Metheny’s use of it here delivers a pale, expensive shadow of what a real band can achieve. The project doesn’t feel like it has longevity, and this release is for the hardcore only.

This feels like an album by, for and about himself.

It's fun, but not a lot to show for four years work.

I'm With You is a solid, decent enough 10th album, but it's far from vital.

Despite occasional lapses into overproduced mess, the surprise here is their enthusiasm.

It's not that Gainsbourg is swallowed up by her band, more that she doesn't – or can't – rise to the occasion as a natural singer can... It still charms, though.

If it were only possible to turn down the vocals, The No Testament would be a work of greater spiritual, and indeed secular, interest.

Throughout there is an attention to detail, to little tics and tricks in the mix, that make this a treat for listeners who still wear headphones. But mostly it's music for defunct--or, rather, Defunkt--nightclubs.

You want the mix to jump and pound and excite. But it doesn’t, and the choruses feel hung out to dry. This makes for a frustrating listen, because the talent is there – damn, even the songs are there.

Really, though, this is nothing more than business as usual: some killer, some filler.

It’s a melee of styles and disparate ideas – some inspired, some falling woefully short. If its sheer reach borders on folly, it’s still enjoyable as hell.

That it's the track here [Ice cream] that most closely resembles Battles with Braxton in the fold is evidence enough that this band is missing a vital organ. Sadly, it would appear to be the heart.

The lack of challenge and the absence at so many points of any thrust, melodic or otherwise, doesn't do justice to the ability of the creator, and that's a terrible shame considering the quality of the highlights.

Something for the Rest of Us is every bit as easy on the ear as each of their albums has been since 98's big-league breakthrough, Dizzy Up the Girl.

This is a second album that genuinely builds upon its predecessor. Exile reinforces the feeling in modern pop that no other group sounds quite as hurt as Hurts.

Appreciating this album does admittedly require time and effort, which occasionally isn't repaid... But once you've settled into it, Yeasayer's Fragrant World is a wonderful place to explore.

It's safe, something of a retreat from past endeavours to a sound more suited to commercial returns in the present.

They get full marks for effort but, unfortunately, not for the end results.

There's very little drive in Junk of the Heart, just a messy selection of meandering verses that surely can't be the product of three years' work.

If there is a heaven, and if Tupac, Cobain, Presley et al made it through the gates, chances are they're consoling a wincing, visibly embarrassed Jackson, cursing his inability to bolt the demos drawer in Neverland's vaults just that little bit tighter.

It's a shame the band don't stretch out a little more on some of the songs. Even so, if Cotonou Club isn't quite what it might have been, fans should bear in mind that the reformed Orchestra Baobab didn't really hit their stride until their second "comeback" recording.

As it stands, Green has moved forward--or at least sideways--with each of his three City and Colour albums. But all in all, it's difficult to call Little Hell anything much more than nice.

Dirt City stands little hope of entertaining the masses (again). But its maker has outdone himself, presenting variety with commendable cohesion and experimenting where others might've chased trends for overdue commercial returns.

So the best songs on Hurley are immediately familiar, like an old lover's phone number you can't forget. This is great, but obviously not that great. Everybody should move on after a while.

Several perfectly agreeable songs are unexpectedly hijacked by a cacophonous onslaught of instruments, with Finnish percussionist Samuli Kosminen setting the furious pace.

Inevitably, this turns Here I Am into a bit of a grab-bag in its latter stages, but it's a grab-bag that only Tulisa Contostavlos could claim not to find some pleasure in.

Such dark lyrical tropes have served him well in the past, and even the blokey-but-sensitive shtick of his lovably clunky, WTF rhymes are part of a well-honed musical formula. But credit where it's due--he provides something for everyone.

Nine Types of Light finds the band firmly in the grip of a middle age that doesn't particularly suit them. So to put it in the popular parlance, it's a Dull Record for Times that are Anything But.