All in all, it's interesting but frustrating in equal measures, however it is sure to please fans who know what they're in for.

Perhaps not perfect, but a recovery position from which Two Door Cinema Club look primed to soar once more.

Though Bones is almost as dramatic as a standard week on Albert Square--occasionally to its detriment--it’s also impossible to fault this album’s single-minded pursuit of sheer, maxed out saturation.

The Dream Walker comes laced with the feeling that, of all the various multimedia forms that make up the Angels & Airwaves project, it’s sadly the music that is the weakest link.

If Japanther focused more on their punk rock sensibilities and honed in on their talent for hook-infested pop songs, rather than trying to clean up their act, then they’d be far better off for it.

Jam is all well and good, but this record is at times lacking in the bread and butter of music--songs.

While there’s a certain amount of showmanship--he’s certainly still got skills--more often than not it sounds like he’s simply going through the motions.

There are not enough personal elements on this album and too many invented ones. It's frustrating, too, because the honest snippets that occasionally poke through really shine.

Kudos for another reinvention, but the best version of Kele probably sits nearer the middle of the spectrum.

For an overwhelming portion of this Ryan Adams-produced record, La Sera just sound a bit too polite, and lacking in the smirking mischief of previous releases.

As a whole, it feels slightly temporary and detached, largely thanks to its uneven pacing and experimental streak.

Manhattan would thus far be a brilliantly joyous record, buzzing with intention and vitality. Unfortunately there are a pair of oddball transgressions that ruin this.

Flynn and band are happy to be a little old-fashioned, but it can be fun to join them.

It's just so inoffensive and pleasant sounding that it barely registers.

‘End of the Day’ feels like a long, slow goodbye to her old life; elegant and, given the context, elegaic.

If you pick and choose your way around the collection of jumbled songs on offer, maybe you’ll get the opportunity to revel in some speedy, sunny chimes for a little while, until that inevitable sundown, at least.

To put it in an alcoholic analogy; their sound may be like a fine wine, maturing as it gets older. But they’re sure as hell not going to hesitate in sprinting to the nearest wood and necking the whole damn bottle.

For Toro y Moi enthusiasts, this will be nothing new, but for the rest of us 'June 2009' is an altogether pleasant blast from the recent past.

Whimsical songs about stormy weather and journeying across the United States are sweet enough, but Max Bloom’s virtuous desire for simple arrangements and affected naivety is often to his detriment, sounding pedestrian at best.

Producing a mixture of satisfaction and exhaustion, A Moment of Madness offers bawdy, top-of-the-room choruses on each of the first six track

V will go down a storm with committed Bronx fans, but is curiously subdued in places--which, in the current climate, feels like a little bit of an opportunity missed.

Accordingly, In Dream is an uneven affair; fabulously ambitious in places, and weirdly subdued in others.

The improvements from the self-titled album can only be comprehensively taken in with a full listen of Jackrabbit, but using a second album to slowly build and improve an already vastly promising sound--instead of attempting an erratic reinvention--is something Ludwig-Leone should be commended for.

These huge, glorious, shining songs--are a step in the right direction.

Jungle have largely played it safe here; the feelgood alt-funk of ‘Heavy, California’ could sit seamlessly alongside anything from their debut, while the ominous nocturnal strut of single ‘Happy Man’ is just ‘Busy Earnin” Mk II.

Messy, complicated, capable of star turns, it’s clearly a record Gonzalez needed to get out of his system.

At times, No Tourists feels like a companion to their debut. That was the night out and this is the morning after’s hangover. While this isn’t vintage Prodigy, it gets pretty damn close and gives hope there is still life in the old dog yet.

An album trying to survive under the harshest conditions, Angel Guts: Red Classroom is a properly thrilling listen.

A bit of a mixed bag.

Echolocation is a bleak affair, but it does have a number of impressive melodies and a clear sense of the liberation that music elicits in the band itself.

There are moments that long for something that once was, but those moments are fleeting. In its own terms, PersonA is largely an impressive album but there’s still some way to go yet.

Fixion is not a traditionally cohesive record. It does not flow as whole, in fact it is all over the place, joined only by a sense of sonic darkness. But for a chameleon like Trentemøller, creativity is his cohesion, formula the enemy--and this is his most creative, experimental record yet.

‘Hanoi 4’ is a driving, groove-led funk workout, while ‘Hanoi 5’ pits all kind of warped gurgles against a nocturnal jazz saxophone. They’re stranger, more direct beasts without the foil of Ruban’s soft vocal and often all the more ominous for it.

