In a nutshell: fuzzily fierce.

Pe'ahi sounds like their strongest gallery of timeless anthems so far. [Aug 2014, p. 204]

Now up to seven discs with live set, it's even harder to resist. [Dec 2023, p.85]

At first you think, "Meh, more generic LA stuntcore." then realise you're loving it. [Nov 2022, p.75]

They've mastered the marriage of swagger and sensitivity, guts and grace. [Mar 2023, p.76]

A niche but strident record. [Aug 2013, p.88]

Debut album Dark Black Makeup is a thrilling half-hour of punk rock with a small ‘p’ but a big UNK!--hooky, heavy and furious in all the right places.

He now sounds much calmer, serene even, on Shearwater's tenth, which floats where 2016's Jet Plane And Oxbow raged. This never means it's predictable. [Summer 2022, p.78]

It's a pleasing patchwork of echoes of the past. [Feb 2014, p.92]

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]

The Afterman: Descension is both a thoughtful and thought-provoking album, and one that works on several levels. [Feb 2013, p.94]

He doesn't disappoint as he smatters the bulk of this new record with orchestral strings. The pick of the tracks here are the pulsating Pretty Boy, the string-laden I'm Not Giving Up Tonight and the soaring Open The Dorr, See What You Find. [Jul 2023, p.84]

Anti-glory's an easy in, but you'll need to retune your ears to Horsegirl's particular frequency before this debut reveals its full brilliance. [Summer 2022, p.79]

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]

For the most part, though, Saviors is the sound of reassuring rebellion from the midst of the 21st Century breakdown. [Mar 2024, p.80]

A group at ease with both their instruments and each other, showing no signs of rust or sclerosis despite their long lay-off. [Jun 2015, p.88]

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]

Channel[s] the nagging ingenuity of classic post-punk(pop) to sparkling effect. [Jul 2022, p.83]

An evocative semi-concept work based in the 1890s. [Jun 2022, p.83]

Quality workmanship. [Mar 2024, p.82]

My World Is Over proves to be another step up. [Feb 2013, p.95]

The single Mixed Emotions (I Didn't Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through) is the album's manifesto, the chiming opening riff breaking into a wall of sound while singer Josh Franceschi howls his failure to communicate into the gale. And the onslaught rarely falters. [Mar 2023, p.78]

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

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]

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

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.

A consolidation of their strengths--muscular guitars that alternate from hardcore styling to more sensitive deliver--and a greater sense of melody. [Feb 2020, p.90]

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.

The whole damn album's as sweet as a pecan nut. [Nov 2014, p.93]

The good-natured, twangsome results prefigure Costello's more angsty work with Clover on Nick Lowe-produced My Aim Is True. [Aug 2022, p.71]

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

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]

There's no faking this kind of quality. [Nov 2014, p.93]

This moving yet strangely exhilarating album is a distant relative of The Residents’ 1979 album Eskimo, their sonic studies of Arctic culture.

Motorik psychedelia at its finest, The Lucid Dream have stepped up.

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.

The result is an autumnal masterpiece to rank alongside anything by Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash. [Nov 2014, p.92]

He keeps his freak flag flying with this collection of bar jams and blues covers that is as flinty and steely edged as Gibbons himself. [Oct 2018, p.82]

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

Thirteen songs, 40 minutes and not a moment wasted. [Nov 2020, p.84]

That The Church remain so vigorous and vibrant is a delightful surprise indeed. [Jun 2023, p.75]

Thunder, bottled. [Feb 2014, p.95]

This is a record to sink into, not to shock you into action. The Rev’s best.

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.

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

Among the out-takes, acoustic sketches, etc here, it's the a-capella versions of various tracks that touch the most, displays of harmonic unity in the midst of disharmony. [Dec 2022, p.83]

Picking up from last year’s Big Bill Broonzy tribute Common Ground, here the Alvins run riot on another covers set.

This is the best Exodus album since 1989's Fabulous Disaster. [Nov 2014, p.94]

It's the spikes, barbs, caterwauls and tantrums that define The Muffs, set them apart, and make Whoop Dee Doo as essential an album as any you'll hear all year. [Aug 2014, p. 208]

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

The Early Years feels like a huge, essential slice of rock history, showing a band with the world at their feet who could, and did, go anywhere they pleased.

Accessibly challenging, this isn't Moore's very best day, but it's up there. [Nov 2014, p.95]

The sound of a very classy singer, and her smokin' band, having a fabulous time. [Aug 2014, p. 209]

Concise, clever and at war with everything from alienation to greed and loss, it's a rallying cry in a world that's lost its voice. [Mar 2013, p.97]

Well worth (re)discovering. [Nov 2020, p.87]

The concept of this album is about following a path that is eventually going to lead 20 years down the line and wonder where it will take you. [Nov 2014, p.94]

A bunker-born double (their second) that keeps on giving. [Nov 2022, p.74]

There's a familiarity to much of the material which, while not quite formulaic, does sometimes hint at self-reference, brazenly so on Tears Don't Fall (Part 2). [Mar 2013, p.97]

Irresistible. [Nov 2020, p.87]

Lush and romantic, Evidence is the kind of timeless electronic album you can dream inside. [Mar 2013, p.98]

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.

