Back catalogue: All genres

Review: Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the third and final album from Nirvana should require little to know introduction. Repressed, remastered and redefined over and over again, the Steve Albini-produced, mainstream-eschewing swansong has only grown to become one of the ugliest left-turns the 90s grunge scene ever spat out. This super-deluxe three decade celebratory edition comes with two live concerts recorded in Los Angeles in December '93 and Seattle in January '94, five previously released B-sides, six bonus live cuts, as well as a removable front-cover acrylic panel with the album's iconic Angel; a 48-page hardcover book with unreleased photos; a 20-page newly designed fanzine; a Los Angeles tour poster lithograph by hot rod artist Coop; replicas of the 1993 record store promo Angel mobile, three gig fliers, two ticket stubs for Los Angeles and Seattle, an All-Access tour laminate, and four cloth sticky tour backstage passes: Press, Photo, After Show, and Local Crew!

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: In the midst of a slew of high-end reissues of New Order's classic material (including represses of the singles, no less), here comes a mouth-watering deluxe edition of their 1985 album Low-life. It's always a bold statement to call a release 'definitive' but it's hard to imagine topping this lavish box set with a 180 gram pressing plus a double CD, double DVD and accompanying book. There are full live performances from 1985 in Japan and Belgium, and every possible remix, outtake and demo version you could possibly dream of. And that's not even saying anything about the original album itself - a true totem of 80s synth pop in all its glory.

Review: "NINE INCH NAILS' GROUNDBREAKING DEBUT ALBUM
REMASTERED AND RE-RELEASED

Fans can now revisit the conception of Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor's Null Corporation has teamed with UMe/The Bicycle Music Company to release Pretty Hate Machine: 2010 Remaster on November 22, 2010. After completing the score for David Fincher's The Social Network, Reznor oversaw the digital remastering of Pretty Hate Machine from the newly unearthed original tapes with engineer Tom Baker (whose NIN credits include The Downward Spiral, Broken, The Fragile, With Teeth and Ghosts). This remastered version includes an eleventh track, a cover of Queen's ''Get Down Make Love,'' originally the B-side to the ''Sin'' single and produced by Al Jourgensen. Rob Sheridan, NIN's longtime art director, has also re-imagined the packaging of Pretty Hate Machine under Reznor's supervision.

As a young musician in Cleveland, Ohio, Reznor took a job at a local recording studio and employed unused studio time to develop his own material. The nascent album was later recorded with his favorite producers including Flood/Mark Ellis (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey), John Fryer (Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil), Adrian Sherwood (Ministry, Cabaret Voltaire) and Keith LeBlanc (Tackhead). The result was the first Nine Inch Nails album, 1989's Pretty Hate Machine. All songs were written, arranged, programmed and performed by Reznor. The album featured the breakthrough singles ''Sin,'' ''Down In It'' and ''Head Like A Hole,'' and ultimately sold over 3 million copies, reaching Triple Platinum sales status. In the wake of the album's initial underground success, NIN soon developed a reputation as one of the best live acts in rock and joined the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in 1991. NIN have since sold more than 18 million albums, collected Grammy® Awards and headlined arenas, amphitheaters and festivals worldwide.

The Bicycle Music Company acquired the rights to Pretty Hate Machine from a division of Prudential Securities in the spring of 2010. It was Bicycle's intention from the onset to enable Reznor to regain some control of this lost piece of NIN's legacy, resulting in this artist approved 2010 reissue of one of music's most groundbreaking and influential albums.

Reznor is currently working on new music as a member of the group How To Destroy Angels, continuing his Nine Inch Nails efforts and composing for future film score projects.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Head Like A Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down In It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want To
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. The Only Time
10. Ringfinger
11. Get Down Make Love"

Review: One of many names in the pantheons of Tokyo's electronic music triumphs, despite their acclaim, reverence among boffins, and the sprinkling of high profile UK remixers that helped spread their output further (copies of reworkings by The Black Dog, Autechre and Global Communication fetch a fair song on the resale market) most will never have heard about Nav Katze. Their loss, and one we'd like to put right if possible.

