By occasionally confusing drabness for darkness, they've fallen short of their own lofty standards. [Aug 2018, p.86]

With High Water I, The Magpie Salute have hit on a warm, rich vein of inspiration that might well sustain them for some time. [Aug 2018, p.88]

Lucero's honest, gritty Americana feels like a welcome dose of the real stuff. [Aug 2018, p.91]

Overall, this is their most eclectic album yet and, despite a couple of lightweight generic tracks, their most end-to-end enjoyable too.

An excellent snapshot of the post-punk, post-Iggy-tour Bowie, consolidating his past and present incarnations for the faithful in significant style. [Aug 2018, p.96]

This set contains some wastage, but more than enough demented brilliance to merit serious consideration. [Aug 2018, p.96]

Luke Winslow-King capably swirls the myriad strands of Americana. [Aug 2018, p.89]

A paradoxical mixture of bashed-together informality and studio finesse, a record that seems to evolve as it goes along. [Aug 2018, p.86]

Anyone not expecting a retread of his former glories will find enough here to enjoy. [Summer 2018, p.90]

This is a strange kind of beauty. [Summer 2018, p.88]

Things Change positively aches with melancholy and regrets, but, like the finest outlaw country crooners, Barham manages to find slivers of light in the darkness. [Summer 2018, p.86]

A spicy, heady, mostly satisfying brew. [Summer 2018, p.87]

The band more than reinforce their status as modern metal heroes. [Summer 2018, p.89]

A good chunk of this Comet is heaven-bound. [Summer 2018, p.92]

It's hard to argue with this gloriously detailed reveal of a a band leaving the underground and taking flight, one bloody controversy at a time. [Summer 2018, p.96]

A carefree antidote to worrying times. [Summer 2018, p.91]

This lone soldier is at his best when the cavalry arrives, with Jagger honking on a languid You Di The Crime, and Keef tussling with Jeff Beck over a fine Cognac. [Summer 2018, p.89]

Passwords is full of lustrous folk, as on My Greatest Invention and I Can't Love, with the odd innocuous AOR moment, though there's hidden bite. [Summer 2018, p.89]

It finds them on classic BJM form--a warm, densely analogue journey through inner space punctuated by churchy keyboards and tambourines that rattle like bones. [Summer 2018, p.86]

Play The Goddamned Part sounds like an annihilated sci-fi war zone haunted by the ghosts of nightclubs and patrolled by warbots constructed from the shrapnel of jazz saxophones. The more ambient I’m Not From This World feels like sticking your head into an alien death race’s knackered fusion drive and getting a face full of proton beam. Elsewhere, remnants of rock’n’roll survive the sonic desecration. ... It all reflects the corrosion of the millennial age, personal, political and ecological.

He's dancing to the beat of his own drum, and it's hard not to want to join him. [Jul 2018, p.86]

If you like your country with a side order of maudlin, saddle up. [Jul 2018, p.88]

Eleven years into their career, Tesseract are still thriving. [Jun 2018, p.91]

Loneliness has rarely felt so uplifting. [Jun 2018, p.92]

The music on Dove finds a band not only reinvigorated, but also taking enormous pleasure in its activities. [Jun 2018, p.91]

It's strange, and wonderful, to hear these now-cherished songs take their first teetering steps. [Jun 2018, p.90]

Peace Trail is a wide-open-sky gem that feels wild and free, while Cowgirl Jam s stupendous, a vintage Young showcase of instrumental assault and battery. Frustratingly, these highlights are punctuated by the six Paradox Passage instrumentals, which desperately miss a visual accompaniment to hang off. [Jun 2018, p.90]

Although these notes from an underground that was basically dug 50 years ago, they crackle wit contemporary need. [Jun 2018, p.88]

Pinkus Abortion Technician still rocks harder than anything this side of ... Melvins themselves. [Jun 2018, p.86]

The album is a monument to an eccentric, indefatigable, indestructible spirit who refused not to rock on. [Jul 2018, p.88]

Although his french horn resounds like a signature motif throughout his work, Czukay's genius was as a discreet creator of space, in which ideas, energies, colours and found sounds could flow freely. [May 2018, p.98]

The four-piece have lost none of their bite. [Jul 2018, p.86]

As Long As I have You surpasses expectations at every turn, a high-water mark in a career already boasting a fair few triumphs. [Jun 2018, p.92]

While it's not all ace material, it's still an atmospheric cocktail of pain, hope, despair and romance. [Jun 2018, p.91]

His debut solo album edges away from Korn's clattering, downtuned noise. What is unexpected is just how far from the mothership he's travelled--and how good the result is. [Jun 2018, p.88]

A grower, this. ... It's Tim Buckley to Beefheart to Bert Jansch and beyond. [Jun 2018, p.87]

This album solidifies Cabbage as one of the UK's more exciting new prospects. [May 2018, p.88]

It all gives the impression that The Sword, lost in their own reverie, won't notice whether you listen or not. But you should. [May 2018, p.92]

12 is another gem worth unearthing. [May 2018, p.92]

von Haysswolff achieves a new drone nirvana with her unique mix of soprano wail and minimalist-but-grand gothic church organ. [May 2018, p.91]

