Thy Art Is Murder — Holy War (UNFD)
Bagging our Album Of The Week, Holy War moves "away from their origins — at least in terms of composition" as well as amps up the "comparisons available to grindcore and black metal". Brutal and brazen from all angles, "its power grows on you as ominously as the slow pull of quicksand". We gave the album four stars.
Refused — Freedom (Epitaph/Warner)
Refused's big return shows that they haven't tried to make "The Shape Of Punk To Come Part II — the first of which ensured "they’re still talked about in hushed tones all these years later". This new set of tunes are "a calmer offering that at times flirts with a pop sensibility" — "frontman Dennis Lyxzen has dumped the slightly cringeworthy undergraduate anti-capitalist poetry that infected The Shape Of Punk To Come, instead channelling his anger towards more specific targets". We gave the album three-and-a-half stars.
and the rest of the releases…
Animals Rock — On The Farm (ABC/Universal)
August Burns Red — Found In Far Away Places (Fearless/Unified)
Batpiss — Biomass (Poison City Records)
Citizen — Everybody Is Going To Heaven (Run For Cover Records/Cooking Vinyl)
Duran Duran — Rio: Deluxe Edition (Parlophone/Warner)
Fatboy Slim — You've Come A Long Way, Baby (Skint/Shock)
John Farnham & Olivia Newton-John — Two Strong Hearts Live (Sony)
Juan Wauters — Who Me? (Spunk/Caroline)
Kacey Musgraves — Pageant Material (Universal)
Koral & The Goodbye Horses — Nocturnes (Independent)
La Priest — Inji (Domino/EMI)
Little Sea — With You, Without You (Sony)
LORD — What Tomorrow Brings (Dominus Records)
Rocky Votolato — Hospital Handshakes (No Sleep/Shock)
The Frames — Longitude (An Introduction To The Frames) (Spunk)
The Stress Of Leisure — Achievement (TSOL Recording Co)
Tori Kelly — Unbreakable Smile (Capitol/EMI)
Vennart — The Demon Joke (Century Media)
We Never Learned To Live — Silently, I Threw Them Skyward (Holy Roar Records/Shock)