As a project and as a reminder of a hugely talented lyricist this is a treat. [Nov 2014, p.96]

This is one helluva return. [Oct 2022, p.77]

Young and Crazy Horse never perform their songs in quite the same way each night, of course, and Fu##in’ Up exemplifies that spontaneous, exploratory spirit. Listening to these geezers whipping up a hurricane of monolithic thud and skronk is always irresistible. [Jun 2024, p.74]

The songs on this follow-up to 2013’s Dig Thy Savage Soul rock harder than before while retaining the garage signature of ex-Lyres guitarist Peter Greenberg.

For the most part, Def Leppard is the sound of a band who have rediscovered their sense of purposes after a wobbly 25 years.

Space Invader has brilliant heavy rock tunes. [Nov 2014, p.96]

Otherness is a grand return from a gang of proud outsiders.

Their fourth album takes yet more detours, but without ever losing sight of the path. Devotees of lead-heavy riffs will be spoilt by the title track and Rites Of Passage, and the pace never exceeds sluggish.

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

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

Death Song (their first album in four years and one whose title neatly appends their name to the VU classic that first inspired them) is their heaviest to date, a toxic draught of garage-rock and booming psychedelia that buzzes with echo and reverb.

A consistently sparkling Weezer album. [Nov 2014, p.97]

While perhaps not as emotionally loaded as Ordinary Man, Patient Number 9 better captures the mischievous, defiant energy of heavy metal's original madman. [Sep 2022, p.72]

A vintage Bowie album for vintage Bowie people, of whom there are many; a reflection on his own journey and also on ours. [Apr 2013, p.92]

Dream-folkies will be transported back to the gauzy early days of Genesis or the Byrds, indie heads will be transported back to the most powerful skunk spliff they ever smoked along to Pond, Grandaddy or Neutral Milk Hotel.

Viewed as a whole, this set cements Harrison's reputation, not as a huge 60s phenomenon but as a human. [Nov 2014, p.104]

IX showcases a band with little interest in repetition. [Summer 2014, p.90]

[A] meaty pop debut album.

To Be Kind is evidence that they continue to grow and may not have reached their peak yet. It's superb for now, though. [Summer 2014, p.90]

Where a fug of overdriven psychedelic effects could overwhelm the message and the music--particularly on the ritualistic Call Upon The Fire and the exquisitely trippy Absolution Song-- he instead maintains subtlety, style and superb songcraft in a slow movement that’s all his own.

If all the album achieves is to serve as a playful reminder of the ramshackle brilliance of Stinson’s old band, so be it. But it deserves better. It’s joyous. And Paul Westerberg is nowhere to be seen.

The funk is solid in this one.

This eighteenth album, continuing the sophisticated air of their second era with its merger of plush future-rock, graceful gospel folk and organic electro-pop. [May 2024, p.74]

BRMC have transcended a past that was extremely full of the past and arrived in the present. [Apr 2013, p.93]

Light, airy, clear, strong, astonishing. [Jul 2022, p.83]

Heal is a triumph of cathartic rock. [Summer 2014, p.90]

You can hear it in the creepy, lovelorn surrealism of Filter Me Through You’s hazy dream-pop. Then the eleven minute title track, with its ruefully fated protagonist, spidery keyboards, jaggedly interlocked parts and mantric end, proves decisively that this Dream isn’t over.

The thick fuzz of guitars is at the metal end of grunge, impact and volume kept almost oppressively in the red. But once you settle into Kentucky’s MO, the band’s songwriting strengths and musical reach are still here.

[Producer Glyn Johns] has given this album a shape and purpose, bringing out the full range of Clapton’s guitar tones. Recording the album on analogue equipment probably helped too.

It's a complete, rounded work; the 13 tracks dovetail into each other perfectly. [May 2024, p.74]

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

Listening to all 17 tracks in one go feels like going 12 rounds with a heavyweight boxer, a championship belt on the line. [Oct 2014, p.88]

Art, love, personal and political ideology--all of it is delved into with gloriously unpolished gusto. [Summer 2014, p.91]

Dillinger remain a proudly unique proposition, and Dissociation is a thrilling, and apparently final, fuck you to the status quo.

It's the veteran's session, and with that stentorian voice Sweet Georgia Brown and I'm Just A Lucky So And So are highlights that warm any room you play them in. [Jun 2023, p.77]

A hilarious throwback to the days when bands didn't take themselves too seriously. [Dec 2018, p.89]

While wonderfully idiosyncratic, Oddfellows finds them at their most accessible to date. [Apr 2013, p.95]