The band's weakness is an unfortunate tendency to drift occasionally into MOR territory, and sometimes generic boy-meets-girl lyrics fail to keep the arrangements above water.

It's a sometimes perplexing, often very pretty excursion into the recent past of a pair of gifted musicians, but Archive 2003-2006 expectedly holds little appeal beyond a limited audience.

Remember Who You Are is the sound of a band not so much rediscovering their past as recycling it.

Night Work is a far livelier and more enjoyable record than Ta-Dah, which was a modest album with much to be modest about. But the nagging sense that Scissor Sisters aren't living up to the promise of their multifaceted, emotionally rich debut is slowly being replaced by the suspicion that they never will.

They're probably the only band in history whose latest album would sound better if they did not appear on it.

There's definitely a place for We Are Born in our post-Gaga pop landscape. The album's accessible tunes might not stand up to in-depth analysis, but they stand a good chance of lighting up cheesy club nights everywhere.

Early trio Fembot, the single Dancing on My Own and Cry When You Get Older are scorchingly catchy, and laced with Robyn's familiar cordial of sparkling hook mixed with unutterable poignancy. The thing is, it's alarming when the first instalment of a trilogy houses so much filler.

Mojo sees Petty steep himself in Americana again, adopt a live-in-the-studio feel, and generally rock out. The results are initially quite perky, as the band crash and charge through songs, but after a couple of plays everything becomes rather dull.

Harcourt is a singer of uncommon charm, and Lustre is a welcome reminder that when he's on top of his game--which he is for roughly half the record--you'll want for little else.

This utterly unnecessary but partially satisfying "complete" (says the sticker on the sleeve) singles collection manages to fall at the first hurdle by not including their first (and best) 12" from debut album Definitely Maybe, the shameless cocaine elegy Columbia.

Ultimately it's so much less than it could have been, given the talent involved.

See You on the Moon’s mid-tempo anthems hover with a decorative shimmer that matches their wispy bedsit sentiments.

The consistently diverting changes in style across the album are fine--the wonky 80s shoulder-pad pop of The Outsider is nothing like anything else here, for example. But over 13 songs of Sparks-voice and many similar staccato piano riffs listeners may feel bludgeoned by Marina and her slightly overbearing presence.

Despite occasional flashes of brilliance it’s a patchy, derivative work.

What saves Grey Oceans is the occasional good idea: the Eastern-tinged Smokey Taboo mixes tablas and wilting strings with Bianca's woozy, half-rapped vocal to impressive effect, while the very peculiar Fairy Paradise is, more or less, Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy as remixed by Paul van Dyk.

Though clearly as replete with imagination as they are with personnel, Broken Social Scene would benefit from the attentions of a less indulgent producer.

Like much of Together, it aims for The Beatles, hits ELO, and sounds like the people responsible mightn't have thought that was a bad thing.

While Court Yard Hounds is a well-packaged and produced collection, its songs seem rather ordinary compared to Chicks material

Those expecting a worthy if belated sequel to "Movements," however, will be disappointed: even at its best, More! rarely exceeds inoffensiveness.

Braxton's sixth album Pulse--some five years in the making--is certainly a release shrouded with anticipation, but instead of sticking to her strength in ballads it feels more a trend-chasing American Idol semi-finalist's debut offering.

Two Door Cinema Club show sporadic flashes of greatness and have an overall standard of songwriting which places them among the better new bands in the UK.

The lyrics mingle optimism and deliberate naivety, with even the downer moments coming across as exultantly miserable rather than genuinely forlorn. Rhodes is undoubtedly sincere, but maybe at the expense of potential humour and irony.

The hit-and-miss nature of her words wouldn't be so noticeable if the music was more of a distraction. But the skittering sub-Motown fare accompanying much of this album fails to muster a chorus worth savouring.

What emerges from such silliness is the pleasing sense that the duo had a blast making this record. Listening to it is also fun at times, but just as often it's damned hard work.

It's full of fascinating, stirring moments, but overall, Year of the Black Rainbow suffers just a little too much from its own grand, sprawling ambition.

A serviceable but utterly derivative slice of twee electro-pop, the album quietly retreads the ground covered by Sufjan Stevens, The Postal Service and Frenchkiss labelmates Passion Pit, failing to form any identifiable shape of its own.

It is full of catchy melodies and hooks. It is extraordinarily lame. Think of Keane, and remove the grit.

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