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.

Instead of shadowing the pack, this album puts them right up the front.

With I Speak Because I Can, that argument may now end. Though just 20, it doesn't appear within her scope to make an outright bad album, and here we are shown a few more glimpses of her gift, but yet not an overwhelming outpouring of it.

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

Sadly though, the prevalence of mid-tempo, Des'ree-lite ballads and inconsistent quality make this is an exhausting listen over 90 minutes.

What pushes I Learned the Hard Way towards being something truly brilliant as opposed to just very, very good is how well it works as a cohesive, well-rounded whole.

Propellor Time is, in short, another fine Robyn Hitchcock album, proving that, almost 35 years into his recording career, his gift for crafting such perfectly-imperfect, winningly-askew pop as strong as ever.

It's an inverted-commas proper long-player, which manifests a relaxed mood and maintains it marvellously.

In its own right, The Fear... is an impressive piece of work. As inevitable as comparisons with their previous creations are, they shouldn’t detract from what is by anyone else’s standards a major achievement

Quite who Harlem can hope to appeal to, in the UK at least, when music fans here are evidently besotted with sci-fi nonsense one minute and cleverly articulated kitchen-sink dramas the next is anyone's guess. Best to quit the questioning, though, and get down with the rollicking jams they're kicking out regardless of how many people are listening.

Maddeningly tame, neither replicates the whiskey-soaked sleaze and instantly classic riffs that have earned Slash his deservedly legendary status. Thank goodness, then, for three reliable road warriors, who ride in on a much-needed rescue mission.

This third solo album is a cracking collection, one that rings with the depth of twang comparable only to the likes of the legendary Ry Cooder.

On the whole, I Will Be invites you to be whisked along by the sheer energy burst: the pots’n’pans clatter of the drums, the crackle and fizz from the amps and the bitter take on romance from Dee Dee herself.

Buoyantly produced, it finds the singer leaning a little too comfortably on the conversational Georgia drawl of his baritone, and the writer coming up a little shy on the sort of detail and wordplay that lifts a cliche.

So don’t come to this thinking you’ll get the inside scoop on a celebrity divorce, but as a soundtrack to rampancy in general, it’s hard to beat.

She is, by no means, ‘retro’ in her art; it’s just been a long time since anyone sang soul music as passionately, wittily and inventively as she does here.

This album’s calling card, Sea Change, starts so well that the rest of the album fades in its shadow.

With the most basic tools, the Stones build something lovely and lasting. Roll with them.

As it happens, most of these songs are rockers, and even the ballads possess a toughened core of energy.

Option Paralysis stretches its makers' imaginations and abilities superbly. Consider it another singular success.

Coconut’s acid-fried eclecticism occasionally strains for effect and lacks the brutish vigour of its predecessor. A commendably outré listen on any other terms, it’s still a sideways-shuffle that never fully convinces.

This is a great album: smart, thrilling, bouncy, imaginative, sussed, melodic, fiery, punchy, passionate, repetitive, and immersed in the technology of 2010 but the ideology of the 60s and late 70s (and early 90s Olympia, if we’re going to be exact).

At an economic 38 minutes and free of anything in the slightest bit terrible, you should welcome Head First like the first sun of spring, know it inside out by the time the band are slaying festival crowds mid-summer and possibly buying copies to give to close friends and family at Christmas.

Despite the clunky moments, there’s ample proof that Team Bieber know exactly what they’re doing and who they’re talking to. As you’d expect, it’s the ballads that hit the hardest.

By maintaining a ferocious appetite for streaming across territory few electronic musicians possess even a perception of, Autechre continue to test themselves and listeners alike with stunningly intricate results.

As good as their 2007 Mercury Prize-nominated album, The Bairns, undoubtedly was, Here’s the Tender Coming raises the standard higher still.

High Places have moved on, positioning themselves on the fringes of the ongoing chillwave explosion with enough invention to outlast most of its central protagonists.