Back catalogue: All genres

Review: 1995 saw the unlikely pairing of David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails playing together in a live setting, as part of the latter's 'Self Destruct Touring Cycle' - this arm being the Dissonance tour. Bowie was celebrating his then-latest album 'Outside', while NIN were still reeling from the roaring fallout success of 'The Downward Spiral'. This new 180-gram LP version consists of a picture disc with fitting spiky red lettering, straddling the typographic connotations of both Ziggy Stardust and Trent Rezor. The recordings themselves are remastered and greatly-enhanced versions of the original KLLT-FM and Syndicated radio broadcasts, documenting two live appearances at the Riverport (MO) and Shoreline (CA) Amphitheatres. Be sure not to skimp on timeless restylings of 'Hallo Spaceboy' and 'Hurt', each artist lending strange charisma to each other's masterworks.

Review: This double LP release of Marcello Michelotti's Italian New Wave live performances of the groups 1980 double single 'Information of Death' and 2008 album 'Oscillator' come 3 years after their last EP. Whilst 'Information of Death' utilises analogue synths and live drum recordings to create its metallic, cold soundscape, 'Oscillator' - a live performance from the 1979 Banana Moon Club - is almost entirely those alien synths, with interspersed vocal passages. These two legendary New Wave projects are bundled together for the first time, the first vinyl press of 'Oscillator' and the first press of 'Information of Death' in 7 years. The abrasive, experimental production on tracks like 'Neon 0832' and 'Neon 1102' are revolutionary to a modern ear. To say Michelotti et al were ahead of their time is an understatement.

Review: Legendary kraut and prog rock duo NEU! aka Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger make the 50th anniversary of their self titled debut album with a special reissue all formats. This limited edition picture disc format is one for the collectors for sure. The music still sounds fresh with its mix of heady ambient and lazy grooves, driving motor kicks and psyched out sounds all making for perfectly immersive listening. Weird and wonderful and unbelievably avant garde for 1972, it remains one of the most impressive debut albums of the era.

Review: It has been 26 years since people had their first taste of New Found Glory. Emerging from Coral Springs, Florida, in the height of the pop punk second wave (Stateside at least), back then they were hailed by many as pioneers of a re-energised sound, offering rowdy, speedy, unrelenting and immediately sing-along-worthy anthems by the bucketload, referencing alternative rock and hardcore without putting off anyone eyeing them up for chart targeting marketing campaigns.

Make the Most of It certainly clarifies that praise was not simply the dew-eyed ramblings of people caught in a moment. Having created the blueprint for their sub-genre, here they strip all that away without damaging the emotional quality, offering a rousing and - it has to be said - evocative acoustic record that lays bare their lyrical and instrumental talent.

Review: It's hard to miss the forward motion running through New Pagans' work. The Belfast group have this way of crafting sometimes jagged, sometimes rolling, but always direct and propellant riffs that cut a fine line between a kind of Neo-punk and classic indie rock. Their tracks can simultaneously sound DIY and soaring, big room but intimate, which is no mean feat at all.

Making A Circle of Our Own is a fantastic case in point - packed with energy and ideas, it hits hard. But movement runs through much more than instrumentation and arrangements. As an outfit, they're as concerned with starting conversations about some pretty big issues, for example equality and the perversion or distortion of history, alongside smaller, more personal themes. Relationships, self-identity, and belief. Quite the package, then.

Review: Most people will remember the New Radicals from their international hit single (well, certainly UK and US hit single) 'You Get What You Give' - a Waterboys-esque slice of emotionally charged indie with rousing message about how putting in is the only real means of receiving anything good. Releasing just one album - this one, from which that song was taken - diving into the full record now, 24 years on, is intriguing.

While that statement track might have convinced many otherwise, newcomers will find that Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too is actually a pretty wild ride through psychedelic-leaning poppy rock. Or rocky pop, it's hard to know which order to punt for. Fundamentally, though, this is a way more complex and fascinating outing than That Big Anthem would have you expecting, nodding to early-Aerosmith, INXS and more.

Review: The only album Nico gave us that didn't feature John Cale was a visionary piece of work. Not for a moment suggesting the absence of her regular collaborator improved things, but Drama of Exile certainly saw the iconic German musician, singer and songwriter move in some different and very new directions. Enlisting the help of Philippe Quilichini, a Corsican bassist, and introducing a Middle Eastern rhythm section definitely helped, but ultimately you can't help feeling this was an album she was always supposed to make. That voice, once described by the critic Richard Goldstein as sounding like "a cello getting up in the morning", was perfect for what had come before, but as the focal point of experiments in coldwave, synthwave, goth and new wave, it seems to take on new resonance and power. A thing of obscure beauty that deserves every bit of this repressing.

