Their best album in some considerable time.

It’s a dark folk contemplation, austere acoustics from abrasive, angular strumming, but it feels connected, like it’s part of the earth, part of that elemental, ritualistic essence of being in tune with natural forces.

It’s an excellent and cohesive appendix, far preferable to the hotchpotch of remixes sometimes appended to successful albums.

It all adds up to a stylish album that rolls back the years yet sounds right up to date without ever deviating from what Gouldman knows and does so well. We have no notes for you, Graham Gouldman. [Aug 2024, p.100]

Does a fine job of transmitting the spit and fury of their own shows, even o the studio setting. [Jan 2026, p.101]

The Buzzcocks are back. Pete Shelley is, sadly, no more but Steve Diggle does a rip-roaring job in reinventing the band, even if we miss the nasal vocals. [Feb 2026, p.101]

After a while, the lushness of the vocals becomes a little wearing if you’re looking for the cracked, dark heart of yore; a futile task in any case, as that heart stopped beating a long time ago.

10 are less than two minutes and only one is of any substantial length--the last track and best one. This makes it a slightly stop/start stumbling score, one that never really settles and gets going.

This is clearly a personal project following a specific template, tailored to Alison’s own passions, and is all the better for it.

Trouble Maker is up there with their best.

The most vibrant cuts here, Long Time Coming and Brand New Name On An Old Tattoo, rise above generic nostalgia, but very little else is worth a second listen.

Part 2’s tracklist does find room for efficient new versions of songs Brix co-wrote for The Fall (LA, Feeling Numb and the enigmatic Hotel Bloedel) but they’re merely the icing on the cake here. Indeed, they’re arguably bettered by newly-minted songs such as the stomping, Big New Prinz-esque Something To Lose; the shape-throwing Damned For Eternity and the psych-pop candy floss of Moonrise Kingdom.

It's strictly old-school, in a good way. .... Streisand still sings like a dream. [Aug 2025, p.102]

One forgives most of Booth’s excesses and there are plenty on the oddball chanson tracks Alvin and Waking. It’s an anything-goes approach.

Unsurprisingly, Noveller has scored many films in the process of building her voluminous catalogue; out on her own, but playing a subtle role in realigning 21st century music.

A pretty good, not great, pop record. [Christmas 2025, p.132]

Cameron could be a pop contender, but the masks that make the man are as much barrier as blessing here.

This is no modest return, either. It’s produced by Rick Rubin, rock’s very own St Jude, and features Richard Thompson, Charlie Musselwhite, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Tinariwen, so it all sounds rather lovely despite the variety of styles.

There’s nothing here as radical as Young’s brazen take on God Save The Queen, for his far more engaging 2012 covers set, Americana, and the performances are decidedly tossed-off, even by Young’s capture-the-moment standards.

With fire and fury in their bellies, September Girls manage to keep their balance and keep pushing on into ever darker territory.

As Keaton forcefully exclaims in The Pugilist, “I’m an artist, and I still have songs in me yet”, a sentiment he has demonstrated perfectly with Kindly Now.

Mixing up the correct dosage proved tricky, but, to Berry’s credit, Music For Insomniacs reclines on a perfect plateau: chewier than your workaday (workanight?) ambient dribble, but not so rich with incident that you’ll sit bolt upright.

The band’s full-length debut has spent a long time in the works, but it’s nonetheless an impressive statement of intent.

Their dense, clenched teeth sound has allowed them to cross over to rock fans, but can come over a bit try-hard, though that is not to say that the album is anything less than interesting, well put-together, filled with high standard rapping and at times strangely majestic.

It’s easy to be cynical or apprehensive about “lost” tracks resurfacing years later, but there’s enough A-grade material on Out Among The Stars to make its belated arrival something to celebrate.

His eponymous seventh LP feels like a massive leap forward, as though an epiphany has allowed him to put all the right pieces in all the right places, and suddenly the picture becomes clear.

The Darkness are big. It's rock that got small. [May 2025, p.103]

It doesn’t always gel entirely (the false-ending-blighted Look At Your Life quickly grates; Change simply feels forced) but Who Am I’s blissful harmonies are second to none and both the celebratory Relief and chugging, metallic The Times subject the Hackneys’ patented, hard-driving Detroit rock’n’roll sound to a strikingly contemporary overhaul.