Living On Mercy finds the songsmith at his sweetest and breeziest. [Oct 2020, p.85]

Every second feels vital, vicious and vastly more exciting than a band approaching their fortieth anniversary has any right to be. [Oct 2020, p.84]

A huge welcome throwback. [Oct 2020, p.87]

Plants such enduring standards as Wild World and Father And Son firmly in the now. [Oct 2020, p.87]

By The Fire is a massive antidote to our age. [Oct 2020, p.87]

Baroque, doom-laden proclamations are Manson's bread and butter, and We Are Chaos is stuffed with them. [Oct 2020, p.86]

Sign O' The Times might be Prince's apex. .. The extras on this eight-CD/13-LP set, however, include a lot of dry-humping, second-rate material that hints at the decline he would go into in the 90s and beyond. [Oct 2020, p.91]

The tone lightens marginally for the relationship rampages of the second half, with Baby Needs A Cookie bordering on pop melodies and Leather Dreams revelling in a sultry churn with a hint of S&M, but Blue Hearts is ideal fodder for smashing in the news channel to.

It’s smart: acerbic and politically charged in its bleakness.

Ohms is instantly familiar without replicating anything they’ve done before.

A meaty, starry affair.

Revisits Gotham-based hits and Lou's timeless Wild Side. [Jun 2020, p.89]

A crystalline classic.

It’s a fine mix of odds and sods to stave off the hunger for the next sonic feast they cook up.

From Saturnine & Iron Jaw’s haunting ambience and chugging Led Zeppelin guitars, to the trippy, pitch-black tones of See You Next Fall and the cathartic finale Rats In Ruin, it’s a dark, enticing feast for the senses, with one foot in ancient times and the other in some far-off dimension.

Their creative studio peak might have (just) been behind them, but for a taste of the Stones at their down-and-dirtiest, Goats Head Soup will always be the dish of the day.

Sun Racket is a worthy addition to a formidable canon. [Sep 2020, p.86]

While nobody would mistake it for the work of a man who's trying too hard, it's not without its charms. [Sep 2020, p.87]

They’ve filtered their inheritance through their own jam-band generation, and the sound is heavier, muddier at times, and Duane Allman’s ‘crying bird’ slide guitar has become more of a screaming bat.

The concept of nature destroying man-made civilization to a soundtrack of dark, danceable symphonics is chilling. [Sep 2020, p.85]

They've filtered their inheritance through their jam-band generation, and the sound is heavier, muddier at times. [Sep 2020, p.88]

Dream Nails are the 21st-century Mambo Taxi. Who? Exactly. [May 2020, p.83]

S&M2 is a success on the grandest of scales. [Sep 2020, p.84]

Delivers assurance, class and a timely, powerful study in historically ingrained racist ideology. [Sep 2020, p.89]

An unlikely triumph. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Wire's past still sounds like rock's future. [Sep 2020, p.95]

Flaming Pie sounded excellent then and it sounds excellent now. [Sep 2020, p.92]

While the album still has the overall feel of being in a flotation tank while listening to Gerry Rafferty, James experiments beyond his tendency to jaw off occasionally into psych jazz interludes, tackling dark future fink on Magic Bullet and Godspell gospel blues on Wasted. [Sep 2020, p.89]

Their world-weary shtick has more passion than depth. But. as ever, they do it with conviction, their uncomplicated love for heritage rock informing every warm, wonky, soulful note. [Sep 2020, p.88]

Carries a deliciously tight-but-loose quality that makes you feel that this album could've been thrown together by friends, who just happen to be shit-hot musicians. [Sep 2020, p.84]

It’s mood music for people who have not been taking their prescriptions (all of us, I reckon), and it’s full of bruised beauty.

Bradfield’s invention knows no bounds as he shines light on the darkest corners of history.

Unique and, indeed, endlessly fantastic, this album is the work of a man committed to his own vision, both for his music and for the troubled and broken world around him.

