Suffering a little from the transition from live set to bootleg to official release. [Jul 2022, p.87]

It's a delight to hear the fully emergent Young so up and close with such a pantheon of wonder, and the sound is near-perfect. [Jul 2022, p.87]

The atmosphere is stunned, reverential. [Jul 2022, p.87]

Tasty, raunchy and mind-expanding stuff. [Jul 2022, p.82]

Perhaps more than any other Rammstein album, it feels like a collection of songs deliberately built to soundtrack a future series of spectacular live set-pieces. [Jul 2022, p.81]

On Fear Of The Dawn his foot spends plenty of time flat on the fuzz pedal. [Jul 2022, p.80]

Across 70 minutes, the band return in their heavier style. [Jul 2022, p.80]

C’mon You Know itself is a bit of a cracker, finding a ‘repentant’ Liam (‘I admit that I was angry for too long’ – choir-enhanced opener More Power) gleefully infuriating his usual detractors (with Diamonds In The Dark’s ‘Now I know how many holes it takes to…’ hook), delivering catnip ballads (Too Good For Giving Up), hitting all the right Liam Gallagher buttons (Don’t Go Halfway) and occasionally kicking hand-me-down Stonesy arse (Everything’s Electric).

Resolutely back in rich, seamy and downbeat alt.country territory. [Jun 2022, p.83]

Trower’s guitar playing is deliciously inventive, whether he’s channelling Mark Knopfler on Wither On The Vine or moving closer to Eric Clapton circa 461 Ocean Boulevard on the title track.

The title track about wanting to know more about your partner, is strong enough to rise above the clichés, but some others are not so fortunate. [Jun 2022, p.79]

Rock'n'roll in 2022 doesn't get any better than this. [Jun 2022, p.82]

Twee and tuneful, self-consciously oddball and so indefatigably alt. [Jun 2022, p.83]

It's instantly accessible. [Jun 2022, p.78]

Ann Wilson knows her music history, and it resonates powerfully throughout this fine album. [May 2022, p.82]

This is not easy listening but it is arguably Laibach's most sonically rich, least ironic, most mature work to date. [May 2022, p.81]

Guitarist Russell Lissack counters the intoxicating synthetics with some of his most powerful work yet. ... Elemental. [May 2022, p.80]

Raitt has once more demonstrated her ability to distill the essence of human emotion down to its most potent form.

They ramp up the melodicism and play with all the gusto of musicians who have been separated for far too long.

There's a straight-forward brilliance to this covers set. [May 2022, p.85]

Bob Vylan arrive as a much-needed wake-up call, but it's one that's already electric. [May 2022, p.81]

Feels like the work of a man who’s rediscovered his mojo.

Overall a thoughtful hoot. [May 2022, p.83]

The results, from the likes of Billy Gibbons, Joe Walsh, Joe Bonamassa, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, are impressive. But ultimately you don’t learn as much about Johnny himself as you would from listening to the originals of the 17 tracks presented here. [May 2022, p.85]

Turn It On! is the rock'n'roll equivalent of a dazzling ray of sunshine. [May 2022, p.84]

The energy levels let up only on the disappointingly crowd-pleasing ballad leave On. Vocalist Jacoby Shaddix's sweat-soaked urgency feels right for these times. [May 2022, p.86]

The speedometer doesn't quite reach the heights of Wreckless Abandon but a consistent buzz keeps the Heartbreakers spirit alive and kicking. [May 2022, p.82]

Wordy, evocative, Pete's absinthe-flavoured fantasy Life fits its cliched template extraordinarily well. [May 2022, p.87]

Hooks hook, riffs riff, senses smoulder, resistance is futile. [May 2022, p.87]

Nothing here is as good as their Sweet Jane, but it'll do. [May 2022, p.87]

The Chilis are back together, having fun. And it feels good. [May 2022, p.80]

Tumultuous, trippy and brilliantly untamed, Sonancy is a magnificent comeback.

There are sonic surprises: The Prodigal is sheer orchestral euphoria, Sad White Reggae should be called ‘Electrofunk Strutrock, Actually’ and Hugz comes on like RATM raging against the metaverse. But it’s the themes that most intrigue.