Review: The highly respected Northern English music journalist John Robb once described The Nightingales as "the misfits' misfits". In a small part, this is probably owing to the relentless changes in lineup the group have experienced since forming in Birmingham in 1979. However, that's really quite a reductive reading of the statement. Realistically, the post punk outfit just don't quite match their peers, with a take on the genre that incorporates elements of folk and gypsy rock.

Or at least that's our reading. Agree or not, In The Good Old Country Way was the outfit's third studio album, and at the time of its original release (1986), was recognised among their most polished and refined work. Nevertheless, it still sounds like a raw and rather uncompromising workout, sweat-soaked and dirty, experimental but really just aimed at making you spill your drink.

Review: "I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring," David Bowie famously quipped at his 50th Birthday concert in Madison Square Garden. That was 1997, and sadly we can now look back at the years between then and now as the last the icon would enjoy, although given the pantheons of unreleased material, music and other, we still have more than his legacy alone to learn from. He certainly kept his word, then, not least by opting to work with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, a band that found inspiration in myriad styles and sounds, from Human League to Pink Floyd, carving out a 'industrial electronic rock' niche for themselves. In addition to tours and one-off shows, recordings of their collaborations are remarkable, generating fresh wholes from the enormous sums of these parts.

Review: Nirvana still seems cool as fuck all these many decades after their frontman died. Their musical legacy lives on each time a new generation licks into the grunt chromes of the music, or each time we get a reissue or special limited edition picture disc album like the one. It is a very real and raw recording from their show at Hollywood Rock Festival which was actually held at Paca da Apoteose, Rio de Janeiro on 23rd January 1993. Plenty of the band's classics made the setlist and they sound as sleazy and gritty as ever on this recording.

Review: Nirvana's legacy is one of the most compelling of any 20th Century rock band. The voice(s) of a disillusioned generation weaned to sickness on processed culture, ending in tragedy, the ferociously powerful combination of music and message has understandably been long-lasting and still influences people today, but the albums-proper, and sad conclusion, usually dominate conversations about the group's work. Incesticide is proof of how much we're forgetting. Comprising demos, outtakes, cover versions, radio broadcasts, the 1990 non-album single, 'Silver', among other things, much of what's here was circulating among fans in low quality formats prior to the compilation's formal release in 1992, and goes some way to showing off the breadth and scope Nirvana were capable of. An education for the committed and unconvinced alike, grab it while you can.

Review: 30 years on, the power of Nevermind has never dulled. Of course it's the most commercially appealing of Nirvana's albums, but it's no less daring for it no matter how many times you've heard it. Well, how to toast an album as world-changing as this one? By going all out on the lavish vinyl edition of course, which in this case means a mammoth eight-disc 180gm vinyl edition with a 40-page hardback book. If you want an altar at which to worship one of the definitive moments in popular music, this authoritative release is surely all the plinth you need.

Review: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds project is already ten years old, somehow. To mark the milestone, the cocksure Manc looks back on the decade with this double album of greatest hits. To be fair, he has managed to continue to serve up big, festival-sized rock tunes that have kept Oasis fans more than happy. He has selected each and every tune here with tracks from three of his number one records and two previously unreleased works including the brand new single 'We're On Our Way Now'. You know what you will get with these.

Review: English rock band Nothing But Thieves are now just over a decade into their career but Dead Club City is already their fourth album. It has been preceded by the lead single 'Welcome to the DCC', a punchy and confident track that embodies the album's energy. The lyrics are sonically on point and show the band has managed to adapt and evolve as they head into this new creative chapter. Their sound might be rooted in rock, then, but they draw on experimental funk and 80's influences with bright synths and soaring choruses that bring inescapable tension.

Review: The evolution of German art outfit The Notwist is something to behold. Kicking off in 1989 with a metal album, between then and now they've refused to stay still, developing a sound that is truly their own. Gradually introducing electronics to the oeuvre, and discarding of the real heaviness, if you were going to label anything an amalgamation of sounds it's this - indie, electronica, jazz, downtempo, garage rock, lo fi pop.

All of that makes for a particularly formative musical experience on stage. Core members Cico Beck and the Acher brothers, Markus and Micha, consider records to be the starting point from which beautiful things happen live. Concerts are jam sessions that allow ideas to come to fruition, or develop almost by surprise. This is testament to that. Not a live record, but a recording of them reworking tracks from Vertigo Days and one from the soundtrack to One of Those Days in their own hilariously nicknamed studio.