Biffy fan or not, there is much to enjoy on this album, such as the thundering North Of No South and the snap of Tiny Indoor Fireworks. But it’s the lingering beautiful sadness of songs like Space and Opaque that really stays with you.

Pretty fine on record, this kinetic quartet sound like they would probably be explosively exciting live. [Aug 2020, p.87]

This seven-track album has a similar stripped-down, raw feel to its acoustics and shivery, spooked vocals. [Summer 2020, p.89]

Some tracks here might surprise on first listen, but surprise quickly gives way to joy. This is superb. [Aug 2020, p.84]

Mariani's ear for melody lifts it above the ordinary. ... Terrific. [Jun 2020, p.86]

Turner, then, by a knock out. [Aug 2020, p.87]

A largely acoustic album, its haunting quality is brought out by a variety of alternative tunings and ambient drones, as well as lyrical meditations on mortality and emotional healing that are delivered with a psychedelic clarity. [Aug 2020, p.88]

A measured, but unwaveringly honest, portrait of middle age with all its elation and tribulations. [Aug 2020, p.82]

A sequel that first celebrates the blooming of a relationship, then self-flagellates for ruining it. [Aug 2020, p.87]

Utilising informed guitar sound palette and Johnny Marr ingenuity. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Cerebral and discomforting. [Aug 2020, p.89]

The results sound thin, contrived and ultimately laborious. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Foxx sounds just as vital as he ever was. [Aug 2020, p.89]

Sophisticated follow-up. [Aug 2020, p.83]

Rough And Rowdy Ways is unique, precious testimony from an elderly rock'n'roll survivor who, for all the games he plays, is a seer nonetheless. [Aug 2020, p.82]

He might be a slippery customer, but his music couldn’t be more reliable.

Their best record since the last one you liked. [Jun 2020, p.88]

The Kingdom is Bush at their most confident. [Jul 2020, p.89]

The Residents are just as tricky and bewildering and (occasionally) irritating as they ever were.

Down To Earth has drama, poise and energy, but not sure its use in a film about a lonely rubbish-collecting robot in the future adds or subtracts anything, to be honest.

Hynde's fire is undimmed as she tackles love's drug-like addiction, tears up a roughshod storm on the rockers and delves into surf-guitar reggae on Lightning Man. [Jun 2020, p.88]

Suitably weathered by age and experience, [Dion's voice] hardly gathered rust and has retained its lustrous power and soulful richness. Co-producer/multi-instrumentalist Wayne Hood wisely pins that voice to the centre of this fabulous record, with A-listers very much in supporting roles. [Summer 2020, p.86]

Louris is nonetheless still on top form with Homecoming and his sublimely resigned Then You Walked Away is the pick of the three bonus tracks on the physical formats of the album.

Tail-chasing indie adequacy. [Summer 2020, p.89]

Even when exhorted by chanting fans, Liam's solo hits can never quite match Some Might Say's enduring emotive appeal. [Summer 2020, p.89]

A torrid tumble of greatness. [Summer 2020, p.89]

Forget the bolt cutters, Apple's already shed her last shackle. [Summer 2020, p.87]

Danzig mostly avoids the obvious greatest hits, favouring instead reverb-heavy lo-fi treatments that faithfully reference the originals without shooting for all-out mimicry. [Summer 2020, p.85]

This si the sound of lost Los Angeles; of excitement; of wildness; of a deep-rooted passion for biting rockabilly riffs, for life itself. This is beautiful, urgent and, frankly, unlooked for. [Summer 2020, p.84]

Ever the magpie with a love for shiny trinkets, Weller slips in West Coast Santana-style guitar, Middle Eastern drone, hand claps and honking tenor. References are introduced and then discarded at will. ... Intriguing, to say the least.

Eight short, sharp shocks in 30 minutes provide a perfect stun-blast soundtrack for today’s shattered society.

