MCII hits you with the immediacy of a record that you're listening to for the first time but feel like you've already heard a thousand times and yet still aren't bored of. [Jun 2013, p.70]

Thompson’s writing gives this stellar cast plenty to work with, her wit rising to such meta conceits as “John Grant”, on which John Grant sings of Thompson’s fondness for him, and “Those Damn Roches”, on which Teddy Thompson conveys the tempestuousness of musical dynasties – including his (and his mum’s) own. [Jul 2024, p.39]

Deep and heartbreaking. [May 2023, p.35]

The death of beloved bandmate Carey Lander in 2015 seems to have inspired the freshest, blithest song's [Tracyanne Campbell's] written. [Jul 2018, p.34]

The standard is so consistently high, sides so conclusively split, even after six years' familiarity with his schtick, that genius is the word. [Jan 2005, p.116]

Pete Townshend’s songwriting reaches deeper and wider with the unveiling of left field gem “Sunrise”, celebrated pocket opera “Rael” and the mighty “I Can See For Miles”. The band’s playful spirit also means it carries its conceptual weight lightly. [May 2021, p.46]

It's warm and weird, but suddenly no stranger than the world around it. [Jul 2018, p.32]

The extraordinary power and jaded romance of Suede, which has been given renewed depth and sparkle in this new version. [Sep 2023, p.49]

In short--a monumental album.

Noel Gallagher, who has been writing with Weller since 22 Dreams, co-pens one of the best songs he’s put his name to in a while: a stomping piece of glammy punk called “Jumble Queen”. .... Elsewhere, Weller’s own songs are also beautifully enhanced by other collaborators. [Jul 2024, p.24]

It's a more poignant epitaph to their fine career than the dour and sometimes impenetrable The High Country. [Apr 2016, p.77]

Songs Cycled is opaque and entirely accessible. [Jun 2013, p.80]

He’s a figure of Springstonian heft in his native Australia. Fever Longing Still, his first album of new material this decade, further demonstrates that the rest of the world’s obdurate indifference is entirely its own loss. [Dec 2024, p.36]

Ba Power feels like another dramatic leap forward and a further landmark in the integration of African tribal rhythms and western rock'n'roll. [May 2015, p.85]

There's a lighter, more hopeful bent to the musical settings, which perfectly balance the more dissonant leanings of The King Of Limbs with a sumptuousness and gentleness they've rarely sought since OK Computer. [Aug 2016, p.81]

Things are really supercharged here by Epworth's electronic touch. It's a highly potent and undeniably successful combination. [Oct 2025, p.24]

It’s an incredible, accomplished confection, kept on track by Greep’s way with a tune and the grotesquery of his ear-catching lyrics. [Nov 2024, p.36]

What soon unfolds proves to be a profound evolution via the almost operatic crescendo that follows. Over the remaining five tracks, improvisational noise-rock gives way to more considered and structured songwriting, lush melodies and singer Geordie Greep’s new vocal style – which he croons with stirring tenderness. ... There’s not a single predictable second to be found on Cavalcade. [Jun 2021, p.23]

There are ambiguities and contradictions, ecstatic visions and crises of faith. And a quest, not for some imagined grail, but for earthly and private resolutions. All fixed to music of the exquisite variety, from radiant acoustic studies to billowing symphonic pop. [Dec 2024, p.24]

Cruel Country is the rare album that throws everything that came before it into sharp relief – a small miracle for a band 30 years into its run. [Jul 2022, p.22]

From the moment you heard her with Our Native Daughters, you knew it was only a matter of time before she made her album for the ages. The Returner is that album. [Oct 2023, p.27]

“Hello, Hi” is one of Ty’s most lean and focused albums to date. But the closer you get, the more you spot its idiosyncrasies. Heartfelt and playful, homespun and surreal, down in the dumps and head-over-heels in love: here is Ty Segall in all his wonderful contradictions. [Aug 2022, p.18]

A darker and dramatically more cohesive collection than its predecessor. [Sep 2003, p.108]

The Ramones, like Warhol or Lichtenstein, were masters of doing one thing brilliantly and repetitively--something reinforced by the second disc of this set, which contains singles and unreleased demos, including tracks that would appear on subsequent albums such as “You’re Gonna Kill That Girl”, “You Should Never Have Opened That Door” and “I Don’t Care” but could easily have fitted on Ramones.

