Largely acoustic, the album showcases a beautifully brutal collection of warped love songs; pristine and jagged, abrasive and tender and always devastatingly honest.

There is strong instrumental feeling - sometimes joyful, sometimes melancholic and sometimes alluring and seductive - in every single track.

But though the music is as good as anything they've ever done, rarely resorting to that downbeat, drunk-in-pub-tells-his-life-story tendency they've too often made their trademark, the lyrics are way below [Aidan] Moffat's usual standard.

If you didnt get 'U.F.Orb' or 'Orblivion', this ain't going to change your mind. If youve never heard The Orb before, though, this is as good an introduction as any.

Really, this isn't really a Run DMC album, they're just guests on it.

The influence of recent collaborators like Autechre and Spring Heel Jack is prevalent throughout much of the album as tracks like 'Eros' fuse jazzy, organic instrumentation like marimbas and guitar to colder cut-up beats.

Most people will deem this album a significant piece of work, and maybe if you haven't heard much Pavement then it is.

The formula here is for Frusciante to carve tunes out of loose, cyclical riffs, a few basic samples and drum programmes and his own parched voice. Sometimes, as on 'Remain', the effect is slightly uncomfortable... Tough that out, and get used to the demo quality throughout, and there are some decent songs on 'To Record Only Water,' endearing for their rawness and honesty.

Fortunately, the depth of great songs written by Francis results in something that feels more like a proper album of still-dynamic psycho-rock than a shoddy cash-in.

It's not too ambitious to suggest few other releases this year will match its grace, humanity and power.... A magnificent album.

For fans, a job well done, and surely appreciated. For the rest, digestion of any of Luna's five studio albums may be advisable first.

Collaborations with Helicopter Girl on 'Don't Come Around Here', with Macy Gray on 'Smitten' and the loving if overproduced take on of Curtis Mayfield's 'It Was Love That We Needed' stand out as highlights but only because the rest of this collection comes with the words 'will this do' burned deeply into its flabby, bovine arse.

Dog In The Sand' is unquestionably Frank Black's finest solo album.

Lopez mostly sticks to a successful formula - R&B lite with a Latin touch.

This collection of shimmering-smooth, synthesiser-led beats and lazy gangsta rap posturing isn't worthy of the once great Snoop.

Beginning with the juddering monstrosity that is the live version of 'Third Eye', there is no doubt that the band want to be judged as an epic attraction. It's unfortunate that they've chosen to lengthen some of the tracks to the point of monotony.

Overall, 'Road Rock Vol 1' is a tad sloppy and definitely no match for 'Live Rust', still Young's finest live album. That said, it's crudely compelling and with the exception of disappointing newie 'Fool For Your Love', further affirmation that this grizzled vet remains at the pinnacle of his considerable powers.

Renegades' is a formidable parting shot. A Rick Rubin-produced collection of 12 cover versions selected to show the breadth of Rage's influences, it's an object lesson in being both inspired by musical history and remoulding it in your own shape.

The monotony that blighted 1997's 'Wu-Tang Forever' and the sluggish complacency of some of the Clan's myriad solo projects in the past three years is notably absent. There's a born-again urgency here, with the RZA reclaiming control of the mixing desk from his disciples and trying out a few new tricks to spike the usual routine of cinematic string stabs and virtuoso raps.

'Vol. One' might have opened the band up to a wider audience but 'Vol. Two' is a far better reflection of what Everclear are all about.

Unfortunately, over a third of the songs on this album are ballads, and most of them are fillers at that.

The Dallas native has created a womb of an album. It's a warm, soft, retreat from the outside world. Reading between the lines, this means no hits.... [but] reading the printed lyrics shows what a wonderful poet she is.

The production is lame, and the album as a whole is unconvincing in it's pretences as hi-energy, bouncy and above all youthful punk. And Dexter Holland's vocals simply grate after a while. Die-hard Offspring fans will find nothing which deviates from the original plot, so they won't lose any long-term believers from this offering.

Back with the same band that helped her notch up such smoky, smooth jazz hits as 'Your Love Is King', 'Smooth Operator' and 'The Sweetest Taboo', Sade has produced an album of class, sophistication and melancholy soul.

Where 'Holy Wood' does come together and threaten to transcend its at times cliched parts is in its clarity of vision. This is a lean, visceral album that is as tripwire lithe as its maker. Manson's also remembered to write some great pop-goth tunes this time out, nowhere more so than with first single 'Disposable Teens'.

There's no gentle way of saying this, so let's cut to the chase. This record is, quite simply, useless.

Much of this album fails to engage.... There are lengthy attempts at covering too many bases, when fewer distractions would have allowed Cook to create music with direction, not just location and motion.

Despite the almost universal hyperbole that has greeted 'All That You Can't Leave Behind', this is no masterpiece. Certainly not by U2's stratospheric standards.