Clever without being too clever, but only just. [May 2020, p.83]

Homegrown was strong enough to have been released in 1975 and Young is right to exhume it now. But that doesn’t mean he was necessarily wrong then. He may have been baring his soul, but he was smart enough to know just how rotten that soul had fleetingly become.

Supple but robust at 50, Bowie's power glows undimmed. [Jul 2020, p.93]

Cohesive, diverse and swollen with hidden depths. [Jul 2020, p.88]

Even if Earle occasionally falls back on roots music autopilot, the power of this work is undeniable. [Jul 2020, p.89]

Overall it's a psychedelic delight. [Jul 2020, p.89]

Whether he's musing insightfully over alcoholism or parenthood, his band are blazing and Isbell takes a tired format and charges it up with passion and perceptiveness. [Jul 2020, p.88]

A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip is still a heartening example of a truly original and who continue to enjoy success on their own unique terms by refining and amplifying their youthful weirdness instead of mellowing with age. [Jul 2020, p.88]

Classic don't need varnish. [Jul 2020, p.87]

Willfully off-kilter after all this time, The Used are still marching defiantly to the beat of their own drum. [Jun 2020, p.87]

Delivering the goods with considerably more venom than you might expect at this stage in the game, Lamb of God remain hard to b(l)eat. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Bags of melody, plenty of light and shade, and great songs. A cosmic triumph.

While Larkin Poe are worthy, though, they’re never dull. [Jun 2020, p.87]

Music-wise there’s little not already on the 2007 box set 1977, including the alternative mixes of Dum Dum Boys, Baby, China Girl and Tiny Girls placed among assorted singles edits on the new collection’s Demos & Rarities disc, or the London Rainbow gig on another.

An hour of sheer roar-along brilliance. ... Stupendous. [Jun 2020, p.88]

They rely on their own successful turbo-operatic formula for large sections of this 80-minute-plus double album, and from the moment five minutes in when Music gets over its overtures and bursts into anthemic flame, the blend of guttural riffing, machine-gun bass drum and Floor Jansen’s perennially startled soprano is always captivating.

The volcanic glass the album takes its title from is said to protect against negative energy, and here Paradise Lost pull the same trick by turning the bleakness in on itself to create something beautiful.

Post-pop indie rock at its drabbest. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Stunning. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Deft arrangements, vintage heaviness, classic power. [Jun 2020, p.89]

Road-toughened beyond their identi-Emo origins to attain a formidably muscular grunge-tinged melodic fury. [Jun 2020, p.89]

It's the record's crazed detours that make for the most interesting moments. [Jun 2020, p.89]

A masterful companion piece to Lanegan's unflinching memoir. [Jun 2020, p.88]

Mostly, Underneath is confrontational and exhilarating - just as metal should be when it's doing its job properly. [Jun 2020, p.87]

All are multi-layered, offering moments of both beautiful intimacy and blazing rage. For most bands, attempting this juxtaposition would be disastrous, but here it sounds sublime, seamless.

Williams’ anger is reflected in the music, which tempers her primal electric blues and country with garagey punk and heaving rock. Yet there’s also empathy, hope and an unyielding sense of humanity at work here.

This isn't music intended to inspire soul-searching. With its fat, fuzzy riffs and living-for-the-weekend vibe, it's made entirely for boozy barbecues and blokey banter, and maybe the odd trip to a monster truck rally. [Mar 2020, p.88]

Album of the month. [May 2020, p.83]

This attention-grabbing, moshpit-rocking noise-bomb of an album is a tremendous first step. [May 2020, p.83]

Raw, explosive and edgy. [May 2020, p.83]

Thrilling stuff from four Glaswegians with genuine hunger and real passion. [May 2020, p.83]

When he's not letting loose with some typically emotive soloing on this mix of covers and originals, his voice is still every bit its equal. [May 2020, p.77]

A classy, slick, impeccably executed album of covers, but a disappointing successor to US No. 1 Before This World. [May 2020, p.83]

It's a pleasure just to amble alongside him, being blissfully glazed in honey by that extraordinary voice. [May 2020, p.81]