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Review: The debut solo album by David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash fame, If I Could Only Remember My Name is an ironic title for an artist first striking out on their commercial own. But despite its faux-amnesiac title, this freak-folk opus is actually a striking claim to, not a loss of, personal musical identity. Following the success of 1970's Deja Vu with Stills & Nash, Crosby sought to expound on that album's methodology - hard psychedelic drugs, brushes with insanity, copious studio time - to produce a crisp, profound and multifaceted vision on the intersection of blues, folk and collective music-making, with every legend from Neil Young to Joni Mitchell to Graham Nash in tow. The highlight has to be, above all, 'Tamalpais High (At About 3)'.

Review: Gastr del Sol might have gone their separate ways some 25 years ago, but they have recently taken the time to dig back into their fine archives. As a result they now serve up an alternate view of their superb, boundary breaking and genre busting run between 1993 and 1998 with a title box set, We Have Dozens Of Titles, on Drag City. Returning like a reverberating bolt from the blue, this album reignites the essence of the group and immerses listeners back into the whirlwind of their transformative era. It comprises previously uncaptured studio recordings and meticulously preserved unreleased live performances that all offer a captivating glimpse into the band's journey.

Review: The Rolling Stones are arguably one not only the most iconic rock bands of all time but also considered legendary performers as well. One of their most well-recorded performances (as noted by fans often) is their 2002 performance at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, with a track listing full of 70s classics and spread over three albums to get the best possible fidelity from the medium.

Review: From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, the English hard rock supergroup fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also managed Bad Company until 1982. The group's eponymous 1974 album debut decidedly proves the band is proudly not progressive - the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing 'Seagull' - reducing their rock 'n' roll to a strong, heavy crunch; compare 'Ready For Love,' a tune Ralphs brought over from Mott the Hoople, to the original to see how these quartet members keep their heads down as they do their business. All the hallmarks of a top-notch Analogue Productions reissue are here for your pleasure: mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and cut at 45rpm.

Review: You'd be hard pushed to find anyone with a set of ears who doesn't like at least one of The Police's many hits. Sure, Sting is a pretty divisive figure these days but back in his pomp with this crew he was untouchable. The band was known for bring their love of dub and reggae to their catchy indie-pop sounds and it resulted in global tours, a number of chart topping hits and adoration from fans across the planet. All the best tune are here from the squealing 'Roxanne' to the freaky 'Walking on the Moon' via the funky 'Message In A Bottle.' This 30th Anniversary edition is a real bumper across four sides of vinyl.

Review: Licorice Pizza is the new film from acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in the San Fernando Valley in 1973, it's a veritable time capsule of a movie with a soundtrack to match. There's plenty of classic period pieces gathered here on this album, featuring songs by David Bowie, Nina Simone, and Wings, Donovan, Sonny & Cher, Gordon Lightfoot, and more. As well as that, there's also a new original song written by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, who has worked with Anderson before. Look out for Chuck Berry performing with Steve Miller Band for an added surprise in the midst of the hits, and a deep cut from Joe Walsh's pre-Eagles band James Gang.

Review: Few could have predicted the impact Phil Collins would have when he decided to go solo following his first stint in Genesis, but then few were prepared for the iconic gated drums which would come to define the 80s. Opening with the ubiquitous air-drum anthem 'In The Air Tonight', it was an unintentional landmark like all the best ones are, written as a personal therapy after his first divorce and subsequently turned into one of the biggest sellers of 1981. With a huge sound that deserves only the finest treatment, Face Value now gets remastered and repressed as an audiophile double vinyl courtesy of those exacting folk at Analogue Productions.

Review: With the recently announced news of a final "new" track from The Beatles set to imminently drop, reissues of both the iconic/infamous Red and Blue compilations are set to be delivered on a gatefold 180 gram vinyl 3xLP half-speed remaster, with the blue spanning their output from 1967 to 1970, this version exclusively bears the highly anticipated last original recording 'Now & Then'. Running from The Magic Mystery Tour EP all the way up to Let It Be (with a bevvy of essential non-album cuts such as 'Hey Jude' and 'Don't Let Me Down'), the compilation offers a detailed insight into the artistic abandon the members felt during the final years of their tenure once touring, radioplay and listener expectation had become moot points.

Review: As part of their latest full-discography reissue via UMR, The Who re-release their second full-length rock opera, Quadrophenia. Newly to 180-gram black vinyl, this mammoth project is an early rock concept album by the band, credited for the revival and cementing of the Mod subculture at large in the seventies. The album is set between London and Brighton in 1965, and follows a young mod named Jimmy and his many tight-blazered, Moped-bound travails and heartaches. Responsible for producing the Mod as a full-blown, marketable, subcultural identity, Quadrophenia was the blueprint for a youth aeon, and went on to inspire the teen drug-addled, alley-way action of the later film of the same name, directed by Franc Roddam.