What strikes you is the sheer variety of styles and textures that Keenan and Cargill were playing around with. It’s a shimmering patchwork of ideas and moments, some more realised than others, some beautiful, some stark. .... Spell Blanket is a glimpse at what might have been. A memory of the future. [May 2024, p.42]

Whoever is singing, the beats are choppy and the mood intense. A revelation. [Oct 2018, p.24]

Sometimes ethereal and meditative, and at others blowing his sax and flute with an intensity that belies his seniority. [Nov 2025, p.33]

The quintet's most vibrant album in two decades. [Apr 2025, p.35]

These are songs to be treasured. [Apr 2014, p.73]

So while Lazaretto may sometimes appear to be a more nakedly emotional collection of songs than we've come to expect from its creator, the contents also rate among his wittiest and his wildest efforts to date. [Jul 2014, p.63]

Quite a lavish package. It includes some very rough demos from Headley Grange. .... Both the high-water mark of the prog concept album, and the most potent example of the genre's glorious, boundless absurdity. [Nov 2025, p.40]

Manning Fireworks, his third studio album and maybe his best, sounds like the Drive-By Truckers backing Vic Chesnutt. [Sep 2024, p.36]

Thrillingly pioneers its 21st century sound. [Jun 2023, p.26]

She's brought feelings to the surface that previously she may have kept veiled. It feels like a significant breakthrough. [Feb 2023, p.22]

Dream River [is] among Callahan's very best. [Oct 2013, p.63]

Kings of Leon zeroed in on their gifts for visceral rock grooves and soaring hooks--lifting standout tracks on their sixth album to a Springsteen-like level of gritty grandeur. [Oct 2013, p.70]

The Nashville Sound sees Isbell swaggering confidently along the rockier edge of his range--as usual--he's at his best on the reflective ballads. [Jul 2017, p.32]

Woodstock 50 is an archival feat, an exhaustive capsule melding bygone sentiments with timeless performances. [Sep 2019, p.49]

A Place Called Bad augments such high-water marks as 1983's Blood red River with rarities and live tracks like a 1983 demolition job on Captain Beefheart's "Clear Spot." All of it whets the appetite for explorations of Salmon's sprawling post-Scientists oeuvre. [Sep 2016, p.88]

11 raw but gorgeously melodic songs. .... One of the least cliched [breakup] records you're ever likely to hear. [Nov 2025, p.31]

On No Name, he’s done something special on his own terms, delighted and surprised his audience, and provided one of the great rock moments of the year. [Oct 2024, p.30]

With hindsight, the Rough Trade album with its seamless mix of folk, blues country, cajun and rock can be seen as the album that launched the phenomenon we would come to know as alt.country. [Feb 2014, p.97]

The intimacies of David Briggs' production and the pure strength of the songs suggest an album that, with a few overdubs and a bit more polish could have worked as that desperately anticipated follow-up to Harvest. ... Pride of place, though, goes to the two unreleased tracks {Give Me Strength and Hawaii]. [Oct 2017, p.

A mutant strain of noisy funk, hip-hop, subversive art punk and dirty disco. [Dec 2019, p.35]

It's a calming, beatific experience. [Aug 2023, p.34]

With echoes of Rickie Lee Jones and Gram Parsons at times, it all feels deceptively effortless. [Aug 2025, p.39]

A near-faultless record. [Apr 2005, p.97]

On The Spur, Shelley captures the ache and the sweetness, the loss and the love, the coming and going of it all, with greater scale and skill than ever before.

