It's got a sweet, easy intimacy.

Lee ... continues his proclivity for sonic innovation with a plethora of funky grooves and drum lines - with no loops in earshot. AM's psychedelic guitar licks, basslines and vocals underpin an overriding '60s vibe.

The over-riding impression is that this is a tired, conservative and weirdly insular album.

It's more a relic of the past than a record of the future.

With clean production and virtuoisitic precision, imagine a Latin, metal, jazz inspired mellow mele, on acoustic instruments.

It's a band comfortable with the idea of growing up but like kids trying on their parent's clothes, the ideas behind Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen are a little oversized but not by much.

Infuriatingly irresistible.

100 Acres... drips with sonic gloss.

A contemporary-pop triumph.

It's not always pleasant, but in a funny way, it's quite compelling.

Meh. It's alright, but I'm like... I'm like a bit bored, actually.

It's nice to start off with but swiftly becoming a tad wet and ultimately a touch cloying.

Moments of the Jacknife Lee-produced album are assured--Gary Lightbody over-emotes particularly well on the maudlin "Life-ning" and "The Symphony" is rightfully pompous--but the uneasy truth is that Snow Patrol are merely background dinner party music for accountants.

It's not truly terrible, but it does feel akin to a musical version of King Kong Vs. Godzilla, two monsters decimating everything in their path until there's nothing left, except the back catalogues.

The best moments remain the songs where the band moves as a unit, conjuring a sense of hope and elation, rather than falling back on tired, shouty punk cliches.

It has bassline crunch, and a very distinctive space-age exterior; so why does The Vision sound like it's playing catch up?

Musically stripped to the basics, the set is engaging with an infectious charm, neatly adding to that capacious back catalogue.

Lyrically, there are interesting ruminations on the trappings of fame ('(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine') and his troubled mind ('Broken Arrow'), while the album is all the better for losing some of the bravado Noel hid behind while writing for Liam--but there are admittedly some clunkers.

The Great Escape Artist is one-paced, bloodless, and frequently blighted by Dave Navarro's ersatz Edge-isms.

The results are mixed.

Yes, the album title is an apt one; but despite its predictability, it proves to be surprisingly fulfilling as a run-of-the-mill house album.

There's a lot of slightly tedious ambient wallpaper. Sure, it works to unite an otherwise diverse set of songs, but you can't help but think there's a much better play list waiting to be whittled down.

A beautiful recording but an occasional listen.

Nearly twenty years on from Suede's debut and he sounds pretty much unchanged.

It'd be unfair to tag Dreams Come True as merely a curio for Grizzly Bear fans. It's more than that--but only just.

So par for the course, it should come with its own small pencil and scorecard.

Sadly there are too many beats and samples that it can be hard to keep up with the ferocious pace, despite the obvious talent and flashes of genius on this record.

Everyone loves to reminisce, and we're suckers for well-crafted songs, but we also need to be challenged a little more than this boys.

Often it feels more like an overly conscious art project rather than an album that will sustain repeated listening; it's undeniably, admirably beautiful in parts, but ultimately too consciously cerebral and self satisfied to love.

Malkmus' third (or fourth depending on which folklore you believe) outing with The Jicks, is a disappointing collection of hits and misses--with the latter winning on points.

Music and performer as one, it's hard to know where I Break Horses begin and their walls of sound end. Vocalist and Swedish nephilim Maria Lindén is a calming apparition, yet indeterminate when overpowered by the huge celestial sheets of Fredrik Balck's new wave order.

A mixed bag that's perhaps polluted with Toddla's inevitable fame and fortune.

Most of Welcome Reality is so in your face and predictable it feels like the musical equivalent of a Michael Bay movie: loud, crass, periodically fun, but ultimately forgettable.

The songs are trite punk workouts without any real imagination and, whilst there's a reasonable amount of endeavour and vigour, they're unlikely to raise anything other than idle curiosity amongst the curious idle.

Azari and III are good clean honest fun, but not the future of music.

What's frustrating is that it's too damn enjoyable and not quite derivative enough to actively hate.

Things are prone to occasional lulls with three tracks exceeding ten minutes. However, Johansson is capable of some beautifully stirring music, and when this album soars, it is a treat.

The darker, lilting tones of Oreja De Arena work better, but this album still sounds confused. As a result, its overall impact is diminished.

While end-of relationship heartache churns throughout You & I, there is enough twisted darkness to suggest these sisters are here for the long haul.

Lolloping along with little desire to vary pace or style, it is ultimately forgettable.

I Love You, Dude feels as blunt and oafish as its name, and weirdly dated in its sonic palette. Sporadically engaging, but sadly nothing more.

There is more maturity this time around, with an easier flow, such that the songs gel better as an amalgam. It's a shame then that the songs themselves lack the commercial edge to capture any sustained attention, giving the album too much anonymity.

It's All Real continues along the same lines: lush production, low-key bleeps and bloops, a hushed, lovelorn 2am ambience.

Their commercial star has long since waned, but there is enough here to suggest that Gomez's creative light still flickers on.

Production is loud and punchy and even the quiet bits aren't quiet, which makes all sixteen tracks in one sitting a bit like hard work.

His camp fire ramblings and angry rants soon become tiresome with much of Turner's fourth album feeling like material he has trod before.

It's identikit jangle so packed with perfectly poised personality that I find it hard to take it even vaguely seriously.

Suck It And See is not a disappointment, because we've learned never to expect the Monkeys' next move, but it's not half as fun as we'd like it to be.

Despite the gloriously odd decision to place Treasures--a piece of music as fragile as the materialistic lifestyles it attacks--first in the tracklisting, there are no real surprises.

A grandiose, instrumental finale, they're a reminder of the divinity that Moby was once capable of.

