OK, so it’s not Norah Jones dinner party territory and there’s enough torturous mayhem to gratify their faithful ‘maggots’ but there’s equally a contrived nature underlying the habitual havoc.

Overall, 'Don't Be Afraid...' is a tad frustrating. Everything ticks along funkily and proficiently, but nothing really wants to stick out.

The Sun And The Moon", The Bravery's down-to-earth approach ought win them a second chance.

Instead of ending tensely and dramatically they are the final whimper and sigh of an album named after a band that have lost their way and aren't sure which direction they should be heading.

It's not, in the final reckoning, a terribly important and wildly impressive record.

'Old Ramon' is a slight affair cut from similar cloth to '...Blue Guitar', fuzzy with distortion, hampered by less than inspirational songwriting.

Built on a repetitious platform of bass, drums and guitar, what starts off as a genuinely thrilling journey tends to conclude in a cul-de-sac.

Leaping from the speakers in a fury of jarring axe steel, clocking rhythmic beats and clinical vocal swagger, ultimately this LP gives itself - at some 60 minutes length - an awful lot of time to say very little.

You suspect Fits would fit better live, where the audience have no choice but to go with it, but here the trio sound slightly too pre-occupied with pleasing themselves rather than the listener, greedily ripping through riffs with a tenacity that, while impressive, is often ultimately self-defeating.

It just sounds like she cannot be roused to feel very passionate about anything.

Ultimately it makes you feel the loss of Pavement all the more.

The Welsh agit-poppers' tenth album isn't terrible--certainly not as listless or confused as Lifeblood--but it does sound lazy, lyrically and sonically.

Britney Spears, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce and Leanne Rimes are all artists Sparks' music evokes, but very little of it could be said to be distinctly hers.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this album - just the airbrushed production of tracks like James Taylor's 'Don't Let Me Be Lonely' robs them of any true grit and soul they might have had. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem afflicting Clapton at the moment, making for yet another average album to add to the list.

A few club chants ("You jump around like you ADHD! ADHD! ADHD!") and heavy beats crop up throughout but, in the main, N*E*R*D ironically struggle to break out of their own defined anything-goes freedom on what's just a solid record.

Fans of Aerosmith, and fans of good old Rock Music will love it.

For the most part, however, this is an ultra-sugary album which leaves a strangely sour aftertaste - not a flavour the public seems too fond of.

'Bionix' has definitely been released at the wrong time of year: it's got chilled summer vibes written all over it.

But for all its stylish exuberance, 'Now' is an album full of wonderful sounds that's lamentably thin on songs.

Before descending without hope of return into the treacle swamp of R&B ballad hell that beckons at the halfway point, 'Dangerously In Love' offers a few passable moments.

It's hard to deny Papa Roach have a certain knack of crafting big, glossy, annoyingly catchy anthems for the Kerrang TV generation.

It makes for some pleasingly approachable music but that's not what he'll be remembered for.

They ‘sound’ well-written without actually being so – the ultimate in pop sophistry.

Kanye's ...Dark Twisted Fantasy is also the densely-produced work of a clearly erratic soul.

It helps to pick the right tune and Dando has good taste, judging Gram Parsons ('I Just Can't Take It Anymore'), Wire ('Fragile') and Townes Van Zandt ('Waiting Around To Die') to be worthy of homage. But that's all this album is, really. Homage.

There's little in The Departure to justify the trip.

Next time, she needs to dump the tired wild-girl shtick, unleash her lung-power and the world will fall at her feet. For now, this is just another album of production-line US pop.

But all too often there's the feeling that, in trying so hard to match the melodrama Ronson and Pallet have draped around him, Waller loses sight of the smaller picture and sounds confused, out of place.