The dirges are ditched, yet the previous elements they made their name with are overdone.

I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone sees the Seattle group recede deeper into their comfort zone with a batch of tracks that are lukewarm at best.

As a musique concrète or experimental electronica album, Burials In Several Earths is an above average attempt that contains myriad intricacies and points of interest. As something to carry on a peerless lineage, however, it feels like an unnecessary move.

It seems to fall between two stools, not supplying enough arena-filling arrogance while never truly indulging the more surprising elements of their record collections.

Most of the tracks’ narratives are undecipherable and consistently scatterbrained. Not to mention that the panoramic mixing of the guitars, while being a band trademark, make it difficult to focus on more than one aspect of a song at a time.

Season High is a pleasant ride--a breezy escapade through dreamlands and ultraviolet meadows. It’s a sometimes sickly-sweet concoction that’ll leave you once or twice with the feeling of overindulgence.

Booming walls of sound are favoured at the expense of nuance, leaving Belong too regularly thirsting for a banner hit, and ultimately, offering a perfect example of why bigger isn’t always better.

Longevity is often characterised by reinvention in music, yet The Ride stalls in its attempted inventiveness, instead finding success in its most pared down and familiar moments.

On Automaton, the band falters under the weight of its previous singles, leaving any possibility for chart success mired in a sound that comes across as tired and unoriginal, and the album listening experience as a monotonous ordeal.

Despite the two opposing moods of the album, the candid and dark lyricism is the only consistent effort in the album. It’s a massive shame, considering how much headway the band made with ‘Asymmetry’, but Mallory Knox have found themselves half a step behind their peers once again.

Whilst production and rhythms are excellent, the hooks (barring the album’s final lyric: “There’s so much bullshit comin’ out of your mouth”) often fall short.

Its straightforward, no bells and whistles approach is at once its greatest appeal and its most obvious shortcoming. Doris & The Daggers is deliciously satisfying beer rock--nothing more, nothing less.

The Incessant has a wealth of great ideas baked into the sediment of a wholly unremarkable collection of songs but boasts enough personality to still be worth giving the benefit of your doubt.

There’s nothing that lifts it from being middle of the road Einaudi. Then again, standing on a cliff listening to middle of the road Einaudi is never a bad place to be.

While there’s certainly more emphasis on melody this time around, it’s brought about through noticeably more mature, more refined compositions.

Little Fictions, in the end, though a welcome sign of elbow gently progressing with their formula, is a step forward feels too hesitant.

It’s overwhelming in its grandiosity, and though it has its virtues, Foxygen’s latest LP is best enjoyed as a bite-size hors d'oeuvre instead of a main course.

Following the trend set on previous effort ‘Olympia’, the beats continue to become crunchier, direct and undoubtedly more contemporary--but unfortunately less interesting also.

Ultimately, Graveyard Of Good Times is too much of a mixed bag to be considered a great record.

There’s barely a convincing lyric in the album and by the end you’re wondering whether the title itself has been chosen based on the sheer novelty.

This won’t run as smoothly as her DJ-Kicks bow of 2015, and it’s not a mix you’re allowed to get comfortable with, the Siberian’s non-conformist stance playing fast and loose with the ideals of cohesion, and letting the faders lead punters astray.

Though the record as a whole is weaker than its predecessor, there’s enough flashes of career-high brilliance to keep The Wharves on the right path of progression.

There are enough hair-raising moments here to anchor your skin and stop it crawling quite so much.

While there’s nothing really here to ignite a flame of revolution, or indeed get fists in the air to be honest, Peace Trail sees Young doing what comes naturally, soundtracking tumultuous times with some confident and easy songwriting.

The problem, however, is that the record suffers from a lack of variety and an overkill of nostalgia, while of a raft of identikit, if solid, guest vocalists it’s only Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor who really stands out.

At times Letherette overreach and their ambition to contort every trend of the last decade into a singular structure feels forced. The album flourishes where the beats are fortified by accompanying charisma.

‘Broke Me In Two’, which you can already find online, is a good place to start if you’re looking for a sampler. Overall though, it’s a case of ‘good to have you back Joan’, and ‘next time, let’s have a bit more you and little less Lazar Davis’.

Unfocused, inconsistent and underwhelming, The Heavy Entertainment Show is homogenised pop at its most stupefying.