Review: Three decades before he released The Philosophy of Modern Song - an insightful book devoted to 66 tunes that both impacted his career and the music world at large - Bob Dylan issued Good As I Been to You. The under-heralded 1992 album, Dylan's first solo acoustic album in nearly 30 years and first all-covers effort in nearly twenty years, can be seen as a prophetic prelude to what has become the Nobel Laureate's celebrated late-career arc. It's also an absorbing continuation of the custom Dylan has embraced since he first picked up a guitar.

Review: Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies celebrates its 50th Anniversary with this special Deluxe Edition which once again unleashes an onslaught of shock-rock brilliance. It is a landmark album that remains a pinnacle of Cooper's theatricality and musical prowess. With hits like 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' and the title track, the album is a darkly decadent journey through Cooper's twisted imagination and this all new edition across triple vinyl offers remastered tracks, rare demos and live recordings, all of which provided fans with a comprehensive glimpse into the album's creation. As such Billion Dollar Babies will captivate audiences both new and old with its blend of macabre theatrics and infectious rock anthems.

Review: We've had more Neil Young compilations thrown our way over the years than many of us care to remember, but only one really sticks in the mind, and it's this one. Originally released in 1977 and chronicling the period in which Young went from being a simple member of Buffalo Springfield to one of the most heralded North American songwriters of the late century, and comprising work from that band alongside Crosby Stills Nash and Young, it's studded with delights aplenty. From the extended guitar sprawl of 'Down By The Ocean' and 'Cortez The Killer' to poignant balladry like 'After The Goldrush' and 'Helpless', no-one captured the dreams and hopes of the hippie generation in quite the way Young did, and this collection is a magnificent testimony to his most fertile and heartwarming era.

Review: A musical polymath like no other, the late Arthur Russell turned his hand to a bewildering variety of different musical styles, from avant-garde torch songs to pounding disco, yet all imbued with his otherworldly songwriting skill and richly emotional voice. This posthumous compilation, however, collects together the more oddly accessible material that he created, in largely acoustic and country styles. The cowboy hat on the sleeve may be strangely appropriate here, but more than this, the blend of plaintive melancholy and freewheeling charm can only leave the listener wondering how Arthur Russell managed to avoid mainstream success in his all-too-brief career. A strange and beguiling transmission from a unique talent.

Review: The eleventh studio album by prolific American rock band Pearl Jam, Gigaton was originally released in March 2020 and sold out almost instantly. Now getting a re-run on US label Monkeywrench, fans have a second chance at adding this standout release to their collection. Typical of Pearl Jam this release features inventive instrumentation such as the 1850s-era pump organ originally played by Vedder on the 2015 demo of 'River Cross'. Featuring popular singles 'Dance of the Clairvoyants', 'Superblood Wolfmoon' and 'Quick Escape', Gigaton was undoubtedly well worth the six and half year wait. Definitely one you'll need to grab before it's gone.

Review: The latest chapter in the highly acclaimed Bob Dylan Bootleg Series takes a fresh look at the 1997 album 'Time Out of Mind', the rock and folk legend's 13th LP, celebrating the grammy award winning album and its enduring impact 25 years after its original release. This quadruple LP box set edition includes a new 2022 remix of the eleven original recordings on 'Time Out of Mind' by Michael H. Brauer. Also included are 12 previously unreleased outtakes and alternate versions of songs written for 'Time Out of Mind', including demos and unreleased versions of iconic tracks as "Love Sick", "Not Dark Yet" and "Make You Feel My Love", a track that has withstood the test of time to be covered more recently by Adele. A huge offering to Bob Dylan fans that would make a great gift to that super fan you know...

Review: As the third installment brings attention back on this crucial series, Light In The Attic are running a repress of their second voyage into the plentiful realm of Japanese city pop - another extended cruise through impossibly slick '70s and '80s groovers with that golden studio sound. There's sultry slinkers like Eiichi Ohtaki and sensual funk from Kimiko Kasai on "Vibration (Love Celebration)". Watch out for the heavy bass and subtle synth inflections of Yu Imai's incredible "Kindaichi Kosuke Nishi E Iku" and the impossibly catchy whistlealong 'Hot Sand' by Piper. It's not a competition, but if you crave that US AOR sound, it might just be that the Japanese did it better.

Review: In many ways it's hard to get a fix on U2's 90s period. It's as though they folded time between their breakthrough 80s albums and the comfortable middle age period post the turn of the millennium. However, Zooropa remains a wildly exciting album which saw Bono and his buddies weren't afraid to mess with the formula and embrace what was happening outside of their mainstream rock bubble. There are some surprising risks taken and yet their gargantuan song craft remains undiminished. On this 30th anniversary pressing there's also some bonus remixes tucked onto side four, bringing Oakenfold's equally supersized Perfecto sound into the mix.

