Latest articles by David McLaughlin
Every Alkaline Trio album ranked from worst to best
Matt Skiba and Dan Andriano's punk-noir 10-album strong catalogue rated and ranked
Every The Gaslight Anthem album ranked from worst to best
Brian Fallon's band The Gaslight Anthem sang of dreams, escape, love and the endless quest for new possibilities, and charmed the world
“There was this element the whole time, like, We’re doing this. And if it doesn’t work, we’re f***ed”: Why the timeless magic of The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound will never fade
The Gaslight Anthem's sepia-tinged masterpiece The '59 Sound turns 15: “I was a firm believer in the magic of things,” says Brian Fallon
Every Enter Shikari album ranked from worst to best
One of the most innovative and fearless British rock bands ever, Enter Shikari have released seven studio albums since 2007: we sort out the so-so from the sensational
Every Sigur Rós album ranked from worst to best
The unique, incomparable catalogue of Iceland's biggest band re-reviewed and ranked
Radiohead's OK Computer: The last rock album that truly mattered
Inside Radiohead's OK Computer: darkness, isolation, paranoia, and songs so far ahead of their time that the world is still catching up
A beginner's guide to Touch and Go Records
The story of Chicago's Touch and Go Records in five essential albums
Every Queens Of The Stone Age album ranked from worst to best
Post-Kyuss, Josh Homme embarked on a mission to create rock music “heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls”: here are QOTSA's eight albums in order of greatness
A beginner's guide to SST Records in five essential albums
SST became America's definitive underground rock label: here's the story of how it happened, via five essential records, from Black Flag to Soundgarden
Every Pulp album ranked from worst to best
Jarvis Cocker and co. are national treasures, but which album is their crowning glory?
Minor Threat's Out Of Step: the bitter, brilliant eulogy for youthful idealism which defined hardcore punk as a force for good
Minor Threat knew they were falling apart as they recorded their debut album: that helps explain why, 40 years after its release, Out Of Step sounds as vital, urgent and furiously fucked-off as it did in 1983
"Are we a f**king punk band now?" The ugly truth behind Mezzanine, the bleak, beautiful masterpiece which ripped Massive Attack apart
Released on April 20, 1998, Massive Attack's third album Mezzanine sounded like nothing that had come before. 25 years on, it still does
The true meaning behind Radiohead's Creep, the song that made, and nearly broke, Thom Yorke's band
Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood hated his band's debut single so much that he tried to sabotage and kill it: when Creep became Radiohead's biggest anthem, Thom Yorke often wished that the guitarist had succeeded
Torture. Incest. Voyeurism. Why Pixies' Surfer Rosa is the weirdest and most influential alt. rock album of the '80s
Nirvana's Kurt Cobain admitted it, but pretty much every single alt. rock band of the past 35 years has 'borrowed' from Pixies 1988 masterpiece Surfer Rosa
The Reels Thing: How Dave Grohl's love letter to a Los Angeles recording studio beautifully captures the magic of music
Released on March 12, 2013, Real To Reel, the soundtrack to Dave Grohl's homage to Sound City Studios is an open-hearted celebration of music and those who make it
Far's Water & Solutions at 25: "We were a mess... and on that record it was a beautiful mess”
A cult hit upon its release on March 10, 1998, Far's Water & Solutions stands as one of the most revered and essential post-hardcore albums of all time
Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was acclaimed by one music magazine as the best album of the '90s. The fallout caused its creator to disappear from the spotlight entirely
Released on February 10, 1998, Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea turns 25 today: here's how Anne Frank’s The Diary Of A Young Girl inspired one of the great cult albums of the '90s
“We could have called it F**k You”: why Refused's The Shape Of Punk To Come still sounds like the future, and still matters
Refused's The Shape Of Punk To Come, released on October 27, 1998, was born from conflict and contempt for the scene from which it came
How Bruce Springsteen battled the "black sludge" of depression to make his brutal, lo-fi masterpiece Nebraska
Released on September 30, 1982, Bruce Springsteen's stark, dark sixth album might just be his best
