In showing the workings behind the most important transformation of his career, Rock’n’Roll Star! underscores just what a remarkable thing Bowie achieved: this is the mortal man behind the extraterrestrial dressing, and it’s no less compelling for that.

All of this music is a blast, an affecting display of the emotional textures which Collins has always dealt in so confidently, regardless of his health issues. [Apr 2025, p.100]

This Richmond, Virginia quintet bring as much energy and focus to the music as they ever did. [May 2026, p.92]

A third of the way in, there’s a sequence of up-tempo dreampunk numbers harbouring brattier attitudes and melodies of a more generically slapdash nature, at which point this reviewer’s notebook became overly burdened with ditto marks. The quality picks up later with a couple of shimmering near-ballads. As far as power duos go, that’s not a bad ratio and it certainly beats those impotent hacks known as The Black Stripes or The White Keys or whatever they were called.

As well as drawing more liberally from the likes of My Bloody Valentine and the Cocteau Twins, this time they’ve woven into the mix some 80s synth-pop motifs (Masquerade could be Duran Duran circa 1982), but the overall effect remains as bewitching as ever.

Look For Your Mind! is another winner for the d'Addarios, packed tight with stunning musicianship, sparkling songcraft and ingenious arrangements. [May 2026, p.98]

A record of complex emotions and fine-grained nuance. [Jan 2025, p.105]

With Silent Earthling, TTT present a nuanced and more muscular version of their sound.

Live... never drags, remaining furious throughout.

Trouble Will Find Me manages to pull off the impressive trick of finding the band at once at their most direct and musically inventive.

A great record that proves her writing remains as vital as ever.

At their best when the music fires along to match Chubb's lyrical catharsis, Sprints occasionally falter when the pace drops: even Chubb sounds anonymous among Literary Mind's more considered atmospherics, while Shadow Of A Doubt promises to build to a crescendo that never quite arrives. [Jan 2024, p.101]

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

While his fourth record is still a thing of beauty, it’s a fractal work that splinters off into bursts of grandiose noise and multi-layered, multi-instrumental wonder; you’d describe it as comfortably at the opposite end of the musical spectrum to early songs like Lookout, Lookout and No Tear.

Cacti might show Maries in survival mode, but revealing vulnerability has seen her songwriting soften and come into its own.

It’s an absorbing mix of spooky comedown synthtronics, night-time traffic ambience, electro glitches and animals scratching at the door, over which Hval sings, whispers, talks and pants her feelings and philosophies.

In the Shadow Kingdom, the smooth seduction of I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight comes out downright lusty, while the jinking melody of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue ebbs and flows here, seemingly dragged by swollen waves of sound. Some lyrics are subtly changed, others are turned on their head – the devotional To Be Alone With You transformed into something dangerous and desperate (“What happened to me darling, what was it you saw, did I kill somebody, did I escape the law?”).

Different Every Time joins the dots between those songs (the questing, experimental Moon In June and wise, heartbreaking Just As You Are) to stunning effect on Disc One, while a second CD collates some of the wildly sociable Wyatt’s best extra-curricular work.

It’s disjointed--clumsy, even--with only glimmers of consistency, but the hardcore will appreciate that this is the way the band works: nothing comes easy and rewards are hard-won. Those listening out for singalongs, heartbreak and any solidity are better directed to the best of.

Western Stars is Springsteen at his most novelistic, scratching out pocket portraits that owe as much to the printed word of John Steinbeck, Raymond Carver or even Jack Kerouac as they do a lineage that would boast weather-beaten troubadours like Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Webb, or his younger self.

It’s a lot to take in, and fresh corridors reveal themselves with each listen; it’s questionable whether they lead to any answers, and Fay would be the last person to claim they do, but it’s an intriguing exploration every step of the way.

There’s not a weak moment in these 11 songs.

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

With themes of adult responsibility and parenthood bearing heavily on his mind, it might sound solemn in places, but it’s a hugely rewarding listen, a baroque-folk companion to the gorgeous undulating mysteries of Rock Bottom.

While producer Tucker Martine provides inspired, inventive backdrops, Blau’s powers of interpretation make these familiar songs (To Love Somebody, No Regrets etc), very much his own; an unexpected marvel.

Despite the general autumnal mood, the easy-going charm of Oval is worlds away from Almond’s rumbling menace. It’s all compelling enough to keep drawing listeners back for the next 14 years. Magnificent.

Halo is the sound of a mischievous, philosophical soul in full swing. An idiosyncratic joy.

They took their sweet time, but that Breeders line-up is back, and has just nonchalantly knocked it out of the park.