John Doran

20t h Century metal has never bettered Reign In Blood to Seasons In TheAbyss... sorry Metallica, Priest & Sabbath!

JR Moores casts a weary eye over a treble album of remixes, that can't quite make us forget how harrowing the source material is.

There are a glut of new Oasis books out due to the reunion, but, asks Fergal Kinney, how is the band's shocking decline in quality dealt with?

Ahead of the launch of her new radio show on 6 Music & an appearance at MIF, Mary Anne Hobbs would sooner talk about an old bus...

Joe Muggs celebrates the reissue of an album which captures the thrilling contradictory power of rave, just moths before it splintered.

The Beatles? The Stones? Led Zeppelin? Please... when it comes to rock, no one comes close to these three consecutive AC/DC albums

Sure the idea of the Buttholes as the penis surgery band who might shoot you is exciting but this live LP reminds you how great they were

The Raincoats were revolutionaries first, musicians second. Ahead of a new book, Audrey Golden charts their riotous journey

Jennifer Lucy Allan finds some gems on a frustratingly patchy and difficult to navigate compilation of Japanese soundtrack music

Lawrence English looks back fondly over the life of a true giant of Australian sound art, Alan Lamb, who died recently

Doctor Who is a televisual institution and cultural phenomenon which has so far spanned seven decades. John Higgs, one of the UK’s most unfailingly original authors, has written a book on the series which concerns “change, mystery and the importance of imaginary characters in our lives” while mirroring a lifetime of “social, technological and cultural […]

Darran Anderson nails his krautrock colours to the mast and declares Tago Mago, Egi Bamyasi and Future Days the best 3LP run

Angus Batey drops the needle on yet another (expensive) Miles Davis reissue but still finds there are new sounds and ideas to be had

Already excellent

Heavy metal has never looked as directionless as it did in 1995. Keith Kahn-Harris looks back to a genre close to dissipating

Regis, Dyslecta & Slav To The Rhythm DJ, while the Utopia Strong, Matmos and Scotch Rolex play live at Acid Horse 25

JR Moores packs it all in to follow The Jesus Lizard on tour, pausing only to review the best psych (and noise) rock there is.

John Doran admires the noise to signal ratio at Unsound Krakow while taking in Petronn Sphene, Lankum, Aya, Yellow Swans and Lord Spikeheart

Selected Ambient Works Volume II is an often misunderstood album that offers little in the way of chill, but instead a communion with Cornwall

Blood Incantation's Isaac Faulk talks to Dan Franklin about how pushing at the boundaries of what a band can be created their most mind-expanding music yet