The grooves might be intelligently crafted, with plenty of interesting rhythmical quirks throughout, but the songs themselves hold little water.

One thing is for certain: they've produced a much more pop orientated album. Clash isn't anti-pop, but we are anticheese.

If that's not your bag, then this won't convert you, but if intrigue you have; then check it out.

This schizophrenic album will frustrate purists and sate pop kids.

Despite his obvious talents as a pop-soul vocalist, you're left with the impression that Woon is far more interesting when he's wearing his producer hat, but we'll keep a sturdy eye on his every move regardless.

Alas, a good third of the album meanders and there's a drab formlessness to his sonic fog. Fascinating but flawed.

All the usual suspects are in place as you would suspect from a band with, let's be honest, not that many hits of the great variety.

Ultimately, the songwriting isn't quite weighty enough to sustain a full album. Worth a check if you're a previous fan.

It wears thin over the course of an album, and an appreciation for Eighties synth-pop is a must, but for a band in their thirty-fourth year, the League are still on good form.

It's all pleasant enough, but is clearly trying to be something it isn't, coming off rather shallow and lightweight as a result.

It feels like a personal journey through the past on his part, and a genuine tribute from those who've contributed.

The problem with any soundtrack is that, in isolation, something gets lost and there's no exception here, but it serves as a showcase for a virtuoso performer with the dexterity to excel within any discipline.

A fine line between unpredictable flair and china shop bull.

Patchy with flashes of killer bee sting.

Collapse Into Now suffers somewhat. It's good. But it's no Reckoning. Or Document. Or Automatic For The People. Or...

This is cheerful childhood innocence come to life - candy-floss dreams and rainbow rivers.

The Golden Age ultimately comes across as try-hard penthouse party than wild warehouse rave.

Nothing here transcends either songwriter's back catalogue, but Jonny is a welcome blast of warmth that shows the fires still burn bright.

It's alright and will shift units: boundaries will rest easy however.

Things are a little different now but like many of their contemporaries, Cut Copy have had to adapt to the landscape and Zonoscope is a considered attempt at a more kaleidoscopic approach.

The repetitive beats and seemingly endless loops become, on the whole, tired and tedious too soon.

His prodigious talent is undoubted, but a second dose of puppy punk feels suggests Baldi is in cruise control.

As attempts at storming the mainstream go, this looks like a surefire winner, but musically it feels like a lesser take on Outkast's The Love Below.

The musical equivalent of a coffee table book this is a poised, polished album of covers and collaborations spanning a decade.

Predictably pristine, ultimately inessential.

Who cares if Stoltz listens to the Kinks and Beatles too much when he sings like an angel?

Love him or hate him, you can't deny that Ronson can certainly put an album together.

Rave horns echo like WW2 sirens being played on a fucked-up ghetto blaster while the cast of House Of 1000 Corpses do their best Gucci Mane impressions--an interesting, if perhaps slightly contrived, oddity.

While songs 'Bondage Of Fate', 'If You Want It' and 'Sometimes' present a classic vibe, standalone track 'Pulse' is equally akin to the electronic sound of today. Nice touch.

Unfortunately, the album barely reaches the most reasonable of expectations. The strength of their flawless magnum opus, 'Better Than Love', overshadows every other song on the LP.

With a sound centred around a tunable percussion instrument called a hang (think mellow steel drum), skittering jazz drums, saxophone and loops, the quartet, who live Monkees-like in a shared house in East London, serve up a fresh vision of jazz, drawing sounds from across the globe.

Good stuff, but their epics, like 'The Quick Mile', are curiously unengaging. When that track is immediately followed up by the captivating Eno-esque minimalism of 'Waves & Radiation', it's clear that their real talent still lies in crafting eerie electronic vistas.

Sharing the pop soul sensibilities of Squeeze with just a dash of Brendan Benson, there's even a soupçon of harpsichord in there. What's not to like about these small songs with a big heart?

For all its forward thinking, the combination of shoe-gaze and synthy electronica leads the record inevitably back to the 1980s, mirroring the haunting sound that M83 have perfected so well.

Whilst each track delivers exactly what is to be expected from an IAK album it is a little disappointing that there seems to have been no development from the previous outing.

It's all very "nice" but only sporadically truly vital.

Wasted Daylight, a sugary, ambient number, offers a particularly sublime performance from Millan, as does He Dreams He's Awake, of Campbell. However, these two are the fairly obvious highlights in an otherwise misfired effort.

The good tracks on 'Body Talk' are of such a high quality that it definitely makes it worthwhile to check this album out but you are soon left with a feeling that the subsequent releases in this series will cobble together one amazing album and one really bad one.

Marina describes the album as “intricately produced” and that’s where the problem lies. Such attention to detail leaves some of the songs feeling pretty sterile and, as a result, it’s a frustrating listen.

More Waitrose advert than classic Wrigley’s; the Black Keys’ raw power’s been polished. Some things are meant to stay rough around the edges.

Drawing on a cast of helpers, most notably Madness' Suggs and Mike Barson, the album boasts their usual eclectic mash of styles, all held together under the Audio Bullys flag.

Bleak as you like, but strangely cathartic in many places, it's absolutely the worst album to soundtrack your Christmas lottery win. For the rest of us dour wageslaves, it's perfect.

With production by Richard Goettehrer, who has worked with Blondie, the Go-Gos and others, sees the Dum Dum Girls sound achieve an authentic, balanced sound, deliberately lo-fi and tinny yet listenable and intoxicating.

On their way to maturity, YSP!WSD! lost some of the punkiness that made them exciting, but they still have hooks and groovy synths, so the growth is graceful.

It’s a refreshing diversion from yer average psych-noise fare that’ll hopefully be explored further on future offerings.