This is a promising first step into a new era. [May 2018, p.91]

The result is less a coherent statement and more a collection of songs that simply show off their eclectic influences and their ability to reproduce them well. [May 2018, p.91]

It's wise, but rhythmically, musically, it feels Byrne's age. [May 2018, p.91]

Ninth album Quiet And Peace is roughly one third quiet, peaceful and Chris Stapleton-like. ... elsewhere, All Be Gone and Lonely Fast And Deep recall the lumberjack Lemonheads of '93, but there's forward motion too. [May 2018, p.90]

The music is taut, compressed and, in places, vulnerable and beautifully resonant. [May 2018, p.90]

The histrionic power ballad title track is an undeniable hoot. It's just a shame that so little of the rest of the album makes any lasting impression. [May 2018, p.90]

There are plenty of great songs on here, but no stone-cold classic. [May 2018, p.86]

There’s a surprisingly thoughtful plague-themed concept running throughout, which, if you care to dig deep enough, equates the sins of the medieval church with today’s societal ills. All this elevates Ghost above the herd, placing them in the sacred company of Blue Öyster Cult and Marilyn Manson.

A clearly more reflective Springsteen emerged on tracks such as Tougher Than The Rest and One Step Up, the songs’ minimal backing placing emotions front and centre. It was a more scatter-gun Springsteen on Human Touch and Lucky Town, released on the same day in 1992, his hired studio hands struggling to provide the same heft as their predecessors, but the likes of Better Days and If I Should Fall Behind from the latter album shone like diamonds in the rubble.

Right now, though, they’ve rediscovered themselves, and there’s no reason why a new audience can’t discover them.

A loose concept album that charts the lows, highs and subsequent recovery of its protagonist, sonically it’s punchier, angrier even, than previous records.

Eat The Elephant gradually gains heft while staying intriguingly unpredictable.

The album concludes with Nicky Wire’s grainy lead vocal on The Left Behind, a charmingly offbeat detour into 1980s indie-rock. More of these eccentric tonal variations would have been welcome on an album that emerges as a solid exercise in arena-sized anthemics, majestic in parts but not a career peak.

Visconti busies it up, eking out build-ups and layering the ambient sound of a crowd arguing on We’re So Nice, while closer I Don’t Care gets jazzy. Overall, though, this is a well-behaved, orderly Damned: stoic, steady-handed and spirited.

If their debut was dependent on painkillers, Reiðl is the sound of a band beginning to heal.

If this is the last resurrected Hendrix studio material the world will see, then it’s a creditable send-off, yet we doubt it’s the last gasp it occasionally resembles.

AmeriKKKant feels like a measured response to the times.

When You’re Depressed is the jauntiest, most real song about depression since Paint It Black. Zelda’s In The Spotlight recalls genius early Mute made-up childlike electro-pop band Silicon Teens. If you can resist an album that features a glam-stomp titled 12 Knickers On The Line By 3 Chord Fraud you’re a better person than I am.

There are echoes here of The Fall in their Brix-era imperial phase, a clobbering garage-rock physicality spiked with dry wit and subversively sweet melody.

Just plain beautiful.

They’re not world beaters yet, but Starcrawler’s creepy appeal shouldn’t be underestimated.

There’s no pretense of indie cool here. Drive Me Wild features a blaring sax for an 80s viewed through a prism of nostalgia for a decade they never knew, and a towering, phones-in-the-air chorus, while ballad Cry ups the overblown ante even further.

Each and every one of the songs on Priest’s latest full-length Firepower--and yes, we know Legs Diamond were there first--are three-way collaborations between fellow six-stringer Glenn Tipton, frontman Rob Halford and Faulkner himself. And hell, the latter doesn’t so much step up to the plate on this, the second album of Priest’s BOK (Beyond Our Ken) era, as trample it into tiny little pieces.

Thematically, if previous Andrew WK albums have felt like having entire kegs shotgunned in your face, this one is like being syphon-fed after-dinner brandies.

The rehearsal tapes (appended as ‘Bonus Discs’ for some reason) are a raucous mesh of noise and then stabs of brilliant invention that cut through like a radio signal coming out of white noise. The unpublished photographs, nuanced liner notes and, deliciously, a download code for yet another concert (Hyde Park, 1971) not only reaffirm Fripp’s tenacity to keep creating and doing things in his own way, but to also frame those moments, hold them forever and see them sparkling in the light.

A brilliantly put-together collection from one of popular music’s most important cities.

Legend Of The Seagullmen is inventive, eclectic and gleefully unhinged, but if there are any criticisms to be made it’s that it’s over too soon.

Overall the album comes together in somewhat less cohesive fashion than Ride Out, and listeners may end up wishing for a Seger to take firmer grip on the steering wheel for one final album.

Produced by Youth, it’s a routeone volley of loud guitar riffs and peripatetic punk energy, railing at the establishment. It’s our world, they roar, and it’s on fire, so let’s not go gently.

