Despite Testament's commendable attempt to spice their sound with something a little different, one can't help feeling that Dark Roots of Earth is one track short of achieving overall excellence.

There's a distinct valedictory tone to his customary musings upon life, love and the spirit, with one track titled "Amen" and another "The Darkness". But if it is to be his last communiqué, at least the old smoothie's going down swinging.

Generation Freakshow is more mature, more considered, and less noisy, but it's nonetheless got Feeder stamped all over it.

With the bare minimum of innovation on show and nothing approaching the pure pop elation of Sex on Fire, Come Around Sundown will go down as KoL's classic consolidation album.

The reason that such a potentially pointless enterprise in trash retro works lies entirely in Lidell’s extraordinary talents as musician and producer.

On most of these tracks, Minaj rises to the occasion.

While kin is solidly crafted throughout, there's nothing to justify the lofty artistic conceits surrounding it.

By focusing on the sweetest of hooks amid some wonderfully retro-twanging surf guitar and licks from dusty Tijuana barrooms, it really clicks with immediate effect.... This is quite the upbeat treat.

She just needs to dig up some big old songs again, as those here aren't consistently up to the standard fans have rightly come to expect.

It all depends where you stand on the group's painstakingly retro, sax- and organ-fuelled sound. If you love it and go the distance, these grooves are simply mesmeric.

It all adds up to a sassy, splashy modern pop album that rattles through its 10 tracks in a dash under 35 minutes.

Zig Zaj is predictably unpredictable, something else again for the artist.

While some consistency may have been sacrificed in favour of a space-filling selection of tracks, this set still represents a heaving, breathing journey through the introspective and the bombastic, the striving and the exhaustive.

All in all, Destroyed feels like both a return to the darkness from which Moby emerged in the first place, and perhaps his most year zero offering to date.

It's a huge, focused, and daring leap forwards.

While not exactly standing alongside their best in terms of outright quality, shows that even Elbow's 'hidden' past is worthy of deeper exploration.

This is, generally, straightforward guitar rock with tinges of country and folk drawn from Roddy Woomble's sabbatical in New York as a folkie.

Isles ends up an easy pleasure--nothing too weighty, but substantial in its way.

Moving into darker, deeper spaces, it whets the appetite for further occasions when McAuley will fight the urge to rein it in for the dancefloor.

He merges his raw lyrical roots with No I.D.'s voluminous soundtrack, resulting in a decent album far more celebratory than his previous work.

There's an unusual sophistication and depth of lyrical craft here, and maybe it's not best advertised by a polished country-pop setting that sounds overwhelmingly usual.

Explores the dark, suburban-gothic shades always loitering beneath their surface glimmer.

The lack of a cutting edge doesn't itself mean that such songs aren't lacking in charm, and each one of the 12 compositions that makes up Speed of Darkness does feature a tune that the listener can whistle.

With Gomez still a going concern, this solo effort--five years in the making--is very much a side project finally realised. But Ottewell should consider a follow-up, as there's much more to recommend here than on recent releases by other indie band singers turned so-so solo artists.

Admittedly, the album contains the odd soporific song like No Freedom, but these turns are outweighed by tracks with a strong tune or an unexpected hint of sadness.

Visions of Trees are enjoying themselves, which is evident throughout this atmospheric and surprisingly tight album.

Confirms that Tennant and Lowe have always been songwriters first and pop stars second.

Thanks largely to the instrumental work, there's a satisfying amount of entertainment value on this release--even if major revelations are not forthcoming.