They’re an easy punchline, in fairness--perennial whipping boys, probably deserving of a break at some point--but when they continue to churn out nonsensical self-parody, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ continued stratospheric success is nothing short of baffling.

What it lacks perhaps in originality, it certainly more than delivers in getting, keeping and rewarding the listener's attention.

While the form may feel familiar (think: a glitch-pop kissing cousin to Rufus Wainwright’s days as a balladeer, or a soft-shoe version of Patrick Wolf’s orchestral manoeuvres) a promising left-of-centre choice sets Fyfe apart from the pack of crooners.

All the right ingredients are there, but the recorded format makes it fall short it from becoming a flowing, cohesive album.

The record spans from spoken word to ‘70s funk and ‘80s glam rock, dabbling in balladry and power pop. It may not be the most polished or serious piece of art to emerge from the pandemic, but it’s impossible to deny the sheer amount of personality and unashamed frivolity bubbling out of ‘Transparency’.

There is a willful lack of originality on the album in so much as at times it has such a faithful synth-pop sound that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a 1980s reissue.

Specter At The Feast runs out of steam before it runs out of songs. Not a terrible album, just one lacking in inspiration.

The strength of All We Need is in how he filters the madness into a slick, easy-flowing record. If one album changed his life, he’s taken that knowledge to make something intentionally cohesive.

For every track that falls short, there is another where they hit a sweet spot.

By recycling the same guitar and drum effects, it comes across as a poor man’s reworking of ‘Broke Me In Two.’ That only leaves you desperately wanting to return to the gems that frontload this curiously unbalanced album.

Intimate and involving doesn’t necessarily mean that the record is engaging, however, and some tracks wash over without an impression, ultimately making this feel like little more than an indulgent side-project.

Gallery is an enjoyable offering from Craft Spells.

There’s a solid background of obviously skilled musicianship on fifth LP ‘One Man Band’, but even on the snarl of ‘Never Taking Me Alive’, it all feels very safe.

Megaplex is a bright and breezy romp that’s impossible not to smile and tap along to. And even when the breezy nature of some tracks is taken so far as to on the ephemeral, you can almost guarantee that what follows will pack enough of a punch so as to make up for it.

There’s not much in the way of stylistic cohesion, either, and you wonder whether that’s simply because the creativity was flowing out of the almost-fully-reformed lineup or simply because Billy felt confident in following his every whim.

It's so well constructed as pop music the only thing you can really say is that there's not much diversity.

Transfixiation, named appropriately, demands a trance-like attention across its duration, but very little sticks once the ride is over.

So while there's nothing vastly wrong with From The Hills Below The City, there's also nothing vastly right.

Much here sounds as though it could have been unearthed from the treasure trove of old demos the singer sporadically unloaded circa 2004; great for the die-hards, fairly inconsequential for everyone else.

It’s all pleasant, but feels inessential and - at times - dated, not least because the lower-tempo tracks veer dangerously close to sounding like chillwave. Domestication has not robbed Sébastien of his adventurousness, but the killer instinct that defines his best work is missing here: ‘Domesticated’ is a meandering listen.

A bleak and wilfully impenetrable album.

There’s no doubt that the record’s production is second to none and Garratt’s talent is as obvious as an Uber driver’s Sat Nav, but his USP is somewhat dimmed by hours and hours of carefully chosen layers, vocals and everything else in between.

Still Corners’ dream-pop takes on a nightmarish hue with snatches of ominous electro and brutally honest lyrics. Their time away has served them well on this new record.

Though Electric Würms may not be breaking boundaries any time soon, they’re doing this on their watch and no one else’s.

Although this album is unlikely to change any existing opinion about a band whose left of centre sensibilities have always meant successfully evading wider acceptance, there is enough richness in the material here to merit far more than classing Fellow Travelers as a mere novelty.

It’s the same bloatedness that often permeates through a Beirut record, and despite a short recording time Condon hasn’t quite been able to shake it, leaving us with a familiar and easy-going album that might step in a different direction, but ultimately remains distinctively Beirut.

The beauty lies in the flaws, the imperfections, and A Long Way To Fall is way too immersed in picture perfect punctiliousness for this to make any lasting impression.

This second album shows that there is more to their schtick than barely tamed chaos.

A passable if disappointing montage of mid-tempo electro-pop that flirts dangerously close to dull trip-hop.

