Brand New Eyes has far less spiteful and ferocious tracks than Riot, instead at times focusing on more sentimental lovey-dovey stuff, but the anger and loudness of Paramore is still very much present especially in the first half. The first half is great and most songs hit like they should, but the album falls apart a little in the weaker second half, despite ending on one of the best tracks on the album. It was clear that all of the thought went into the first half in all departments, because ... read more

Cheerleader anthems from hell.

Favourite Song: Riot Rhythm

Best: Tell 'Em, Kids, Infinity Guitars, Rill Rill, Crown On The Ground, A/B Machines,

Worst: Rachel

Crunchy.

Favourite Song: Anything to Gain/Nothing to Lose

Best: Reality/Dreams, Fallen, Extant, Shotgun, Implosion, Goodbye

Worst: Itsumo

Although being slower and less impactful than I was expecting, The Joshua Tree doesn't disappoint in its larger than life appearance, and especially resonates within its first three songs. Everything after the three openers is nowhere near that level of quality, but regardless it's still all a bit of fun classic dad rock.

Favourite Song: Where The Streets Have No Name

Best: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You, Bullet The Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, Red Hill ... read more

I feel like I shouldn't enjoy this as much as I do, but then again my taste is inconceivably inconsistent at this point.

Favourite Song: Misery Business

Best: For a Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic, That's What You Get, Hallelujah, When It Rains, Let the Flames Begin, Miracle, crushcrushcrush, Fences, Born for This

Worst: We Are Broken

It's probably a hot take to say this, but I much prefer this alt rock style to BMTH compared to their earlier metal core stuff. They're a band that runs off of theatrics and an overly passionate lead vocalist, and metal never really seemed to bring those good elements to the forefront due to the restrictions that the tropes they were utilising brought. However in this new sound space, they're not only more accessible but also more enjoyable, and this album's accessible and larger than life DNA ... read more

She certainly has a shtick, but it's a shtick that favours her fondly.

Favourite Song: He Won't Go

Best: Rolling in the Deep, Rumour Has It, Turning Tables, Don't You Remember, Set Fire to the Rain, Lovesong, Someone Like You

Worst: Take It All

Half of the songs sound like they're produced by Cocomelon, and yet I'm still left sad.

Favourite Song: Close To Me

Best: Inbetween Days, Kyoto Song, The Blood, Push, The Baby Screams, A Night Like This, Sinking

Worst: Six Different Ways

Paranoid has aged really well, especially with its holy trinity of heavy metal tracks that are, to say the least, breath taking, with the anthemic War Pigs, the short banger Paranoid and the larger than life Iron Man. I can't say that the other tracks on the album are on par with the holy three, but I can say that the whole album does generally feel pretty good all throughout. Some pretty nice classic metal.

Favourite Song: War Pigs

Best: Paranoid, Planet Caravan, Iron Man, Hand of Doom, ... read more

Meliora is an offbeat metal album which is equally as theatrical as it is menacing. The singer is at points hit or miss, since his style is very much in the soft department which is strange for a metal vocalist, but the band more than makes up for his occasional whoopie cushions of impact by having some fantastic rock blasting away in the background. Also this thing doesn't deserve to be as catchy as it is, which gives it that sort of cult-like feel where you chant away some of the strangely ... read more

Nothing much to say about Pale Machine other than it's a kind of annoyingly bombastic cut of over-produced Japanese influenced electronica that left me feeling bored. Sure it's meant to be one of the first electronic albums to influence the genres that it dabbles in, like future bass for instance, but it still doesn't really give me a nice experience, just a sort of bland and meh one. Plus, the English vocals and lyrics are terrible. I'm not huge on the stupidly cutesy grown man singing in a ... read more

It took me a while to get round to Mr Dylan, but he is indeed a wonderful classic Americana wordsmith.

Favourite Song: Tombstone Blues

Best: Like a Rolling Stone, From a Buick 6, Ballad of a Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, Highway 61 Revisited, Desolation Row

Worst: It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

I didn't click with Siamese Dream like I did with Melon Collie, but I still definitely enjoyed the experience. The Pumpkin's general sound is solidified here, and there's some nice tunes albeit with a decent bit of filler. And that's my gripe with The Pumpkins, is with that filler and album length. This album feels pretty long without a necessary justification, as with Melon Collie too in a way. But even if they can't cut the crap out of their albums, there's still some generally lovely and ... read more

Isolation has some nice moments and versatility, but nothing kept me wanting to go back for more. It's simply a nice time with Ms Uchis without being the pinnacle of modern neo-soul.

Favourite Song: After The Storm

Best: Body Language, Miami, Just A Stranger, Flight 22, Your Teeth In My Neck, Dead To Me, Nuestro Planeta, Coming Home, Feel Like A Fool

Worst: In My Dreams

I can't believe Pushing P got the guy who made the Despicable Me soundtrack and Pete Davidson's arch enemy to produce this album, absolutely incredible.

It's Almost Dry is exactly what you'd expect from a Pusha T album. Solid production, fun coke related bars and a short runtime (following in suit with his last 2 albums which are circa 20/30 minutes). And yeah, that's it. It could've been more substantial, but alas it isn't because that's Pusha's style, and to be honest that's alright. The ... read more

Broken is a wonderfully fuming 30 minute gut punch of anger, noise and more anger. 'Pre-Downward Spiral' Nails was clearly just as noisy and disgusting as post their magnum opus, with songs like Physical challenging the horny likes of Closer, and stuff like Happiness in Slavery retaining the group's need to go that extra distance lyrically. Your ears will bleed, but they'll bleed in a kind and sentimental way.

Favourite Song: Physical

Best: Wish, Last, Help Me I Am In Hell, Gave Up, ... read more

Frantic and catchy, yet hard hitting as hell.

Favourite Song: Chop Suey!

Best: Prison Song, Needles, Deer Dance, X, Bounce, ATWA, Science, Toxicity, Psycho, Aerials, Arto

Worst: Forest

The Twilight Sad is what you end up with when mixing together a Scottish accent, The Cure influences and modern shoegaze. The singer is, as the band's name suggests, pretty emotive and down in the dumps with his lyricism, and the swarms of rock surrounding him serenade the down trodden atmosphere perfectly. A little more variation could've been nice within the track list, but nonetheless what's here is still pretty solid.

Favourite Song: [10 Good Reasons for Modern Drugs]

Best: Shooting ... read more

For an album called Dance Fever, this is surprisingly too undancey aside from 2 songs. 0/10

Florence and her machine is one of those bands who never seem to adapt fully into new sounds, only slightly changing older ones to accommodate for newer times. So the promise of having more dance elements integrated into a band that revolves around a consistently samey pop rock and art pop sound was interesting to say the least. It was an interesting conception until the album developed into exactly ... read more

A Light for Attracting Attention is serene and diverse, sprawling out Thom Yorke's excellent knowledge on making a great rock album, but it's impossible to separate this group project from the haunting ghost of Radiohead. And yes, it is mentally impossible for any AOTY user not to mention Radiohead in their The Smile reviews, it's a canonically proven fact in the new age of this website. God help us all.

But to be honest, you can't blame anyone for the mentions when this album is so similar to ... read more