Hhe serves up striking versions of some of his most famous Riverside-era compositions, including Rhythm-A-Ning, and Well, You Needn’t. Also featured is the only known studio recording of Light Blue. The second disc in this 2CD package includes alternate takes and rehearsal versions and is accompanied by an informative 60-page booklet, including an essay by Monk’s biographer, Robin D G Kelley.

The lust for life evident on the streets of Havana is reflected enthrallingly in an album that looks set to take the Daptone ethos to the world at large.

Across the years, the album has often been discussed in terms of its proto-Britpop ‘moment’. But it holds up superbly freed from that context as a deeply distinct and thrillingly flash statement of what Suede do, creating its own world while doing practically everything it can to grab the attention.

The attendant singles, EPs and B-sides distil their career into manageable chunks that tell the surface story, but the real gems lie in the albums themselves--each of which is also being reissued singly.

Musically speaking it’s a marvel.

Rewardingly, Cinema buries its snout deep into the trough to root out the goods.

Beautifully played, arranged to perfection, crystal clear recording and production with the vocals to the fore, but cushioned by immaculate musicianship. A classic of the genre.

There’s a light, electronic dusting to many of these songs, but on tracks such as The Pain Of Never, Marc’s distinctive vocals have rarely sounded richer and warmer.

This is Banhart’s best work because it functions as a unit.

It’s a staggering, swaggering achievement more vital than anything they’ve done in the last 35 years.

Hippopotamus is exactly what you’d expect and more besides.

It works because it’s so astonishingly, genuinely clever.

An attack on the lack of dissenting voices in popular culture, if this isn’t Mason’s bona fide masterpiece, it’s certainly approaching it.

With expressive restraint, key collaborators John Parish and Flood utilise instruments and field recordings to tactile effect, while leaving room for Harvey’s voice to resonate. The results hold their folk-horror secrets close and harbour dark suggestions on investigation.

Over the course of an hour, Straight Songs unloads a lifetime of pain. But there is a happy ending to this story. Whereas much of the album has him merely “hanging on”, by Eden Lost And Found – a track built from a mobile phone recording of his wife messing around with an old Casio keyboard – he has embraced survival and moves towards his new dawn with, if not quite piranha teeth, then a mischievous, Cheshire cat grin.

The album’s immediacy is impossible to escape.

It’s a persuasive, heartening, softly seductive little basket of light; and as such is welcome anytime round here.

Sublimely crafted, incredibly well-played, there are all the reference points, yet it never sounds like a composite of old glories. The intelligence, urgency and immediacy of his 32nd album are a most welcome surprise.

Blue & Lonesome is as defiant a statement in its own way as any earlier landmark. Stones co-founder Ian Stewart should be beaming wherever he is, as his boys finally realise the potential he spotted at those first rehearsals 54 years ago.

Purgatory is a formidable equal to the Southern states snapshots Steve Earle took on Copperhead Road, and the largely acoustic melodies and arrangements will have some listeners checking the sleeve to make sure they’re not playing a long lost record by The Band. Yes, the likes of Price and Simpson have returned country to impressive heights, and Childers has the weaponry in his arsenal to take it even higher.

There’s not a weak moment in these 11 songs.

Among the burning forests and boiling oceans, it's reassuring to know that raw beauty can still be found within the groove of vinyl, of which this--the Newcastle band's fourth long-player--provides rich evidence. [Mar 2020, p.110]

This is possibly Dawson’s best work. Yes, it’s tough-going – you’ve probably realised he REALLY doesn’t dig this country of ours right now – but the blend of smarts, art and heart is more than enough to demand your ears on repeat.

Bonnie’s smoky take of the INXS funker Need You Tonight and a rollicking version of Los Lobos’s Shakin’ Shakin’ Shakes. Another Grammy on the way? That would almost certainly seem to be the case.

Nightmare Logic says it all over eight tracks in a damn near perfect 35 minutes.

All in all, it’s an exhaustive trawl through this proud provincial stronghold’s extraordinary creative archive and arguably the definitive guide to our trends in the north.

With seamless storytelling through its 34 songs, magical moments of intricate instrumental interplay abound, magnified by an orchestra and massed choirs, while a template for the staging of a musical production sees the principals realising a grandiose next-step in their creative development.

It’s the real deal, the meat of his canon and bearing rewards for fans old and new.