Nightclubbing is the album that came to define Jones as the complete performer, in her own way, as singer, muse, actress, alien and androgyne. [Jun 2014, p.90]

Martin's new stereo mix succeeds, principally through lightness of touch. ... Over 107 tracks, we learn that the making of The White Album was not quite the frigid stand-off that we might have been led to believe. But nor does this glimpse behind the curtain diminish The White Album's mystique. [Dec 2018, p.34]

In terms of unreleased material, the motherlode is the two-disc Live at The Matrix set, recorded on November 26 and 27, 1968 at the San Francisco venue. Of the 18 songs here, 10 are previously unreleased.... All are comprehensively bested by the 36-minute version of "Sister Ray." [Jan 2015, p.81]

A masterpiece in any time zone. [Dec 2023, p.26]

A riveting debut packed with ideas and invention. [Jul 2003, p.126]

Ranging from explosive Afro-funk workouts by Petelo Vicka et Son Nzazi and Les Bantous de la Capitale to more psych-influenced stunners by Abeti et Les Redoutables and Zaiko Langa Langa, these rediscoveries are thrilling enough for Congo Funk! to deserve a place next to African Scream Contest among Analog Africa’s most indispensable collections. [May 2024, p.53]

A Dolby Atmos mix deepens the sound of the album and a steven Wilson makeover of a legendary 1975 live bootleg from Los Angeles is another welcome inclusion. [Review of the Year 2025, p.40]

Age seems to have deepened his poetic faculties, these rootsy narratives scarred by experience, but all the richer for it. Crowell's best since The Houston Kid. [Apr 2017, p.26]

It’s the work of a focused artist who is consistently attempting to stretch out the parameters of their own ever-expanding sonic world. ... Yet another late-career highlight. [Oct 2022, p.22]

The Pylon Box is filled with moments that are equally exhilarating; evidently, what was feasible for Pylon was extraordinary by anyone else’s measure.

For the fourth album in a row, they've moved the goalposts, challenging themselves to apply their whooping idiosyncrasies to a new aesthetic framework. [Mar 2014, p.70]

Striking successor to 2021 breakthrough Pohorylle. .... Her phrasing is exquisite throughout. [Oct 2023, p.26]

One of the most adrenalising albums you'll hear this year. [Sep 2002, p.110]

This is the most approachable and therefore unexpected Osees album for some years. [Sep 2023, p.32]

McMurtry's flair for the cinematic shines brighter than ever. [Apr 2015, p.78]

This set combines recordings from a number of indie EPs, and while the ensemble always combines a bemused, tongue-in-cheek quality with a rock'n'roll fanatic's mindset, Dungeon Golds spinning out smart, graceful pop hooks and hard, Dukes-Of-Stratosphear-type psych--gazes hard at mortality. [Apr 2015, p.80]

A sun-dappled, idiosyncratic delight, flooded with warmth and vitality, yet weighted by an undefinable sadness. [Aug 2003, p.108]

Telescoping the timeline and illustrating The Beatles' progress with new selections, delivering in an impressionistic, nouvelle vague rush. [Review of the Year 2025, p.103]

Like any new city, this album may take some getting used to--there's beauty everywhere, but the streets are far from a neat grid. But as you walk them, Holter's genius as a sonic town planner reveals itself. [Sep 2013, p.96]

A record which transcends any scene's fleeting credibility. [Oct 2003, p.122]

Sometimes the honesty gets close to discomfiting, but it's always compelling. [Mar 2018, p.47]

It's an extraordinary set. [Feb 2014, p.92]

As with all of Le Bon's projects, the claustrophobic, wonderfully awkward whole is very much her own. [Mar 2022, p.31]

Yes, it's largely tuneless, the guitars and drums about as co-ordinated as a set of blindfolded square dancers, but the sisters' naive approach yields endless wonder. [Nov 2016, p.52]

The gravity of his subject matter finds a contrast in Swift's playful musical settings. [Dec 2018, p.33]

A startling, inspirational comeback. [Dec 2012, p.68]

In a recording career that stretches back more than four decades, Ry Cooder has never before made an album as immediate as Election Special.

