Available on vinyl for the first time, and heralding the reissue of Jansch’s entire catalogue, Live At The 12 Bar is a cut above many of the similar live captures of Jansch’s work.

Chorus collects Lush’s entire back catalogue and presents it bound in a beautiful hardback book. Its contents remain highly desirable too.

Understandably ruminative in nature, it’s a renewed sense of creative vigour which provides the driving force on a piece of work which stands among the composer’s best.

As befitting a band who met studying music at Toronto’s Humber College, this Late Night Tales is akin to capturing a conversation by friends bursting with excitement, sharing their latest musical finds.

While this collection spans three decades, the focus is skewed towards the later years.

From the off, Flaming Pie sounds like the work of a man comfortable with his past. ... The 2CD and 3LP sets will appeal to those not willing to shell out hundreds – they cherry-pick the best of the home demos, outtakes and B-sides.

It reveals The War On Drugs at their most song-conscious and streamlined. The epic, immersive, unfurling tracks that have become a Granduciel trademark are notably absent (Granduciel says he abandoned a 32-minute jam track). Psychedelic flourishes are few and far between. Many tracks boast a hitherto unheard immediacy: prominent synths, unabashed choruses, and big-sounding songs.

Not everything works. The aforementioned Always You leaves little impression and the clunky Caroline’s Monkey, which shoehorns in every hackneyed junkie reference you can think of (“holes in her skin”, “ice in her veins”, monkeys on backs, etc, etc), is just about rescued from oblivion thanks, again, to its auditory nod to Kraftwerk’s locomotive-fixated sixth studio album. But otherwise, Memento Mori is brimming and sometimes soaring with immediate pop songs.

While certainly not all things to all comers, this deluxe edition makes a good fist of it.

Try the delectably thick-eared Shadow by The Lurkers, the uneasy Violence Grows by Fatal Microbes (with Honey Bane’s vocal a clarion warning from history), the insouciant Kicks In Style by The Users and, impregnable in its perfection, New Rose by The Damned --the opening salvo, the vital spark.

It may occasionally sound warmly, comfortingly like the past, but this is an album with its mind fixed firmly on the future.

This one lives up to the hype, producing acme-level chamber jazz and acknowledging Blue Note's history while pushing the label's narrative forward toward futurity. [Jan 2025, p.105]

Among the highlights are Carla's Beads, with its enveloping synth swirls and ringing percussion, and the mellow ambient jazz of Bi-Location. [Jul 2024, p.107]

Like the 1999 film Magnolia that earned Mann an Oscar nomination, Mental Illness would make a similarly engrossing mosaic of stories for the big screen.

This is a delightful, delicate return. [Apr 2025, p.105]

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

Fantasy Empire, with its discernible riffs, moments of relative calm--and even, dare it be said, choruses--is the best entry point for anyone curious about a powerhouse which has, up to this point at least, operated on the blustery, splattered neon fringes of noise rock.

Filthy, funny, affecting, Arab Strap sound like a band with a future again.

An intimate, expansive take on Brit-folk influences, mapping unexpected detours before achieving a communal flush. [Dec 2024, p.106]

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

The results are some of the most affecting works of his career, spun through with deep meanings and political sentiment.

An often-electrifying listen, full of surprise. Although rough and ready, Paul McCartney's ineluctable creativity shines through. [Jul 2024, p.97]

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]

Produced by Kate herself, this live set sounds incredible.

Lyrically, Chatten’s world is still tumultuous, yet he’s learned to coat it around a romantic, less uptight sound. Hopefully Fontaines D.C. can carry some of these moods forward but, whatever happens, this is a superb interlude.

This is soul-bearing at its most intriguing, the listener never quite sure of the root of the singer's malaise but nonetheless urging him to find his way to where he's going in one piece. [Nov 2024, p.101]

Amid all the proto-ambient wash is much soul and even funk, albeit of a lo-fi variety.

While this is a deeply personal work whose soul-searching recalls the defences-down honesty of Blur’s art-rock masterpiece 13, it’s emphatically not a solo album… Though it could be a duo album. One of the most touching elements of The Ballad Of Darren is hearing Albarn and guitarist Graham Coxon singing together.