Tears for Fears skirts the has-been trap impressively, translating years of experience into play-it-again, sophisticated modern pop worth paying attention to.

An album that should appeal to fans of Weller and the original legends alike.

As a whole, the album stands as a benediction to an artist whose integrity and success has prevailed in the face of endless trends and fads that have swept away many lesser talents.

Without a doubt the most challenging collection of music she has ever released.

There's an emerging depth and pensiveness to their songwriting, a growing sense of spirituality and drama.

[Dulli] treats them all with the same ravenous intensity.

As an album, it probably won't spawn any MTV-hogging video classics--certainly, that was never the intention--but Finn fans in search of a mellow listen should find Everyone Is Here hits all the right buttons.

While McGraw may not be the greatest of warblers, nobody in country can touch him at conveying emotions too deep to express in words.

Tambourine may not quite live up to the Dusty in Memphis comparisons, but it may very well wind up the album of Tift Merritt's career.

Ignore it at your peril. [Amazon UK]

This album is bursting with quality. [Amazon UK]

Corralling such a large cast into anything like a coherent vision is no easy task, but it's one that the Concretes manage with some aplomb on a consistently spectacular album. [Amazon UK]

Beneath this band's graceful posturing lies a deep discontent and anger, but band lyricist Michael Timmins manages to once again turn that gentle simmering fury into poetic grandeur.

An impressive album in the best tradition of the Clan... Had this album come out in 1998, people might have hailed it as another Wu classic.

Musically, it's simply awesome, sounding not completely unlike early PJ Harvey... It's a shame, then, that the lyrics frequently don't cut it. [Amazon UK]

Persson, the finest pop lyricist working today, is on peak form while the band's back-to-roots grand piano and grander acoustic guitars provide an appropriately magnificent backing.

Flitting between fraught ballads and up-tempo adult pop (the misguided sample-laden singles "Freeek!" and "Shoot the Dog" being the unnecessary exceptions), George here returns to the structure and mood of 1990s Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1. [Amazon UK]

It's this lumpy consistency that ultimately lets them down, but this is a laudable effort from a band on a decade-long roll. [Amazon UK]

It's difficult to think of a more compelling sophomore record by a young singer-songwriter, Norah included.

Carpenter reestablishes herself not only as a world-class poet, but as an artist of the first order.

Van Lear Rose exceeds all expectations, a bold collaboration in which artists from two different musical universes forge a memorable work that neither could have created alone.

The Purple One has reconnected with that deep vein of funk after experimenting with his splendid and messy excesses since the cusp of the nineties, and turned out his best album since 1987's "Sign of the Times."

An arrestingly epic and assured debut. [Amazon UK review]

As with all great country music, exquisite execution, splendid sound, and depth of feeling combine to create a cathartic, redemptive result.

The quintet moves easily from straight ahead, if slightly-fractured rockers, to fine slices of cerebral sonics.

Intelligent, interesting, honest, diverse and ever so slightly screwed up--what more could you want from a rock 'n' roll record? [Amazon UK review]

[He] attacks these songs with passion, intelligence, and a refreshing lack of blues-rock pretense.

Despite his dirty mind, Chasez has proven to be an adventurous auteur, taking his music to places where NSNYC would never venture.