An hour in her company is still time well spent. [Sep 2023, p.79]

It's invariably over-punctuated by hyperactive prog-metallic drumming and paradiddly percussion that leaves little space for their ideas to breath, while memorable hooks or riffs get buried in the chaos. [Sep 2023, p.79]

Still producing some of their best material. And on this form there's plenty of bite in this cranky old dog yet. [Sep 2023, p.78]

Another cracking album. [Sep 2023, p.80]

The ramshackle mix of lyrical longing, acoustic guitars and glacial synths would ordinarily be described as Americana, but the lyrics are still as British as fish and chips. [Sep 2023, p.76]

A cohesively themed album lathered in muti-tiered guitars, anthemic chouses and high-density power riffage, tempered by road-honed dynamism and built for the stage. [Sep 2023, p.76]

Finally, there's a modicum of funky glide in his introspective alt.country slide. [Sep 2023, p.81]

One to drown in. [Sep 2023, p.85]

Gilded vocal harmonies and gently chiming guitars are uppermost as the band move through subtle variants of form and texture. [Aug 2023, p.77]

An album packed with absolute love and admiration that is moving and inspiring in the extreme. [Aug 2023, p.79]

Pre-Jack'n'Meg, no one would've believed Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug could replicate B-52's/Kleenex, now it's almost routine. [Aug 2023, p.79]

Grim catnip for 40-something lapsed Nirvana fans. [Aug 2023, p.79]

Matches vintage MaximumRock'N'Roll short, sharp, DIY hardcore blurts with kindergarten puppetry to baffling effect. [Aug 2023, p.79]

Throughout, this album is a defiantly un-laddish joy. [Aug 2023, p.78]

This is a cavalcade of curiosities, a den of delight, a whole other world where grunge stayed open-hearted and open to misinterpretation. [Aug 2023, p.75]

Mountains finds the 71-year-old Lofgren railing at a world in which the progressive values of the 60s have been superseded by Trumpian self-interest, all in typically melodic fashion. [Aug 2023, p.75]

Starcatcher feels like their most consistent and complete record yet. [Aug 2023, p.74]

Predictably lyrically recherche, self-consciously Fall-esque and potentially driven by weapons-grade PTSD-ah. [Jul 2023, p.86]

An acquired taste, perhaps, but a neat 20s tweak of 90s grunge/grrrl tropes. [Summer 2023, p.79]

Sharp, bright, brilliant. [Summer 2023, p.79]

An entirely charming collection of bilingual Europhile duets. [Summer 2023, p.79]

Tracks like Horns Below Her Halo and the title one are some of the best in their class. [Summer 2023, p.77]

Cable Ties are invariably at their best when teetering on the very brink. [Summer 2023, p.79]

The gritty stomp of Where The Devil Don't Stay and the anthemic thrust of Carl Perkins' Cadillac and Day John Henry Died still resonate. .... The restored extras also hit home. [Summer 2023, p.84]

At times the consistency dips, but Deer Tick can still roll like a classic bar band, and closing track The Real Thing sounds determined and sure. [Summer 2023, p.79]

It's occasionally elegiac, delicate and whimsical on a song like Real Again, with an occasional side of the epic. [Summer 2023, p.75]

While a valuable document for nostalgic attendees, is, unsurprisingly, a hit-and-miss affair. [Summer 2023, p.74]

It bursts with the wide-eyed, childlike wonder that has underpinned so much of his work, interwoven with his uniquely kind, gentle and spiritual voice of wisdom. [Summer 2023, p.79]

This album is all heart, the camaraderie is immense, and Williams assures listeners that's it's not dark yet. [Summer 2023, p.78]

Bright New Disease weaving delightfully through disparate sonic territories, not so much pushing boundaries as booting them off a 100-story building and capturing the ensuant mess. [Summer 2023, p.76]

These lush ambient soundscapes mostly make great backdrops to the 62-year-old crooner's pithy musing and archly allusive lyrics, especially on more widescreen numbers. [Summer 2023, p.75]

Compulsive melodic momentum is the band's blood, but Hammond's experimental leanings keep it rich, surprising and deeply rewarding. [Summer 2023, p.74]

His vocal range and tone might now haunt the hinterlands often visited by Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, but the rasp from those hard-lived years adds a wonderful lustre to the songs and subjects he’s addressing and the things he’s chosen to write about now. [Jul 2023, p.82]

They can still craft the odd pop-rock banger. [Jul 2023, p.87]

With Life Is But A Dream… Avenged Sevenfold haven’t just transcended their metal peers for good, they’ve also created their definitive artistic statement. And it’s bloody fantastic. [Jul 2023, p.80]

