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Saxophonist Jimmy Heath performing in 2016 in New York

Album review: Jimmy Heath Love Letter

This ain't no bebop disco, this ain't no Roland Kirk meditation or Sonny Rollins blast-out, but rather an elegant treatment of eight ballads from saxophonist Jimmy Heath, who died in January of this year, aged 93

Jimmy Heath Love Letter • 01 Sep 20

Fake Names the real deal on life-affirming punk record

Choosing a favourite song proves the nicest of dilemmas, moving on to listen to something else is tougher still.

Music Review • 08 Jun 20

Pearl Jam dynamite despair on huge-hearted Gigaton

The worst time to release a new record turns out to be exactly when it's most needed, with Pearl Jam's 11th album dual-powered by another contradiction: it makes you cherish the security of home while longing for wide open spaces.

Music Review • 31 Mar 20

Higher Power put it up to big names on second album

The sophomore sound of ambition writ huge.

Music Review • 20 Feb 20

Bon Iver's i,i is a strange kind of wonderful

A strange kind of wonderful that revels in the joy of community and creation

Music Review • 10 Sep 19

David Geraghty's smart-as-it-is-compact record is slinky throughout, with the kind of pop suss that can sometimes be overlooked when available on our own doorstep

Join Me in the Pines' new album is one fir the books

David Geraghty has made sure there's a class album waiting for people when they get home from Electric Picnic. And as Monomania proves, he should be the first name on the list for next year's shindig.

Music Review • 31 Aug 19

Thom Yorke: a golden child, out of step with the computer world

Thom Yorke sounds anaemic on new solo record ANIMA

The Radiohead anti-star becomes unstuck on this perplexing new solo album

Music Review • 01 Jul 19

The Asbury Park Lineman Photo: Danny Clinch

Springsteen finds more glory nights under Western Stars

Some albums are old friends from the off, and Western Stars already feels likes it was always part of the inner circle. One listen, smitten.

Music Review • 14 Jun 19

Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996) performs in Rotterdam in 1991

Album review: Gerry Mulligan – 3 Essential Albums

Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band at the Village Vanguard and Night Lights are three albums chosen for this attractive Verve/Universal package.

Music Reviews • 03 Apr 19

From ballads to bruisers, Foals play it like a band determined to do their bit to return the album to the rude health the art form enjoyed in days gone by (Photo: Alex Knowles)

Foals reaffirm thoroughbred status on new album

Eschewing our expectations of everything now gratification and perhaps a regretful acknowledgement of ever-shorter attention spans, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1 crams a lot into 39 minutes and leaves its successor with quite the job of work.

Music Review • 11 Mar 19

Yellowjackets featuring singer Luciana Souza

Album review: Yellowjackets - Raising Our Voice

There is an enduring optimism to the sound of Yellowjackets' new album, a kind of Chick Corea uplift with flashes too of a smaller scale Weather Report.

Music Reviews • 29 Nov 18

One of the great showmen struggles to shake off the unenviable classification of 'solid'

Slash's latest is good, but never great

A good-but-never-great collection sees Slash struggling to shake off the unenviable classification of 'solid'.

Music Review • 25 Sep 18

A reunion in the studio with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra would be no bad thing

Ane Brun - Live at Berwaldhallen

Sigh for me Stockholm!

Music Review • 27 Aug 18

The Carters: Beyonce and Jay Z filmed the video for Apeshit in The Louvre

The Carters preach love and forgiveness on new album

Beyonce and Jay Z team up for their first joint album, with their marital highs and lows providing the inspiration for a record that is at times excellent, but also somewhat self-indulgent and forgettable.

Music Review • 20 Jun 18

Taylor Swift told the crowd that she had "heard that Croke Park is legendary"

Taylor Swift brings pop perfection to Croke Park

Taylor Swift was in pitch perfect form for the first of her two gigs at Croke Park. Her Reputation has never been better as she delighted the crowd with a pure pop spectacle and stood in awe of a "beautiful, passionate Irish crowd."

Music Review • 18 Jun 18

Kanye: a booming and bombastic case of sonic indigestion

Hip hop's Trump comes a cropper on new album

Kanye West peers deep inside his own soul on his eighth album and finds a howling vortex of nothing

Music Review • 07 Jun 18

Album review: The Voidz - Virtue

Julian Casablancas release confounding second album. It pays off after repeated listens

Music Review • 26 Apr 18

John Coltrane: genius of the sax whose legacy is celebrated on two vinyl albums from Universal records

Chasing Trane - Original Soundtrack

Chasing Trane was the illuminating 2016 documentary on the life of John Coltrane. Now comes the soundtrack on two vinyl LPs, in effect the perfect anthology.

Music Reviews • 21 Mar 18

Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette on fine fettle on After the Fall

Jarrett/Peacock/DeJohnette - After the Fall

Recorded in New Jersey in 1998, After the Fall is an exuberant, vibrant session as piano visionary Keith Jarrett teams up with old friends Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

Keith Jarrett • 20 Mar 18

The Icelandic music composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018): his score for The Mercy just released

Jóhann Jóhannsson - The Mercy

The death last month of Jóhann Jóhannsson at the relatively young age of 48 has left bereft the many devotees of his hugely appealing art. The Icelandic composer's score for the James Marsh-directed film The Mercy, has just been released.

Music Review • 16 Mar 18

Always Ascending is the quirkiest and zestiest thing Franz have done in years

Franz Ferdinand on the up with new album

The Glasgow band have re-bottled some of their early magic on this limber return to form

Music Review • 09 Feb 18

U2's staying power, self-belief and hope remains admirable after all these years

Review: U2 - Songs of Experience

The band who tried to make the devil's music find religion face up to mortality and wrestle with geopolitics on their new album - so business as usual for U2 but there are fresh signs of vitality

U2 • 06 Dec 17

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