The blend of technical wizardry and sprawling boisterous energy on Outer Edges makes it as close as you'll get to the perfect bass music album.

The album is centered around full-on white-knuckle thrill-rides (Voodoo, Get Deaded, Sinkhole and Tentacles) but tracks like Surfaceless and Miniatures are carefully placed breathers, which, along with the intro and outro tracks, provide the touch of humanity which transcends this album beyond a collection of facemelters. But its the patient ... read more

Gorillaz may have since surpassed Demon Days in terms of worldbuilding, but over 20 years on and this release still shines brightest in the sheer number of quality tracks. Its often bleak themes/messaging is balanced by a richness and simmering energy which keeps the listener engaged throughout. This album is a now-not-so-modern classic and which will remain talked about for decades to come.

Continua is an album that only comes alive in the small hours. It exists in those places where people once were - the empty train station, the night bus home, the bar after closing. The warm pads and lazy percussion are telling you the party's over. Turn the light off on your way out.

All The Shimmering Things is a quintessential Spring album - with his relentlessly hopeful chord progressions and strings, rolling drums, rousing basslines, and a smattering of birdsong, Keeno's here to remind you that brighter times are ahead

A record of just-about-serviceable main stage house music. Don't come for ground-breaking ideas, or any sort of cohesive album experience, this is music to wait to be served at the bar to

Delta Heavy have dropped some of their more rock influences in favour of a more standard dancefloor sound for this latest LP, but the shift has been backed up with some fun ideas, solid song-writing and quality production. Yes it's 'generic' in parts, yes it loses a bit of steam in the final third, but its still one of the best dancefloor dnb releases in recent years.

A short and sweet collection of trap-adjacent summer jams, don't take it too seriously and it's perfectly enjoyable. Flute Loop is a hard skip though, I don't know what they were thinking there.

Bleeds builds a world so vivid and visceral you'll end it feeling a sense of comforting nostalgia for a place and time you never experienced.

It would have been easy to put together 10 tracks of club-focused drops with little emotional depth, but tracks like GLASS, a future garage track just before the halfway mark, and SENSITIVE, probably the album's standout, make this trap-focused LP better than most. But there are some misses on here, HOLD ON ME is no where near the payoff you'd expect after a near 3min build up (including the intro), and COMEDOWN and FAKE IT are skips for me.

PEEKABOO's latest effort aimed squarely at the mainstage. While no longer on the cutting edge of bass music, there's some amount of worthwhile stuff on here - the vocal features give it colour, producer collabs with the likes of Skrillex and Nitepunk pack a punch, and there's a range of styles on here to keep things interesting.

After a string of underwhelming singles and EPs during the pandemic, Modestep's return to London and to the album format has strong results. While the dubstep-leaning cuts still feel a little empty, the shift to a drum and bass/rock crossover sound is backed up by solid songwriting, intricate sound design and more evidence that Josh is by far the best male vocalist in bass music.

While still very serviceable as a polished dancefloor drum and bass album, Metrik's latest effort falls short of capturing the highs of Ex Machina. I would have liked to a full embrace of the more dnb/rock cross-over material explored in Hole and Abyss, the undoubted highlights of the album.

This may be Bondax's debut full-length album, but it's ~40min trip through house, disco, soul and RnB influences features some real gems, and it's silky smooth production ties everything together nicely. Particular highlights including Deeper, the stand-out danceable track, and All Inside (Reprise), a poignant moment of reflection which I'd personally have made the very last track on the album.