Welcome to the second of our special Review Of The Year joint interviews. Here, indie provocateur BAXTER DURY and Sleaford Mods’ splenetic frontman JASON WILLIAMSON turn their attentions to the landscape, musical or otherwise, of 2025. Stand by for a bleak, brash, honest and often humorous assessment of the year just gone. Their conclusions? “We’re just flogging this dead horse, aren’t we?” they tell Mark Beaumont

Music was an all-consuming escape. Now, every song he writes is a love song At 16, I was just starting to take writing seriously. I became obsessed with lyricism and writing lines and my heroes were a

Deep Purple’s longest-serving guitarist Steve Morse on the records, artists and gigs of lasting significance to him.

Get in time with the nu-prog superstar.

30 JACKIE MITTOO Reggae Magic SOUL JAZZ ...

In a candid chat ahead of the release of his memoir We Did OK, Kid , actor, artist and composer Sir Anthony Hopkins reveals how his tough childhood and long battle with alcoholism formed the contented, joyful man he is today