Review: Over-Nite Sensation has been long-hailed as the gateway drug into Frank Zappa’s extensive musical universe, after which there really is no going back. Now reissued and expanded by the Zappa estate, the album returns to the foreground again, in several formats, including one CD with over 57 unreleased and rare studio and live tracks piled on top of the original seven magnum opi. This edition, however, is an audiophile standard 2xLP edition, just as Uncle Meat intended from the jump. From the opening princely funk of ‘Dirty Love’ to the midway scattings of ‘Dinah-Moe Humm’ and the closing yippee-ki-yays of ‘Montana’, this album should be best remembered not only as FZ's sexiest, but coincidingly as the one on which music’s most notorious Bonnie & Clyde, Ike and Tina Turner, were enlisted to aid Zappa for the closing track, but were ultimately not credited due to a poor performance, by Zappa’s assessment.

Review: Prince and the New Power Generation strode into the 90s full power with Diamonds & Pearls, one of the all-time greats from the purple legend’s imperious canon. It’s a record which shows the full force of Prince’s songwriting power from the fired-up bangers like ‘Thunder’ and ‘Gett Off’ to the none-sexier ‘Cream’ through to the heart-melting ballads ‘Diamonds & Pearls’ and ‘Strollin’. It’s a plush, high-end sound which comes through in startling clarity on this remastered reissue. In line with the other recent Prince reissues, this is the definitive deluxe edition of the record presented across four discs bursting with alternative takes, remixes, B sides and unreleased gems which take us even deeper into the genius of one of the greatest to ever do it.

Review: Queen's The Works in Concert is a powerful and legendary capture of one of the best pop-rock bands this country has ever produced. It was a show that was broadcast by Queen when they were performing in concert in May of 1985 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, Japan. It does across six sides of marbled vinyl and takes in every one of the band's hits you would hope, from the ice-cold 'Under Pressure' to the menacing 'Another One Bites the Dust.' Then there is the theatrical masterpiece that is 'Bohemian Rhapsody', the playfulness of 'Radio Ga Ga' and the ode to empowerment that is 'I Want To Break Free.'

Review: Another day, another reissue of the iconic/infamous Red Album compilation from the relatively well-known rock group dubbed The Beatles. This time delivered on a gatefold 180 gram vinyl 3xLP half-speed remaster, as the dates of 1962-1966 suggest, this collection pins down a plethora of classics penned by McCartney and Lennon, with a notable absence of any George Harrison material. Running from Please Please Me all the way up to Revolver, the compilation provides a sonic journey from the clean-cut pop-rock ditties of 'She Loves You' and 'Yesterday' to the more progressive and pioneering machinations taking shape on cuts such as 'Norwegian Wood' and the timelessly haunting 'Eleanor Rigby'. A crash course, in essence, of The Beatles' progression from witty boys with nice haircuts to modern music reformers.

Review: Arena rock heroes Foreigner crushed with their 1977 self-titled album debut, spawning some of the biggest FM hits of that year, including the anthemic 'Feels Like the First Time' and 'Cold as Ice,' both of which were anchored - like most of Foreigner's songs - by the muscular but traditional riffing of guitarist Mick Jones, the soaring vocals of Lou Gramm, and the state-of-the-art rock production values of the day. The architect behind Foreigner's extraordinary catalog, Jones has crafted some of rock music's most enduring songs. After starting his own rock band and opening for the Rolling Stones in pubs across South London, his first big break came in 1964 when he moved to Paris and was hired to play with French singer Sylvie Vartan. After a brief stint in England to reform the band Spooky Tooth, Jones moved to New York and formed Foreigner with Ian McDonald and Dennis Elliott and Americans Lou Gram, Alan Greenwood and Ed Gagliardi. Foreigner defined a generation of rock music to people across the globe; now on 180-gram 45 RPM double LP, you can hear Foreigner in all its phenomenal glory.

Review: The Who's 50th Anniversary edition of Who's Next is being released in multiple formats and chief among them is this relatively short and succinct 4xLP version. Though four sides of vinyl isn't usually thought to be "short", this is a minimal incarnation of the reissued album, compared to the juggernaut CD and Blu-Ray box set which contains over 155 original audio tracks on it. This version is as comparatively minimal and monolithic as the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith referenced on its front cover, though it's not still without its nice extra-album bonuses, 'Pinball Wizard' and 'Naked Eye' included.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Damage to the spines of Record Two and Record Three and slight creasing to corners of outer box but otherwise in excellent condition***


British rock sensation U2 deliver 'Songs Of Surrender', which compiles the best of the band's most well-known songs, which were re-recorded and reinterpreted during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020. Hits include 'With Or Without You', 'Pride', 'Bad' and 'Stories For Boys', making this a deluxe retrospective for any U2 fan champing at the bit for new material.