Farrar’s a reluctant figurehead for the down there and downtrodden. There are no gilded towers here, no tyrannies of elitist plutocrats, just the open highway and a ride in an old boneshaker with an engine leaking hopes and dreams.

The Route To The Harmonium feels like a return to the warmth of some of his earlier outings--not that he’s exactly satisfied--with a more mature Yorkston having crafted perhaps the album of his career.

The album improves halfway through, settling into a spacier late-night feel: retro electronic drums sprinkled over better tunes, with chunky bass and the twin male and female vocals more relaxed.

As with any Car Seat Headrest record, there’s always a whisper of a phrase, or an unusual lyric that passes you by and later stops you in your tracks. Likewise, there are plenty of musical layers and varied instrumentation that draw your ears one way and another.

If the thrill of the fight is one answer, The Blue Hour is up to it. Re-energised on all fronts, Suede are in the shape of their lives.

Boss Hog still thrill, still hint at a better future. Just one that comes before 2034 you’d hope.

There are likeable enough moments: Cuomo has such an instinctive way with melody that he won’t ever release an album without some saving graces. But, for the most part, this is no improvement on Weezer’s medicore output of the past decade.

There’s no doubting Howe’s immense talent but, though each album stands alone individually, bundled together here the material becomes slightly indistinct.

To put it bluntly, it’s the sound of REM album tracks circa 2001-2008, only with a less interesting frontman and a lyrical conceit that can often exclude the listener.

The Reckoning sees Johns sounding comfortable in his own skin and making a quietly accomplished record.

The 11 tracks, all originals penned or co-penned by Neville or Krasno, get to Neville’s very heart, placing his sweet voice in a gritty R&B setting.

It’s a sound of today with echoes of a gloriously simple past. It makes you wish that Hank Williams was around for a duet.

Veteran Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts sounds completely at home on Meets The Danish Radio Big Band.

A behemoth of a box, The Public Image Is Rotten offers over six hours of PiL brilliance.

Hearing these oddly innocent songs (and his speaking voice) can’t help but reignite that overwhelming sense of loss, and also wonder, since Bowie passed on nearly three years ago: has any artist been so loved or missed by so many? Even with all its frolics, fumbles, filler and foibles, Conversation Piece can only be welcomed and celebrated.

It's Efterklang's lushest, most straightforward and earwormy album to date. [Dec 2024, p.106]

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]

Butler's increasingly woodsy timbre serves People Move On nicely. It's not as stirring, with Butler's intimate tilt at post-Suede liberation anthem Not Alone losing the original's euphoric flush, though the trio's euphonious harmonies prove reliable - if occasionally drowsy - elsewhere. [Apr 2026, p.105]

Opener Let’s Make Out begins with 60s-style, chorused “whooos” before Mjöll (imagine Karen O with Björk vowels) urges us to have a snog, embracing you in a hook so strong you may well find strangers puckering up. That of the blissful, blistering Fire is even harder to escape, while Love Without Passion is a sweet hymn to a pure, non-sexual deep connection. Whatever their mood, Dream Wife are a band to fall for.

It's apparent that a lot of work has gone into paring these jams down into a focused and always interesting collection.

Son Lux haven’t quite lost it to trying, but the album does feel like it’s being pulled in two different directions--one far more interesting than the other.

It’s a stunning record – from the album artwork down to the perfectly-weighted running order, nothing is out of place and nothing jars. Matt Berninger didn’t want to write a solo record. But thank god he did.

It may be over a decade since their last album, but when Last Place chugs into life with Why We Won’t, it feels as if Grandaddy haven’t aged a day.

While it’s probably a good thing that the rest of record isn’t quite as intense as that [Waiting On My Horrible Warning], the 11 songs that follow remain a deliberately overbearing barrage of droning, snarling and unrelenting noise punk.

While not the cutting-edge of US punk, it’s still a wholly engaging retread.

Make It Fit is a worthy reunion record that extends Karate's legacy in all the right ways. [Dec 2024, p.107]

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]

Wherever you listen, Ruins pairs tough truths and tender melodies with tremendous expressive punch, from the piercing self-investigations of the title-track to Hem Of Her Dress, where heartache and rage merge with raucous honesty. Meanwhile, Nothing Has To Be True hews beauty from transformative circumstance.