There’s a time and place for material this demanding of the listeners’ attention, and it does take repeated listens for the album to really make sense, but when the mood fits, Painting Is hits the spot like only they can.

X's unspools warm, rarefied variants on his meticulously maintained minimalism. [Aug 2024, p.103]

This is probably their best record in years--so jump on board.

The gorgeously wistful All Of Our Yesterdays and Skyless Moon lament time’s passage, but Here Comes… barely wastes a second of its sweet, tender and winningly off-piste, high-plains drift.

This is a great country album to boot: full of great craft and guile, no small bitterness and a cracking production from Ray Kennedy.

New York… is a pitch perfect and regularly beautiful homage to the likes of Suicide and the Velvets.

Hearteningly, much of it sounds enviably fresh, and its 12 tracks crackle with contemporary energy even if a few of the riffs are a mite grungier these days. It is, however, a little south of perfect.

This blasé bunch of post-modern Gen-X alt-rockers still sound more ramshackle than playing rough demos of Pavement’s earliest material through a faulty boombox while being shoved down a cobbled hill in a wonky-wheeled shopping trolley by the late Oliver Reed. Some might find such slapdashery charming or even exciting. Others, I fear, will be rolling their eyes and reaching for Live On Two Legs by Eddie & The Pearl Jams.

The album does have its moodier moments, Hate on--easily the best track on the album--features a strong meditative groove, oddball sax, razor-sharp guitar chords and luscious harmonies. Along with the final track, it hints at a depth that is sadly not fully explored. Nevertheless, this album is a lot of fun.

When Julie’s Haircut get it right, they really get it right. ... By contrast, some of the Can-like vocal tracks are slightly less successful, the hushed chant of The Fire Sermon rendering the music repetitive without quite managing to capture the groove it hints at.

A beautifully rambling set that sounds like chums making it up as they go along deep in the woods. [Dec 2025, p.92]

The music is at its most interesting when it veers off at a tangent - the snappy organ fuelled Social Climbing Scene and the loping gait of the title track. [Mar 2026, p.104]

Love is the soundtrack to a short film by Jesse Nieminen (also titled A Walk With Love And Death), and is essentially a series of bugged-out sound collages. Though intriguing on first listen, it’s Death which is the real draw here.

Much of what stems from his bands’ 15th standalone album never really gets past that “nothing of a track” phase. In fact, often the mood music Coyne and the gang have striven to make – as much about beats and textures as it is melody--is frustrating.

Trouble is, the songs themselves are instantly forgettable, devoid of alluring melody or interesting lyrical content, and sung by a limited vanilla voice lacking in character.

It gets gnarlier elsewhere.

On occasion, the bare bones, stripped-back effects don’t serve the songs quite as well... Still, this should delight the distorted ears of Melvins followers, though they may need to get used to turning the volume up, rather than down.

Sometimes chilly, this set has occasional echoes of Vince’s former bandmates Depeche Mode and this largely successful, surprise direction so late in their career is certainly welcome.

She Paints Words In Red turns out to be the Camberwell crew’s finest--and most consistent--platter since 1990’s Fontana album.

A piledriver of a set, but it pulls you into his world.

It’s a tremendously playful collection that veers from the spectral spaghetti western of Visa To The Stars to Chicken On The Rocks; an screwball jaunt that’s begging to be used as the theme for an absurd Radio 4 panel show.

It’s arguably The Veils’ most complete and satisfying work to date.

The addition of Hammond, fiddle and nicely understated guitar make So Familiar one of the strongest tracks with Edie Brickell reining in the often drawly mannerisms of her singing style to accompany with great effect. Other songs are not so successful in marrying the feel of bluegrass with the sweep of a big song.

Smith’s voice admittedly sounds ravaged on the cranky Quit iPhone and the otherwise boisterous Stout Man, but at least he’s fully engaged throughout.

Their previous album Tincian revolutionised new Welsh language music and won Best Album at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for its troubles. The follow-up is equally as dark with a dystopian edge that suggests we’re all doomed. Yet there is a salvation of sorts in the band’s glorious three part female harmonies and in lead singer Lisa Jên’s centrifugal force-of-nature presence.

Gillespie's words can sound like platitudes when they're written down, but his sincerity and the music's sonic freshness and influence-exposing urgency elevate the material, evoking the Primal Scream of 30 years ago. [Dec 2024, p.104]

Relief all round then that their fifth album is a shimmering thing of beauty; a fresh summer breeze blowing in full of character and heart and sweeping away the dirge and disappointment of their last outing.

The past might be an albatross around Lydon’s neck, but he demonstrates superhuman strength at times, achieving lift-off in a way that nobody was really expecting. If the end of the world is nigh then PiL are going out with a bang.