Romy Vager's vocals are raw, earnest, and Tambourine is Brain Worms distilled, a taut memoir of remote mourning. [Jul 2023, p.87]

The result is the most varied album that Gov't Mule have made, and certainly the most concise. There is no room for noodling, even when the tracks go over the seven-minute mark. [Summer 2023, p.76]

Some of the lengthier behemoths among the seven tracks here, though, particularly the sprawling Flamethrower are a little overblown and tend to lose their way at times. Despite that, PetroDragonic Apocalypse is another worthy entry into King Gizzard's avalanche of ever-changing albums. [Summer 2023, p.77]

The classic stoner rock we know from QOTSA is alive and well, but on this record they've pushed themselves into the more experimental corners of their psyche. [Summer 2023, p.74]

Those with sensitive ears will find its more extreme moments indigestible, but it remains impressive stuff. [May 2023, p.78]

Now 30 and nicely expanded Come On feel captures its time to a tee. [Jul 2023, p.93]

A deeply rageful affair. .... Heavy. [Jul 2023, p.79]

Thoughtful, compassionate, heartbreaking and more, it's a record that is above all, deeply human. [Jul 2023, p.84]

For better and for worse Rancid have never been overly concerned with progress. Yet there's undeniable evolution on the early-Pogues-style stomp of both Hellbound Train and the near hoe-down Devil In Disguise. [Jul 2023, p.82]

Rip-roaringly emotionally vivid stuff with myriad tropes and devices cherry-picked from the rich tapestry of alt.rock past. [Jul 2023, p.87]

A set that casts a smoky haze over a remarkable event were characters from the shadow kingdom of Dylan's past come out to play one more time. He'll be a hard act to follow. [Jul 2023, p.91]

On the darkly groovy Crowded Rooms Hart is joined by singer-songwriters Eska and JGrrey to bolster Dury's spoken narrative as he grapples with successfully finding his place in the here and now. [Jul 2023, p.87]

The likes of Crocodile Smile and Love Is Like Gravity seem to teeter on the brink of chaos, but these seasoned players hang these pieces together faithfully and beautifully, jutting and jagging every which way, conjuring up the vivid abstractions of Thomas's lyrical visions. [Jul 2023, p.87]

Earns its place. [Jul 2023, p.87]

He doesn't disappoint as he smatters the bulk of this new record with orchestral strings. The pick of the tracks here are the pulsating Pretty Boy, the string-laden I'm Not Giving Up Tonight and the soaring Open The Dorr, See What You Find. [Jul 2023, p.84]

Sublime harmonies rule on You Don't Have TO Cry and The Lee Shor, both featuring guest Daid Crosby. But once the Memphis horns kick in during the show's second half, Stills seems to be fighting for pace, resulting in an overwrought For What It's Worth and Bluebird Revisited. [Jul 2023, p.92]

The rollicking barroom swager of Undone And Unashamed, complete with sax solo, is similarly appealing, as is the sardonic strut of Centennial Perspective. [Jul 2023, p.84]

The music is mostly luminous and spellbinding, but the slender 33-minutes us disappointing, a mini-album when such huge cosmic themes deserve deeper, broader consideration. [Jul 2023, p.78]

As determinedly quirky as its title, The Girl is Crying In Her Latte is a very strong collection of vintage Sparks moods, plus a few new left-field twists. [Jul 2023, p.84]

As albums go, But Here We Are might be the Foos’ most cathartic, but it’s also one of their best, and a fitting tribute to the late, great Taylor Hawkins. [Jul 2023, p.82]

Thirty-four years and 16 albums in, Therapy? still sound as vital and hungry as they did when they dropped their debut. [Jun 2023, p.72]

Magical. [Jun 2023, p.74]

The album reveals it's the breadth of his influences - Latin as well as Led Zeppelin - that accounts for his own style. But you will need to be a drum fan. [Jun 2023, p.74]

High Flyin' is fine, a romp, a moment captured in time. ... It remains more a curiosity than a necessity, though. [Jun 2023, p.82]

Young's voice is plaintive and cracked, the guitars whip up a veritable thunderstorm, nd the mood is stormy and reflective. Another treasure. [Jun 2023, p.82]

This is simply stunning. [Jun 2023, p.79]

A smacker. [Jun 2023, p.78]

It's the veteran's session, and with that stentorian voice Sweet Georgia Brown and I'm Just A Lucky So And So are highlights that warm any room you play them in. [Jun 2023, p.77]

While this album isn't quite as impressive as the record in its original guise, it's still an interesting shift in gears by the Mars Volta. [Jun 2023, p.77]

This album feels like musicians bouncing ideas off of each other in the same room. [Jun 2023, p.75]