Echo is a lustrous cosmic echo of Walk On The Wild Side, while the Doorsy atmospherics and celestial hooks of Ninth Configuration and Question Of Faith shroud personal and religious soul-searching that suggest Wrong Creatures is actually a conversation with their younger, wronger selves. Certainly the dark carnival of Circus Bazooko and stirring postrock finale All Rise prove they’re tackling their crippling Psychocandy addiction, making Wrong Creatures something of a colourful rebirth.

Since nothing has come close to emulating Sail’s sales, it’s easy to dismiss Awolnation as one-hit wonders; Here Come The Runts shows what a mistake that would be.

Make no mistake, this is an angry record made by a protest singer whose rage hasn’t dimmed with age (she turns 77 this year), though there are shards of positive light sneaking through.

Jazz standard Lullaby Of The Leaves begins in husky torch song mode, but gains interest with a brassy Bonamassa guitar solo, like a Bond theme played past midnight in a Chicago dive. When these rockers go reggae for Addicted, though, it is, as usual, a step too far.

Unfeigned and irresistible.

Locating the sweet spot where spontaneity and polish meet, Widdershins swings in all the right directions.

Fallon’s preoccupation with emotive storytelling and heartland rock remains, occasionally flying a little too close to a musical rehashing than being the modern reinvention he’s aiming for.

Always Ascending is a class act, polished, honed, several cuts above the mewling herd. New guitarist or not, Franz Ferdinand abide.

The synth-heavy The Signal & The Noise shows they can still quest when the mood takes them, but overall the album plays to Simple Minds’ many strengths.

Frankly, your head spins. Unpick it all, though, this is one of the most probing and pioneering avant-retro-pop albums of the age. And when Furman swerves from his Seraphiel & Louise narrative to discuss his issues with religion, coming out and the rise of the Far Right on the album’s jauntier ditties, it’s one of the most provocative too.

All in, it’s superior stuff, brimming with self-effacement and fun that belies the quality and seriousness from which it’s constructed.

Furious first single Cast The First Stone sets the pace for an album that’s utterly relentless in its intensity. There are the now-expected acoustic interludes so you can catch your breath here and there, but as face-melters like Wolf Named Crow and Forgive Me will attest to, this is Corrosion Of Conformity with their amps and their snarls turned up to 11. Thank Christ.

It’s a beautifully compiled set that shows what was really going on in 1967 and how subsequent years translated the aftershock. The guitars rock like a motherfucker throughout.

It feels retro, a description you can bet Flat Worms would be proud of.

Diggin’ A Hole is scratchy blues; Almost Always could have graced Harvest Moon; Stand Tall and Children Of Destiny are earworms; but if you want beauty, you’ve got it on Carnival, once the cackling stops. Neil Young is reborn, yet again.

Electric Eye elevate to captivate, they have the power to seduce a soul ascendent. With a post-Roses spin on a 60s soundtrack vibe here, a celestial sitar there, the succulent fruits of this particular tree are as seductive as Eve’s apples.

As a stand-alone album, it’s a trip. Where it fits in Dwyer’s canon is another kettle of bananas entirely.

This is a set of unlistenable, wigged-out, repetitive, directionless grooves in the main, but we love ’em anyway.

The lyrics are packed with so many trite clichés that you can’t help but wince, whether he’s wishing for world peace on Make Love Not War (which manages to make room for the Trump-supporting Love to thank the USA ‘and all the folks protecting us very day’), dredging up seafaring love metaphors on Too Cruel or fashioning sappy eco ballads like Only One Earth.

Expressive, feral, soulful, sensual, explosive… On Air? On fire, more like.

This is a brilliant time-stamp of a band on the cusp of greatness. In this all-encompassing collection, Metallica have actually managed to improve on perfection.

The post-hardcore foundations are here, complete with drama-fuelled, singalong choruses, but what The Used have built upon them opens up a new world of creative opportunities for them.

A handful of tracks shoot for the anthemic uplift of vintage U2, but fall short. The only real left-field beauty here is Love Is All We Have Left, a token reminder of the Dublin quartet’s shimmering ambient avant-rock period.

Occasional bursts of fierce, psychotic guitar evoke the spirit of punk-rock alter ego, Rikki Nadir. Otherwise it’s voice and piano and very little else. The intimacy is at times so intense it’s almost frightening. It is, to borrow the title of a VdGG song, ’eavy mate. There are some clever subplots too, Hammill being at the very top of his lyrical game.

A handful of solo piano interludes also summon inescapable echoes of Spinal Tap’s Lick My Love Pump. Overall, though, Synthesis feels like a successful experiment.

Neither a work of nostalgia nor a move away from the blueprint that made them so special in the first place, this album demonstrates that artistic quality cannot be confined to a specific place in time.

If you compare this to past triumphs like Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone--albums that pushed doom metal into heavier and more joyously drug-addled territory than ever before--Wizard Bloody Wizard falls a spliff or two short of the mark.

Automatic impresses in its scope and daring. Certainly, the drone-like Drive was a surprise choice for first single and opening cut, as if R.E.M were wilfully avoiding the rock god game.

Originally rejected by Reprise Records executives as being nothing more than a bunch of demos, the entire set is spun with some strange, surreal and beautiful magic.