The default setting of these thunderous doom lords from Sweden's far north remains the expansive, melodic, lavishly arranged anthem, layered densely with clobbering drums and shuddering riffs. [Apr 2022, p.79]

There’s more than an hour of music on Oochya! – a double LP’s worth, in old money – and as with most albums of such length you can easily argue over the more forgettable tracks that could have been left out. But for the most part the record showcases a band still looking forward to the next challenge. [Apr 2022, p.78]

A collection created purely for dancing to, a millennial disco that leaves the troubles of the world outside its spiky bubble. [Apr 2022, p.86]

Their fifth album, their first in just shy of a decade, is perhaps their most purely enjoyable, eschewing the furrow-browed genre-jumbling of earlier work. [Apr 2022, p.80]

It's all getting a bit too formulaic. [Apr 2022, p.83]

as shiny theatrical melody rock designed to look deceptively dangerous on teenage bedroom walls goes, Impera takes Ghost several more ferula shuffles in the direction of their very own American Idiot. [Apr 2022, p.77]

[J Spaceman's] rare communications (this is just his second album in a decade) are generally breathtaking events, and Everything Was Beautiful is no different. [Mar 2022, p.82]

The majority of this all star tribute treads an inappropriately conformist path. [Apr 2022, p.83]

Meld[s] jangles, loops, fuzzes, plucks and floaty introspections. Heavy on shoe-gaze, light on Gallagher swagger. [Apr 2022, p.83]

It needs time to be savoured and reveal its full flavours, a satisfying move in a world of glib instant gratification. [Apr 2022, p.83]

It's all delivered in a broad range of tech-rock colours. [Apr 2022, p.78]

Listening to it is a wonderfully disconcerting experience, each track swirling and merging into new patterns like a murmuration of starlings. [Apr 2022, p.78]

Screen Time is a minor but consistently engaging Moore release, crackling with kinetic tension, forever perched on a knife edge between easy listening and uneasy noise. [Apr 2022, p.77]

Full of infectious, summery pop melodies, acoustic guitars and abrasion. [Apr 2022, p.77]

With elegant electronics and playful retro-futurism, as on the tile track and Electric Sheep, Flür reminds these days of Dieter Meier and Yello. [Apr 2022, p.77]

Atmospheric to the hilt, you can almost smell the campfire. [Apr 2022, p.76]

His masterful combination of feel and technique reaches frequent peaks, with rousing, Jimi Hendrix-inspired rocker Death Of Me and slow burner I Found Her showcasing his fluid, emotive playing at its best.

Following the metaverse music hall of Step Outside, however, normal bombastic synthrock service resumes. [Mar 2022, p.81]

The Tipping Point album is tip-top art-pop. [Mar 2022, p.80]

This is an utterly brilliant collection. [Mar 2022, p.90]

One of Voivod’s finest works, Synchro Anarchy stands as proof that a band can please the crowd and themselves at the same time.

It's strident without being brash, starry without being pompous, middle of the road without being bland. [Mar 2022, p.84]

Singer Britt Daniel still knows less is more, though, and the tracks are lean and pared, every stab counting. [Mar 2022, p.83]

Another mind-melting album from a band that refuses to be pinned down. [Mar 2022, p.80]

What remains is a solid, engaging late-period Korn album that doesn’t add an awful lot to their legacy, but certainly doesn’t disgrace it.

Archive Material is teeming with wonky, everyman charm. [Mar 2022, p.80]

Kane's appeal remains in relishing the retro. [Mar 2022, p.80]

We’ve been here before, but we’re back and it’s great.

C91 is an overstuffed hit-and-miss banquet of bittersweet popstalgia, great in parts but far from definitive. [Feb 2022, p.86]

Each song title is followed by a reference to specific verses from the Bible that have spurred Anderson into lyrical action. The connection is not always easy to make, and sometimes you’re better off just going with his words, although they can take some unravelling at times. But that’s all part of the plan.

With Lamar Williams Jr at the mic, there's a funky drift to See The Moon and Rabbit Foot, while Stax legend William Bell claims a stellar credit with the sad and sweetly sung Never Want To Be Kissed. [Feb 2022, p.79]

Mayall endures, and keeps exploring, with his best originals - Got To Find A Better Way and Deep Blue Sea - bent happily out of shape by screeching violin. [Feb 2022, p.79]

Kowalewicz’s oration on the similarly punky Hanging Out With All The Wrong People adds a Broadway-esque dynamism, while stand-out single End Of Me is brimming with chemistry from alt-rock behemoth Rivers Cuomo. The track’s pastiche of twangy Blue Album-era riffs and kitschy Weezer choruses showcase all that was good about yesteryear.

Mo’s resonant vocals and articulate guitar work shine across the styles.

