There's a lot to love here. But there's an awful lot of attention paid to the Life House concept, when the actual key to Who's Next enduring brilliance is Riger Daltrey attaining his ultimate incarnation as an exemplary rock vocalist. [Oct 2023, p.92]

Behind all the autumnal rumination and elder-statesmen tastefulness, thankfully, Eno's experimental ethos endures. [Nov 2022, p.75]

Arnold's new tunes are belters. ... This album should do the business. [Sep 2019, p.85]

Their hooks seem to call to you from misty, far-off shores, promising mystical rave-ups. Drift in. [Oct 2019, p.91]

Great riffs, great rides, great album. [Apr 2015, p.101]

Goat's best album. [Nov 2022, p.70]

Guitarist Dan Hyndman's Marmite vocal could be a stylisation too far, but there's plenty else t love on this assured third album. [Summer 2022, p.79]

Jawbone is not only accomplished, it’s also occasionally stunning.

Making few concessions to 21st-century noise but equally never sounding old, Egypt Station is up there with Paul McCartney’s best solo work.

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

An inspirational fusing of avant-garde, jazz, skronk, clattering drums, blurting saxophones, heartfelt lyrics and stellar guest vocalists. [Sep 2018, p.93]

Well worth refreshing with its delights, Big Pink is a marvel of a debut.

The best thing about Royal Tea is that every track could easily drop into Bonamassa’s live show – which is more than you can say for Redemption. Back on track in every sense.

Exuberant throughout, PPC's trip has notched up a gear. [Mar 2021, p.84]

It may not be as glorious as some would have had us believe first time round; it's still a great album, but here it's packaged with the extra components that could have made it a better one. [Oct 2014, p.101]

Suede’s ninth album is a back-to-basics ‘punk’ affair utilising their raw alt.rock thrust to deliver some equally unvarnished personal truths.

This is the best Wire album of this century. [May 2013, p.84]

It's to her credit that this open-hearted material never comes off as cloying. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Lovers of rock both classic and current will be blown away. [Apr 2015, p.94]

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.

Atmospheric, cinematic, dramatic, evocative. [Summer 2019, p.87]

An album true to his roots and his wrecked country, unwavering of vision. [Sep 2014, p.88]

Relish the result of an intelligent, engaging act taking a new stand. [Sep 2014, p.90]

Bob Vylan have become the loudest, most vital voice of righteous rage in a beaten-down nation. [May 2024, p.78]

A fantastic rocket of a record, which adds to the renaissance brilliance of 21st-century Truckers.

This brilliant and beautifully captured set positively vibrates with the atmosphere and thrills that incandescent Warren and his funk 'n' fury-informed cohorts bring to the material. [Mar 2015, p.89]

The Medicine Show is her biggest-sounding album this century. [May 2019, p.84]

It's a singularly engaging soundscape you're strongly recommended to sample. [Jan 2024, p.80]

It's an undeniably intriguing and often inspired collection, shining with genuine heart and humanity. [May 2013, p.86]

Dwyer has led us into yet another musical sphere, one that's proggier, perplexing and ripe for exploration. [Sep 2018, p.89]

A master class in dancing away the heartache. [Jun 2021, p.76]

If you've been yearning for the days when David Draiman shrieked like a nu-metal chimpanzee-cum-wolverine, then Divisive is the album for you. [Dec 2022, p.75]

It's one in which Plant makes precious few concessions to what's expected of him, and it's all the richer for it. [Sep 2014, p.92]

There’s a healthy sense of experimentation, peaking with wondrous prog-metal epic Halloween Bolson.

These lost gems from the garage are given great care and attention by a band that clearly holds them close to their heart. [Aug 2021, p.80]

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

First High and Born Tough seek out her adolescence, while the title track and Black Widow stress her continuing defiance. This girl is not just following the satnav. She's older, but wilfully no wiser. [Oct 2022, p.73]

Close To The Noise Floor covers the full spectrum from sublime to ridiculous, but the sheer range of sonic innovation, warped beauty and dark humour here is hugely impressive.

Wild, weird and wonderful, Dark Matter/Dark Energy is a lysergic punk triumph.

The New Abnormal is less new big bang, more engrossing sizzle. [May 2020, p.76]

This regular release offers reminder enough of just how special this band is when they're on form. [Jan 2024, p.86]

It has arena-rock attitude, but contained within songs and performances that are a lot more intimate and highly charged than you might expect. Slash’s punchy guitar style complements Kennedy’s passionate vocals, and in doing so brings to mind what Aerosmith achieved in the late 80s. [Sep 2018, p.88]

Among their best albums in a 30-plus-year recording career. [May 2020, p.76]

Throughout, Morrison makes old songs sound new and brings the enthusiasm of a teenager to an old man’s record. [Dec 2023, p.78]

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.