The material on Keel Her is probably best enjoyed one by one--17 tracks at once is a bit much.

There’s an awful lot of promise housed in Graveyard Of Good Times, but its scale and constant shape-shifting makes it difficult to consume and process. Some refinement though, and the future’s bright for Brandon.

‘Spark’ presents a jarring change: not one from that familiar warmth to icy cold, but only halfway, a sort of uncomfortable mild chill.

The majority of the record is just not memorable enough.

Their past is a double-edged sword, but that doesn’t prevent Head Carrier from having its own unique strengths.

By refusing to change the song structure or tempo in any way, Deez has created an album that is stuck in a memory that grows more rose-tinted by the day.

Working Girl isn’t the sleekest of albums but the stumbles and scrapes that Little Boots overcomes are a testament to her desire for change.

It’s fun, it’s enjoyable and it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The nods to Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine are still there, but the world has moved on since then, and unfortunately, it feels like Maps is still stuck in 2007.

A genuinely pleasing aspect of this album is hearing Carter’s vocals dominate more than they have in the past. However, the pace of the second half is less full-throttle and less memorable for it.

With a few forgettable songs and seemingly overcrowded moments, Lo-Fang's debut falls short--acting as more of a promise of what's to come, rather than a thrilling introduction.

Take a step back from the ins and outs of the record and Simulation Theory stands as a ridiculous, bombastic stab of maximalism from one of the world’s biggest stadium rock bands.

Kiesza may have already dominated the charts and club scene, but she’s got a whole lot more tricks up her sleeve.

This is not the most cohesive body of work, granted, but oh man does it have some total bangers.

Wicked Nature goes on for much too long, leaving it just as forgettable as the rest.

By trying to make them sound something they're not, the end effect falls far short.

Less scrappy punk and more slick guitars, there’s an air of the Queens of the Stone Age about their debut, and it’s a sound they wear well.

It’s an uneven listen, although that sometimes plays in its favour; Page’s vocal delivery is consistently unpredictable.

It doesn’t feel any more disciplined or carefully-crafted than the experimental ‘Frost God’ did, but Yung Lean does continue to push the boundaries--which is precisely what brought him to public attention in the first place.

You're left with an album that would be great fun live but needs reining on record.

All in all, with Isles, Wild Belle is sure to attract many visitors who will visit for a quick party, but end up staying on for the island romance.

Fretboard noodling far outweighs any emotional or intellectual potency, and Heirs continues to leave ASIWYFA stuck between a rock solid live show and a hard-to-place recorded direction.

There are very few moments on Harlequin that don’t click either sonically or thematically. Izenberg has established himself as a gifted songwriter with a firm grasp on the strange side of things, and his beguiling debut plays like the nexus of Mac DeMarco and Anna Meredith.

Only the moody, foreboding ‘Over It’ hints at the pair testing their own boundaries; otherwise, this is another solid Deathrays outing.

Despite their identity being so closely interwoven with synth-pop, some of the more striking tracks here see Broods moving away from the keyboard, and reverting to more traditional instrumentation.

That’s not to say that Get Hurt isn’t a good album, with some excellent songs on it. But, if you’re looking for more of the blue collar punk of the band’s early years, you might initially be underwhelmed by what it has to offer.

There's a lack of progression from previous albums that makes Heavy Mood a bit of a disappointment.

It lacks the immediate bombast of either that last LP or 2010’s ‘Come Around Sundown’, but neither is it straight-up boring.

Its wares pick up where its predecessor left off but without adding too much extra to the mix.

While diverse in places and interesting at its best, Albumin is disappointingly underpinned by the singular drone of fairly dull, generic rock.

Joshua James' second release of 2012 is a thoughtful and pleasantly warm collection of songs that are steeped in the sound of Americana.

Realisationship might not always come together neatly, but Andrew Hung’s desire to push his own boundaries, whether that’s moving into that lo-fi zone or utilising his vocals, leaves you wondering just where he’ll turn n

The issue with 48:13 is that it’s actually a fairly routine-sounding Kasabian record.

There are a lot of words in this, their fifth album, and yes, they have always been a literate band, but here it often seems somewhat forced.

Tthey continually hit the sweet spot between the dance floor and sweaty indie venue. Songs overflow with ideas and, as the title suggests, they manage to plot a path through them all, finding something poetic amid all the excess.

While there certainly are some massive tunes in here, there are too many other instances that make you wonder what might have been.