Almost everything is tight and controlled, returning time and again to the simple power of a pop song.

Some will call it noise, others a beautifully complicated symphony. In the end, you're not quite sure where you've landed, but you're glad you took the trip.

Lissie does not fully earn her an-artist-apart stripes with Catching a Tiger, but all the signs are here. Give the girl a second and she'll steal your heart; give her another album and she will, quite possibly, become untouchable.

This is a firecracker of an album, no doubt about that--but its longevity is appropriately limited, its stretch across the hardcore spectrum deliberately hamstrung.

This delicacy was always the logical progression, and fans growing with Orton will find much to love about Sugaring Season.

[I Bet On Sky] is arguably the equal of their 80s heyday.

Guitarist Stuart Braithwaite has certainly outstripped the generic post-rock style he helped to inspire, and does justice to some of his more direct influences--My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Robert Smith from The Cure, to name two. Extraneous touches, such as the occasional keyboard parts contributed by Barry Burns and the electronica-style glitches threaded through 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, also ensure that Special Moves is a varied 75 minutes.

For all its battalions of writers and producers, Right Place Right Time is a surprisingly coherent affair.

It doubtlessly works better as a full performance, but as a stand-alone soundtrack has wonderful moments nonetheless.

Ultimately you have to admire the precision tooling, the cunningly-gauged parallel levels of bigness and blandness, the ruthlessness – the only-too-plausible machine.

Perhaps inevitably, the overall tone is reverent, verging on precious--everyone adheres faithfully to Williams' template of rugged three-chord structures, twanging guitars, weeping violins and keening pedal steel.

The broad, stuttering beats do fatigue the listening experience eventually, but music this animated and unrelenting demands a very specific ear in a very specific setting.

Originality niggles aside, the vitality and wit these Oregon upstarts display on this first LP is enough to recommend them to anyone interested in hearing a quality good-time band. Hockey seem to actually give a puck, and that’s reason enough to like ‘em for now.

Scissor Sisters have rediscovered a magic touch lacking slightly on Night Work. Their progress is marked by a developed sense of reflection, which balances their familiar flamboyance – surely to resurface with their Fraggle Rock soundtrack – quite wonderfully.

Although it’s not perfect, We Will Not Harm You is a significant advance on [his] previous efforts.

There's the occasional meander and they'd surely revel in a bigger production budget, but there's nobody remotely like them and few who seem to actually enjoy being in a band more.

[Blue Moon] could be classified as a highly advanced form of lounge music.

How Do You Do is another solid step in the right direction for Hawthorne, who shows that soul music is universal and devoid of colour, as we all can relate to difficulties and heartbreak.

It's like these songs have had their windows cleaned, a few crows' feet ironed out.

Wasted in Jackson ticks lots of stylistic boxes, and while that shouldn't usually cause problems, overall this is an album that doesn't seem to entirely know what it wants to be.

There's that genuinely disappointing sense of having heard this before, whether it be on 2007's Some Loud Thunder, their debut, or in countless other bands. Yet there's still a spark here that holds interest for a few listens.

This is a strong record, there's no doubting that--but it still feels like the best is yet to come from Danilova.

The title-track is a prime example of the album's dominant pace: downbeat and sluggish.

The tunes, riffs and words might not be as impressive as those from the days of yore, but this is still a very arresting example of sonic art: tense and deranged, savage and serrated.

Serves it purpose as a ready-made playlist for your next party, but perhaps the band's oversimplifying of its sound has stripped away some of its mystique in the process.

Sleep Mountain has the emotional weight of a Boxer or a Turn on the Bright Lights, but it doesn’t quite have the tunes. That said, there’s still plenty to fall in love with here.

God Forgives' best moments... are fine examples of how big-budget rap can skilfully avoid crass clichés, and even convey no little emotion.

This is an odd thing to say, given the dumbness of so many contemporary rap songs--is that Kweli tries to cram too much awareness into his lines at the expense of rhymes and flow. But trying a little too hard to find enlightenment can be forgiven when it comes from within a genre that often tips bravado ahead of insight.