Every song here has its merits; there isn't a dud among them. [Oct 2019, p.40]

Inspired song choices further deepen the spell in a beguiling instant classic from a masterful soul stylist. [May 2013, p.78]

A strange, rich and global journey in sound--lasting just 37 minutes, Bon Voyage begs to be put on again, each listen revealing more of the myriad ideas that make up its weird majesty. [Jul 2018, p.22]

Smash The System is looser, punchier, a surrealist pop masterpiece. [Nov 2016, p.28]

Its 15 tracks are filled with cheery major-key singalongs, sitar-soaked synth-pop bangers and whimsical waltzes that serve as ecstatic celebrations of life, rebirth and reinvention. [Mar 2026, p.20]

However minor these 45s may have seemed at the time, together they constitute a major discovery for any soul fan regardless of his or her denomination (or utter lack thereof). [Oct 2019, p.50]

A Jaime 2.0 likely to secure her status as an auteur in terms of both conception and execution. It's bigger, freer-thinking and more dynamically audacious record. [Feb 2024, p.20]

This is Forster in excelsis. [Mar 2023, p.22]

The 12 songs on his eighth ares till gloriously strange, though: lyrically as kaleidoscopic as mid-'60s Dylan, and packed with fascinating, contradictory references. [Sep 2016, p.76]

Another truly wondrous record. [May 2004, p.99]

Their first album in almost two decades, David Roback and Hope Sandoval are on stunning form. [Oct 2013, p.71]

I'm Bad Now feels as much a modest masterpiece as Spring Hill Fair or Tigermilk. [Apr 2018, p.32]

A 3LP set captures Sunday’s entire show, and there’s a shorter ‘best of both nights’ version – which surprisingly, but perhaps thankfully, skips “Country House” – but there’s no questioning the band’s enduring energy and charismatic chemistry, whether emphasising “Under The Westway”’s Bowie fixations or “The Narcissist”’s unforgettable hooks. [Sep 2024, p.29]

Suffused in both the dread mortality inspires and the peace that comes with accepting its inevitability, it simultaneously addresses the effects that the passing of years has on one's relationships and the compromises these demand. [May 2016, p.66]

A more enjoyable pairing of words and music this year it's hard to imagine. [Jun 2013, p.63]

13 songs of luminous, impeccably judged country-folk. [Nov 2025, p.36]

Played and sun with unassuming grace, it's an album of rare generosity. [Nov 2019, p.30]

It features a stellar setlist built around tracks from that album, liberally peppered with Horse classics and deep cuts. In all this, the Horse prove themselves dependably elastic. [Apr 2021, p.49]

By comparison [to 2019's Father Of The Bride], Only God Was Above Us is off its meds - grimier, sonically and spiritually; more compressed, more stressed. Lyrically, conflict is everywhere and nothing is stable. .... It would all be so much showing-off if the narrative ache Koenig displays wasn't so palpable, and the craft wasn't so meticulous. These guys listen hard, sometimes applying different processing effects on each word, even syllable. [May 2024, p.33]

From the yearning opener “Hold On” through to the life-affirming ruckus of “Queens” and “Better Love” and to the final epiphanies in “Alpine Drive”, Observatory is a triumphant expression of resilience in the face of all the hard knocks and harder lessons that fill a life.

The most prismatic Hiss Golden Messenger record to date, one that ranges confidently from the folk shuffle of "Say It Like You Mean It" to the taut rural funk off "Like A Mirror Loves A Hammer." [Nov 2016, p.22]

It may be the most accurate representation of her vision yet, a singular blend of abrasively charming feel-bad noir rock. [Jan 2024, p.28]

Impossible Truth says more with six strings than most records manage with a thousand words. [May 2013, p.79]