Formed in 1984 as a trio - Naoko Iimura (guitar), Miwako Yamaguchi (vocals and bass), and Shino Furutachi (drums) - the band would put out two well received record on SWITCH before migrating to the far more prominent label Victor Music Industries for 1991's Kanki, at which point three became two with Furutachi stepping down. This package showcases not only why their original material was so sought after, with trance notes, IDM and ambient and pop meeting in beautiful soundscapes - but also what can happen when new parties get involved, with remixes from Aphex Twin, Sun Electric and Disjecta included.

Review: In one of those unique cases where a compilation eclipses the studio albums, New Order's Substance is often considered the definitive representation of the band in their prime. It's understandable given it pulled together all their singles up to 1987, but equally they re-recorded classics like 'Confusion' and 'Temptation' so everything fitted together more naturally. As a result, Substance is a more cohesive listen than many similar offerings might be and these singles remain some of the finest to ever emerge from the UK's alternative music scene. Repressed and remastered, it's sounding better than ever.

Review: The third, controversial final album from Seattle's Nirvana should require little to no introduction. Repressed, remastered and redefined again and again, the Steve Albini-produced, mainstream-eschewing swansong has become one of the ugliest left-turns the 90's grunge scene ever spat up, and the subject of much heated internal fan debate over which is the definitive version. Celebrating its 30-year anniversary with a super-deluxe box set, boasting eight LPs made up of additional live performances as well as a myriad of memorabilia from the In Utero era, for the more lackadaisical collectors, there's this single LP gatefold pressing in a premium 'tip-on' sleeve similar to 2021's reissue of Nevermind, which comes with a bonus 10" of b-sides also featured on the monstrous deluxe edition.

Review: Ohio five-piece The National present their latest, most affecting statement to date, Laugh Track. The 12-song LP is a follow-up companion to, and features material originally started in, the same sessions as First Two Pages Of Frankenstein, also released by 4AD back in April. While the parent album was a brooding genesis of post-COVID anxiety channelled into indie rock, this child is a higher-res re-rendering of the same headspace, lending the National clarity in hindsight. Like its predecessor, it features from the same ilk of collaborators - Phoebe Bridgers, Rosanne Cash, Bon Iver - and is an infectiously pristine indie-pop-rocker, dedicated to "bailing out of your head".

Review: On its 20th anniversary comes a reissue of No Doubt's 1992-2003 singles collection, which brings together the very best of the ska and pop rockers' contributions to music at large over their first decade of stardom. Known as the alt-rock group fronted by Gwen Stefani, No Doubt were a formative act for the spreading of a distinctly American, pop-oriented form of ska punk. With Gwen's brother Eric on keys, and with bassist Tony Kanal and drummer Adrian Young also in tow, No Doubt's career was a slow-burning exponential curve skywards, which saw a successful takeoff despite some early flops. A huge team backed their recordings; notable on this compilation is two production features by Sly & Robbie, 'Underneath It All' and 'Hey Baby'.

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: Laugh Track is The National's most freewheeling, all-hands-on-deck album in years. If Frankenstein represented a rebuilding of trust between group members after 20+ years together, the vibrant, exploratory Laugh Track is both the product of that faith and a new statement of intent. Revelling in the license to radically upend its creative process, The National honed most of this material in live performances on tour this year and captured those invigorated versions in impromptu sessions at producer Tucker Martine's Portland studio, Flora Recording & Playback. The nearly eight-minute album closer 'Smoke Detector' was recorded in June during a Vancouver soundcheck, completing a body of work bristling with spontaneity and vintage rock energy that makes a perfect complement to the songs found on its more introspective predecessor.

Review: American rapper nothing,nowhere. writes and composes all his own music but he also has a cast of musicians on hand to perform with him when he plays live. His fifth studio album VOID ETERNAL makes use of plenty of those as well as having guest performances from the likes of SEEYOUSPACECOWBOY and Will Ramos. The Vermont man has explored everything from guitar-based emo rap to more experimental beats and here embraces a hardcore, nu-metal inspired sound that is a further building on top of his already solid foundations.