Anyone who spends their weekends lurking in the more pungent corners of sci-fi/horror/comic-book shops will lap it up; for everyone else it's less Star Wars, more Space Balls. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Strip away all the sumptuous studio texture and these lyrics--about savage love, violence and revolution--are sodden with adolescent gothpunk cliché. But this scarcely matters when the future arena anthems Magnetized and We Never Tell hit their stride: lusty, energised and refreshingly shallow.

Too much of Big Music seems to be reaching for a gravitas it can't back up with emotional or musical substance. [Dec 2014, p.104]

There’s nothing novel or exciting here, but at least they seem to be having a ball.

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]

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

It's every bit as sprawling and dramatic as you'd expect from something set to be followed by a four-part comic book expanding on the story within the songs. [May 2013, p.86]

A mixed bag of variable results, then, though Reid’s voice remains consistently magnificent throughout.

Kasabian's USP has always been a cocky straddling of indie rock and rave. It's a shame they pretty much discard it here. [Aug 2022, p.68]

Where Is The Water twists and meanders hazily before shifting into gear with a riff from the Jack White school of thud, while opener Needles is excitable garage rock with a stiff, post-punk edge. And over in the kaleidoscopic corner, Wheels Within Wheels flips merrily from one psychedelic landscape to the next and includes a wriggling organ solo that sounds as if it's being squeezed from a tube. All in all, it's quite the adventure. [Dec 2022, p.75]

There are many less rewarding experiences than hearing Springsteen thirstily sing his favourite songs, but there’s a sense here that all concerned hope it would catch fire and amount to something more. [Dec 2022, p.76]

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

This slick trio from Dripping Springs, Texas add cloying twang to yacht-rock tropes to asset-stripping effect. [Sep 2019, p.87]

Here he duly revisits his own past, on an album that blends new material with covers of his old work and that of others.

Classy but strangely sterile. [Sep 2022, p.77]

Wild Cat does get samey with 11 songs, but it’s a whole lotta fun and fans will lap it up.

There’s a demo version of The Ramones’ Rockaway Beach included here, which is as scratchy and worn as you might imagine and, remarkably, lacks any of that patented, and much missed, Motörhead kick. Much better is their gnarly version of Metallica’s Whiplash; if you didn’t know any better you’d swear it was one of their own. Ditto Twisted Sister’s Shoot ‘Em Down.

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

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

Tasteful and eloquent. ... minus the killer tunes. [Nov 2018, p.85]

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.

As displayed by the title track and the pumping Brutalism, Oxymore feels stuck in the 90s rather than the work of two trailblazers, though at least Epica’s hands-in-the-air dynamics feels fresher. [Nov 2022, p.71]

The basic country sounds frame a compelling singer. [Apr 2015, p.97]

Longtime fans of the band's intense, neck vein-popping hardcore rock'n'roll have to hunt and peck their way through this album to find the good stuff. [Jun 2019, p.89]

The sloganeering surfs in on a wave of ultra-catchy punk melodies, dragging the listener along in its wake. [Jul 2021, p.85]

A bumpy ride overall, but with enough peaks to excuse the more pedestrian sections.

A little bit of growing up wouldn’t go amiss.

Sure, there are standout, radio-ready moments, with Song #3 and Fabuless, while the bounce-along Friday Knights propels your arms into the air, but the grit has been sandblasted away and the edges polished. And with 15 tracks, it’s a bit of a slog. Still, when it hits, they know how to hit hard.