core of stupid fun. [Jun 2025, p.105]

The album presents a dynamic artistry, full of ideas and emotional power. [Jun 2025, p.105]

The abstract industrial textures complement tastefully and spookily rather than overwhelm in confrontational fashion. [Jun 2025, p.103]

The result is a record of ever-changing moods, navigated with lush detail, care and subtlety. [Jun 2025, p.103]

Iris Silver Mist gently wafts through the metal space of a listener. [Jun 2025, p.103]

Theis ruminative reminder that at their core they're equal parts inspired by Cohen and Bowie is a shrewd, often stirring step. [Jun 2025, p.103]

There's no slouches on this exquisite release. [Jun 2025, p.105]

These are new songs sung in a familiar voice. [May 2025, p.103]

Starts out as you might expect from an electronic album made by Yorke mid-pandemic: a sort of cold, edgy, distant electronica for a cold, edgy, distant world. .... But in-between, the album takes some unexpected turns. .... An album that resonates in uncertain times. [May 2025, p.104]

Everything works. .... Genius. [May 2025, p.105]

Despite the turbulent emotions of the lyrics, Teitelbaum keeps her sound tight and focused - giving the album enormous impact. [May 2025, p.103]

Theirs is a sometimes hazy, sometimes pristine blend of guitars and harmonies which respects the succour of story-telling and implies empowerment without heavy-handedness. [May 2025, p.105]