Serious times call for serious records, which Franz Ferdinand have delivered with their sixth studio album. Well, sort of. Fear in all forms is examined on The Human Fear, but there's still that lightness of touch that marks them out as a band it's fun to dance to. [Jan 2025, p.102]

This anthemic approach will undoubtedly work in a live setting, tracks such as Flowers In The Rain ad=nd the Evocative I Will Set Fire To The House indicate a wide repertoire. Fascinating to see how they develop their sound next time round. [Jan 2025, p.105]

Moore's laconic vocal style serves every track well. [Jan 2025, p.104]

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's highlights range from toe-tapping big band swingers (Big John's Special) and serene Ballads (Tapestry For An Asteroid) to more Outre pieces like the epic Friendly Galaxy and the otherworldly Reflects Motion. [Jan 2025, p.92]

Its 21 affectingly overdub-free songs reveal an essential truth of The National in the 202s, that they're a band at the absolute height of their live powers. [Christmas 2024, p.133]

12 is a bright, fresh joy, lovingly tooled for pure uplift. [Christmas 2024, p.133]

An intriguing but ultimately underwhelming record. [Christmas 2024, p.131]

Halo Moon distils everything that makes them great on one handy album. [Christmas 2024, p.133]

Some of the best playing of his career. Essential listening. [Christmas 2024, p.121]

Another winner with their seventh album. A big part of its success is down to smart collaborations. [Christmas 2024, p.131]

Elusive but unerringly questing and beautiful, Camelot thinks bigger than any billboard. [Christmas 2024, p.130]

Highlights abound, but it's hard to beat the sorrowful strains of Double Business Bound and its swirl of piano and steel guitar, or the overhauled Tom Petty jangle of Taught By Experts. [Christmas 2024, p.133]

There are subtler, sometimes surprising, details lurking in the main maelstrom. Also in contrast to that cathartically apocalyptic racket, the duo have added some nice warm brass parts. [Christmas 2024, p.131]

An album that's one long masterstroke. [Christmas 2024, p.132]

This isn’t an album in the Simon & Garfunkel mould, a folk-tinged duo with a good-humoured foray into the past. There’s barely a guitar in sight, instead all violins and cellos, just a touch of electro going on amid the orchestrations that make it, at times, dark and moody, and always thoughtful and imaginative. The orchestrations are deftly arranged, far from simply a star singing with strings attached. [Christmas 2024, p.128]

Campbell'n'Lanegan-ish duet Driving Nowhere (with Pat Dam Smyth) could use more tension, but the guitar spiked likes of Daily Rituals and Ceremony sow determination and fortitude. [Dec 2024, p.109]

This new remix of the album’s original 11 songs is subtle rather than headline-grabbing, thanks to the sympathetic diligence of triple Grammy-winner Paul Hicks, a longtime friend of the Harrison family. That’s borne out by the softly-softly handling of the previously unheard outtakes, polished for public consumption but never at the expense of their embryonic intimacy. [Christmas 2024, p.123]

Once you’ve finished playing spot the difference it’s a blast. .... And the mono mixes have a vitality and punch often lacking from recent remixes. [Christmas 2024, p.120]

In terms of the original nine-track album, a new stereo mix is designed to bring a warmer ambience to proceedings, and it succeeds especially on The Night Comes Down’s clearly defined separations of May’s many multi-layered guitars, a fuller in-your-face theatricality to Freddie Mercury’s voice (on Great King Rat and Jesus most effectively), and more organically resonant drums throughout. .... This is a record that continues to impress as a groundbreaking hybrid of heavy rock, prog and glam. [Dec 2024, p.97]

The cumulative effect of the 81 tracks that make up Retrospective’s five themed discs – The Best Of Bryan Ferry, Compositions, Interpretations, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Rare And Unreleased – is to create less a timelessness than a no-time in which Ferry hangs suspended, a woman hovering over his shoulder… leaving, staying, it’s all the same to the man who’s observing the “in” crowd even as he stands within it, replaying its antics in the projection room of his mind. [Nov 2024, p.89]

For the Can-curious, a remarkable place to start. .... Thoroughly recommended. [Dec 2024, p.94]

Orzabel and Smith still superbly soundtrack our mad world. [Dec 2024, p.109]

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

It captures her on spine tinging versions of 60s mod club favourites. [Dec 2024, p.90]

Tillman sounds abundantly alive: flushed with wit and luminous melodies, his songcraft remains an inexhaustible pleasure. [Dec 2024, p.106]

With the hollering title track even lamenting astronomical energy bills, it seems Warmduscher have fuel left in the tank yet. [Dec 2024, p.109]

By the time the album ends with a sprawling I Don't Live Here Anymore, which boasts sparkling keyboards and chiming riffs the emotional catharsis is deeply satisfying. [Dec 2024, p.109]