Lynda Nash

Lynda Nash brings a critic’s eye and a storyteller’s ear to music coverage at Buzz Magazine, folding her love of hard rock and prose into reviews that balance tone, concept and sound. Her work spans albums, gigs, books and live shows, but her through-line is a clear, plainspoken assessment of how well a piece of art delivers on its ideas.

Hard rock, classic bands and comeback stories

Nash’s music writing leans toward guitar-led and veteran acts, where she explores both the music and the longevity behind it. In her piece on the return of HARD-FI, she frames the band’s comeback around the question of whether they can still “cash in” twenty years after Cash Machine, treating the songs and their career arc as part of the same story. She brings a similar focus to classic performers like Alice Cooper, describing his show as “all tongue-in-cheek fun, if not a little unsettling in parts” while noting that whatever magic has kept him on the scene, “he still has in spades.” Her review of Blackberry Smoke highlights how the record sounds “sonically full, modern, vintage,” showing her habit of weighing production and feel as carefully as genre labels. Across these pieces she writes directly, with a dry humour that recognises both the spectacle and the craft of hard rock and roots music.

Album reviews with an eye for concept and sound

Beyond legacy acts, Nash covers records that lean heavily on concept, using narrative details to explain why the music works. Her review of Lordi’s Screem Writers Guild describes it as a fictional awards-show-themed score “complete with vampires, werewolves and catchy guitaring,” foregrounding the album’s theatrical frame before addressing its riffs and hooks. She often sums up an album or book with a tight, evaluative phrase—calling Catriona Ward’s novel Nowhere Burning “vivid but meandering,” for example—which signals how she will approach a release: attentive to atmosphere, but unsparing on structure and pacing. In roundups like her contribution to a “this week’s new books reviewed” feature, she adds guidance such as “savour every word,” showing that she is comfortable moving from technical critique to simple reading advice when it fits the work. The consistency across her album and book reviews is a focus on whether the artistic choices—concepts, characters, production—cohere into something that holds a listener or reader’s attention.

Fiction, books and narrative-driven criticism

Although known for music, Nash is also an active books critic at Buzz Magazine, and that shapes how she writes about songs. In her review of Elissa Soave’s novel Common Ground, she notes “trouble down at the allotment” and remarks that the author “tells more than she shows,” a comment that goes straight to narrative technique rather than plot summary. Her piece on Nowhere Burning similarly balances praise and critique with the phrase “vivid but meandering,” suggesting she weighs language and momentum side by side. In weekly books features she contributes short, pointed impressions that highlight voice and reading experience rather than only storyline, including a call to “savour every word” in one instalment. This regular engagement with contemporary fiction gives her music writing a literary edge: concepts like storytelling, character and pacing are as present in her coverage of albums and shows as they are in her coverage of novels.

Stage, immersive arts and offbeat features

Nash’s beat extends into live performance and wider arts, which keeps her perspective on music grounded in how it plays off stage and in space. She reviews major touring productions such as The Book Of Mormon, bringing the same concise, evaluative style she uses in music to a high-profile stage musical. In comedy coverage she does not hesitate to say when something misses the mark, as in her assessment that The Tigerface Show at Newport’s Riverfront left her “far from amused.” Her piece on Cultvr Lab’s IMMERSDIFF 3D cinema programme notes that the experience was more “awe-inspiring or profound” than she expected, showing her interest in immersive, technologically driven art forms as part of the cultural landscape. She also writes offbeat features, from a day at the Tangle Web Craft Workshop making jewellery to an exploration of cheese making as “the next great British pastime,” which align neatly with her bio description as a lover of textile art and hands-on craft. The result is a portfolio where music sits alongside stage, film and craft, giving her coverage a broad sense of how audiences encounter culture in practice.

Role, background and style

Outside her reviewing, Nash works as an editor and teacher and writes prose and poetry, which contributes to the clarity and structure of her criticism. Her Buzz Magazine bio identifies her as a “lover of hard rock and textile art,” a combination reflected in her choice of subjects—hard rock albums, classic rock shows, and creative workshops—as well as in the tactile details she includes when describing performances and events. Across music, books and arts pieces, her style is consistent: short, direct sentences, a willingness to make a firm judgement, and an attention to whether the work’s concept, narrative and execution align. For stories involving rock records, comeback tours or art experiences that rely on atmosphere and storytelling, Nash brings a blend of musical enthusiasm and literary discipline that sets her apart from more generic listings or recap-style coverage.