The result is a minor wonder of wit, weight and emotion - the Horses back to full gallop. [Feb 2022, p.82]

Some of Stomping Ground sounds much as expected, like the chunka-chunka boogie of If You Wanna Rock’n’roll and My Stomping Ground, assisted by Eric Clapton and Billy Gibbons respectively. Elsewhere there are more surprising moments. [Dec 2021, p.69]

While everything here echoes its maker's past, it all sounds new. ... The Boy Named If (And Other Children's Stories) is excellent. [Feb 2022, p.78]

There awaits a winning collaboration between band and singer, but this isn't it. [Feb 2022, p.79]

The album emerging as willfully lo-fi, bouncing along on cheery electronica while McTrusty's almost spoken-word panic attack showcases his rich Glaswegian vocals. [Feb 2022, p.79]

It's all as disorientating and scary and unwholesome and - near unbelievably - heavy as fuck as you'd expect. [Nov 2021, p.74]

settle back, we'll be here a while. [Jan 2022, p.85]

Live In Brighton 1975 showcases a band at the height of their immense power. [Jan 2022, p.91]

The live disc, a partial retrieval of a concert at the Olympia Theatre in Paris in May 1971, reminds, despite its rawness, of The Band’s unmatched on-stage brilliance and the legacy they’d already built up with the likes of Rag Mama Rag and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. ... Among the out-takes, Bessie Smith is a further indicator that their sense of American ‘roots’ was fully integrated.

Although there are 16 tracks here from four sessions at the BBC's Maida Vale studios between that date [June 8, 1994] and August 2001, there's something about the four tracks they recorded while riding high o Dookie's success that crackle with extra force. [Jan 2022, p.89]

Overwhelmingly, Weller's songs are durable enough to bear their new setting. [Jan 2022, p.81]

Their attitudinal distillation of blues, glam and grunge sounds like a marriage made in rock heaven. [Jan 2022, p.84]

The electronic drive and mildly gothic atmospherics of 2018's acclaimed Call The Comet survive, albeit transferred away from songs of Trumpian horror and sci-fi utopia on to tracks about friendship and empathy (Ariel) and staying strong through the pandemic (Spirit Power & Soul). All These Days intrigues. [Jan 2022, p.82]

No-wave dislocations take the B-52's around the back of CBGB to be savaged by Le Tigre. [Jan 2022, p.85]

Dawson's heavily mannered delivery and maximalist verbosity requires patience at times, but Silene is one of the most straightforwardly beautiful songs he has ever recorded. [Jan 2022, p.83]

Actually, You Can is business as usual, which translates into a 'gloriously unusual racket'. [Jan 2022, p.83]

In its second half, Crawler takes brave experimental swerves. [Jan 2022, p.82]

This is a very good album. There might be darkness outside, but the barn is lit up by the old men playing country and rock inside. [Jan 2022, p.82]

It's an extraordinary record, which stands, and reliably rewards, repeated listens. [Jan 2022, p.80]

Musically Caravan excel on the thick space-jam soup of Wishing You Were Here. [Nov 2021, p.76]

A rich feast for connoisseurs, a rewarding research project for curious casual fans. [Dec 2021, p.78]

Playing those and more top-drawer songs including The River and Born To Run (previously mothballed footage of 10 songs from the two shows are included) and a superb E Street Band behind him, Springsteen gives it his usual all, at arguably the peak period of his career and live performances.

The album fades a little towards the end, but it's exactly the daft-as-a-brush cheer-up we all need right now. [Dec 2021, p.72]

Sad And Beautiful Worlds finds him showing off those songwriting skills, delivering country-tinged ballads, bubblegum pop and twinkling Americana in typically effortless fashion. It's when he lets his guard down, however, that Malin is at his most impressive. [Oct 2021, p.72]

The album itself is as fine a collection of infectious, genre-hopping melodic vignettes about random stuff as they've produced in recent years. [Nov 2021, p.70]

It's another record to follow deep into the bayou, chasing the will-o-the-wisp harmonies. [Dec 2021, p.70]

Can reliably wrangle an engaging, chart-friendly rock-lite tune, yet don't sound anything like their irresistibly evocative name would suggest. [Dec 2021, p.75]

No Taste is positively obese with ideas, street smart with a side order of Sonic Youth, a grrrlish death disco diva Banshee fest. [Dec 2021, p.75]

An engaging blend of slowcore, drone, post-rock and dub. [Nov 2021, p.77]

More neo-prog than post-hardcore, Horizons/East is a grand statement of intent. [Dec 2021, p.75]

Although Donald Fagen's vocals have mellowed, there's no decline in quality. [Dec 2021, p.73]