Fabulous, fun and irresistible. [May 2013, p.87]

The music is quirky, textured Americana. [Sep 2014, p.93]

It may have been a long wait, but The Mandrake Project is easily one of Bruce Dickinson’s boldest projects, and it goes to show there is almost nothing that this band frontman/fencer/pilot/author can’t turn his hand to. [Apr 2024, p.82]

Citizens of Boomtown is a startling selection of classically punchy songs. [Apr 2020, p.87]

It's lush, grown-up, thoughtful, funny and very good. [Sep 2014, p.93]

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

It’s a package that’s pretty hard to improve on but this anniversary edition tries its damnedest to turn things up to eleven.

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

It's built to be savoured, not rushed. [Sep 2014, p.94]

The result is a direct, delicious assortment. [May 2015, p.104]

For all the grim despondency, this is an album steeped in the acrid stench of beauty. [Mar 2019, p.88]

Eric Burdon's flame still burns brighter than that of most bands half his age. [May 2013, p.91]

So engaging, you might even forget your phone for 40 minutes. [Mar 2024, p.83]

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

Meir is bigger, bolder and broader in its sweep and scale. [May 2013, p.91]

Such is the attention to detail that it evokes an eerie world of rattling ghost trains and deserted penny arcades as successfully as a windswept day-trip to Blackpool. [Jun 2021, p.81]

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.

10 short, snappy songs, with as much melodic finesse as there is coruscating noise. [Mar 2023, p.77]

Unlike the mostly acoustic-led Lighthouse, Sky Trails finds him in full band mode, engaging in a nuanced blend of folk, soul and jazz that echoes vintage triumphs like Guinnevere and Déjà Vu.

Despite its subject matter, the Bristol tykes are still sonically and vocally as visceral as ever. [Mar 2024, p.81]

Yo La Tengo have only intensified rather than showed signs of abating. [Mar 2023, p.77]

The humanity is palpable throughout his lyrics and delivery, and the album avoids preaching in favour of insightful storytelling, good humour and warmth. [Sep 2020, p.84]

Seething with anxiety and frontman Jesse Lacey’s trademark sarcastic self‑flagellation, and with a gorgeous production that gives the music space to breathe, it’s an emotional, intelligent work of grace and beauty.

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

It has stood time's ravages well, both as an indicator of the band's capacity for change and as a great album in its own right. [Jan 2019, 2018, p.93]

A couple of lesser tracks bloat into shapeless abstraction, but overall this is a sonically lavish and formally bold reinvention.

This Stray Cat's strut continues. [Sep 2014, p.94]

A meaty, starry affair.

Uplifting and lovely. [Mar 2023, p.78]

Gloriously raucous, with memorable tunes that bury themselves deep in the psyche, Bass Drum Of Death encapsulate the spirit of garage rock'n'roll. [Mar 2023, p.79]

Despite the omission of radio sessions and later work, this is a blistering collection of songs by a band at their peak, and a fan-set by and large without compare (the live set alone being a fantastic time machine into a world where cool bands played Mekons covers and swore a lot).

This is a good record mostly because the two men at the heart of it all sound like they’re actually enjoying being The Cult again.

A fine album that’s more imaginative than reimagining.

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

While it may not be the most musically involved album of his 50-year career, it’s persuasive evidence that Young still has a lot to offer.

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).

If you want to know what Hendrix might have done beyond 27, listen to this. [Feb 2019, p.91]

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

This heart-melting exercise in widescreen evocative soul-baring brazenly sets the controls for greatness. [Mar 2019, p.89]

Alice In Chains fans should prepare to love this, but expect more echoes of Jar Of Flies than of Dirt.

Offering gems, misfires and revelations, Elton: Jewel Box is an absorbing opening of the vaults.

Meliora is easily the sextet’s finest outing to date, a meticulously executed, artful collection of black-souled retro doom-pop, as heavy as Metallica, as melodically sophisticated as ABBA.

The album pushes an inspired blues-hued blend of their irreverent moonshine gospel romps--‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition’ sings Love on Exodus (Movement Of War People)--comedown confessionals (Nothing To Lose But Your Chains) and gutbucket reflection (Rattlesnake Woman), all crucially spiked with the blackest humour.

Ryder is at his best when riffing through the 70s piano-pop playbook. [Feb 2023, p.78]

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]

Ultimately, Airbourne play honest, no-nonsense, straight-down-the-line classic rock in a manner true to all the basic tenets of the genre.

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

California collects 14 hook-drenched punk-pop barnstormers that both reflect nostalgically on their youthful vigours (Bored To Death, Kings Of The Weekend, San Diego) and revisit them impressively (Teenage Satellites, No Future).

Their heaviest, most memorable and most wildly animalistic material to date. [Oct 2018, p.83]

Redux is well thought out, and it works. [Nov 2023, p.76]

Such Hot Blood sounds like a major label buff-up of their glowering, folk-flecked dusk-rock, the raw pomp of earlier albums given a national (anthem) gleam. [Nov 2013, p.89]

Recent converts need not be overly alarmed, however, for while Ellipsis contains some of the most aggressive material Biffy have yet recorded (Wolves Of Winter, the gloriously infectious Animal Style and On A Bang) there are equal measures of fragile beauty.

This immersive collection captures the excitement of an era sometimes overlooked between their twin peaks of Master Of Puppets and the Black Album.