The Listener

Roisin Murphy: Hit Parade

30 September 2023 9:00 am

The best new album I’ve heard this year: Being Dead’s When Horses Would Run reviewed

9 September 2023 9:00 am

Grade: A– The point of a sudden, abrupt change in the time signature and instrumentation of a song is to…

Metallica: 72 Seasons

6 May 2023 9:00 am

Sam Smith: Gloria

4 February 2023 9:00 am

What’s the point of these soul covers? Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive reviewed

19 November 2022 9:00 am

Grade: B What’s the worst-ever cover version (after Madonna’s hilarious stab at ‘American Pie’)? I reckon Creedence Clearwater Revival’s interminable…

As good, and inventive, as modern rock music gets: Black Midi's Hellfire reviewed

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ The difficult question with Black Midi was always: are you listening to them in order to admire them,…

An intense slab of religiosity: Nick Cave's Seven Psalms reviewed

16 July 2022 9:00 am

 Grade: B There has always been a seriousness and intelligence about Nick Cave quite at odds with that which usually…

Humour, sweetness and sincerity: Father John Misty's Chloë and the Next Twentieth Century reviewed

23 April 2022 9:00 am

 Grade: A– In which Josh Tillman reimagines the whole back catalogue of 20th-century American pop music (except for rock), tilting…

No one should be doing indie rock at 43: Band of Horses's Things Are Great reviewed

2 April 2022 9:00 am

Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…

See this Russian hip hop star before they arrest him: Oxxxymiron's Beauty & Ugliness reviewed

26 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ I was going to review hyperpop chanteuse Charli XCX’s album this week, but it was such boring, meretricious,…

Fabulously boring: Weather Station's How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars reviewed

12 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: C– Anyone remember that TV advert for Canada from the 1980s – a succession of colourful images, including a…

Too neat but it has hooks aplenty: Avril Lavigne's Love Sux reviewed

5 March 2022 9:00 am

Grade: B Yay, life just gets better and better. World War Three and now this. More petulant popcorn pre-school punk…

Pretty astonishing: Black Country, New Road's Ants From Up There reviewed

19 February 2022 9:00 am

Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…