That The Church remain so vigorous and vibrant is a delightful surprise indeed. [Jun 2023, p.75]

All told, Darkadelic is a vital and reassuringly pugnacious return. [Jun 2023, p.74]

It's elegiac, claustrophobic and contagiously disturbed. [Apr 2023, p.79]

It's the sixties end of the nineties again, yet repurposed with significant flair. [May 2023, p.81]

What's surprising is that Anderson can kick up more menace with his flute than any number of hoarse roaring voices and thrashing guitars. ... The music lightens up when Anderson moves on to the sagas themselves, but the intricacies remain. As do the idiosyncratic allusions. [Jun 2023, p.78]

The songs are great. ... This is a collection of brilliant, swinging rockers. [Jun 2023, p.76]

Temples' fourth leaps from the speakers tapping veins of electro-psych, hypno-kosmische and soft-focused unreality. [May 2023, p.81]

The 2LP set sacrifices the live cuts, which, while so competent they're not exactly bristling with edge, possess a different air to the out-takes. [May 2023, p.87]

Four discs of heavy-lidded, slope-shouldered, shoe-gazing aural opioids. [May 2023, p.89]

Nude Party take things distinctly easy on this surprisingly more-ish collection and their overall growth benefits immensely. [May 2023, p.81]

While this ninth starts well it ultimately nags 'could do better'. And they have. [May 2023, p.81]

Though Weirdo's pop smarts err on the glossy, there remain enough hooks and swagger here to convince. [May 2023, p.80]

Delving deeper into funk groove and psych textures, this expansive ninth record pays a flying visit to such old haunts, to find its hedonistic crowd now wracked with late-capitalist economic woes and struggling to stay rock'n'roll post-rehab. [May 2023, p.78]

Its best moments veer away into austere orchestral grandeur: the title track is fittingly climactic and Love From The Other Side resembles a civilisation tunefully collapsing. [May 2023, p.77]

Shades of Dead Moon and The Scientists, US 80s hardcore litter tracks like Plasticity and the monstrous swirl of lead single Almost Everything but Mudhoney remain their own, inherent force of nature. [May 2023, p.77]

Nobody is allowed to dominate the sound of the album, which is haunting and imperial at the same time. [May 2023, p.76]

72 Seasons isn't an easy listen; it demands work. ... Metallica's only concern is making the best Metallica album possible irrespective of what's going on around them. On that score, 72 Seasons is a ringing success. [May 2023, p.76]

Lavish production disguises thin songwriting on a few tracks, but overall this voluptuous sonic feast feels like a fitting epitaph to departed friends. [Jun 2023, p.72]

By making music that reflects on their lives both personally and also as part of a wider, global community, they're managing that high-wire balancing act without the use of a safety net. [Apr 2023, p.78]

This is the maturing of cute metal, and it's still nuts. [Apr 2023, p.76]

It makes sense with the book on your lap, but otherwise, the album may not convince. The acoustics are peculiar on tracks like Pride and the vocal mic seems compressed, rather than expansive. Something to do with surrender, perhaps. What remains of it, when you give yourself away. [May 2023, p.80]

There's much to love here, with the jangle-crunch of Buckle Under Pressure and prefer To Lose proving he has the ideas as well as the gear. [Apr 2023, p.75]

You've got another classic BJM album. [Apr 2023, p.79]

Their best album yet. [Apr 2023, p.78]

A spectacular squall of uber-MBV sungaze dream-pop propels indigenous Swinowish/Inupiaq woman Katherine Paul's jouney. [Apr 2023, p.79]

A rewarding journey that delights in a celebration of friendship, inclusivity and 'this crazy dream of our utopia'. [Apr 2023, p.79]

For Raincoats fans this is the most similar to their underrated third album Moving, for its fluent, danceable, off-kilter rhythms. For everyone else it's a marvel waiting to be discovered. [Apr 2023, p.76]

His love for the music shines throughout. [Apr 2023, p.75]

None of the 17 songs waste any time getting where they're ultimately going. ... Seriously, it's time to believe. [Apr 2023, p.74]

A proper ripper. [Mar 2023, p.76]

They've mastered the marriage of swagger and sensitivity, guts and grace. [Mar 2023, p.76]

The single Mixed Emotions (I Didn't Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through) is the album's manifesto, the chiming opening riff breaking into a wall of sound while singer Josh Franceschi howls his failure to communicate into the gale. And the onslaught rarely falters. [Mar 2023, p.78]

Paramore have successfully remoulded the cornerstones of their music not only for the new times we find ourselves in, but also for a personal evolution, and maturity evident across This Is Why. [Mar 2023, p.76]