Curtis doesn't sound like it was much fun to make, and it isn't much fun to listen to.

Their third, Happiness Ltd, is a sulky teenager, and about as attractive and engaging as that suggests.

Not a bad record by a long stretch but a disappointment nonetheless.

Calvin Harris does nothing out of the ordinary, but still, he does it well.

For all the one-paced nature of its songwriting, wilfully lo-fi production values, inevitable Lily Allen comparisons and grating larynx, Panic Prevention is still an enthralling debut, and one that says infinitely more about the life of young Londoners than any amount of Bloc Party seriousness.

Architecture In Helsinki are hyper self-aware and they seem unable to write or perform any kind of song without imbuing it with some sense of irony or post modernism.

Aside from whatever awaits Rilo Kiley if they discover, like Courtney Love before them, that deliberately setting the dial to AOR doesn't guarantee success--is the seam of graceless contrivance. Not just musically--but lyrically.

On paper then, Finding Forever has the dubious distinction of being the equal of "Be". In practice, its jaded formula falls someway short of the genuine energy of its predecessor's finer moments.

We Are The Night feels bloated and ornate amongst the elegant functionalism of post-millennial club music.

Occassionally, the songwriting does contain flashes of thoughtfulness.

Zeitgeist may not boast any platinum-plated singles of the kind that typified their peak, but it's mercifully far less flatulent than latter-day Pumpkins.

Crucially, it seems their ability to write a magisterially moving song such as "NYC" or "Obstacle No 1", both from their debut, seems to have abandoned them. In fairness, sonically speaking, this is their best effort yet.

Rowland's big problem is that she has the lungs but not the voice, at least not if we take that to mean something distinctively her own.

Uncle Dysfunktional won't compel a new generation to discover the back catalogue or question the popular depiction of the Mondays as cartoonish buffoons.

This is a pretty bog-standard Ash collection, nothing more, nothing less.

Why the hell is Ronson being applauded as a wunderkind for basically recycling big beat and hiring some horns?

Where once Macca seduced us with great melodies, simple songs and great musicians, here the musical sledgehammer is on show too often.

Put simply, this is B-Movie rock: from the death rattle vocals, to the clichéd riffs and hackneyed subject matter.

His tenuous grasp on reality and good taste slips and he plummets into a tawdry, gratuitous and self-congratulatory flurry of misogyny, expletives and reggae.

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

These half-arsed stabs at nu-AOR end up pleasing no one, least of all the band itself.

We're all for experimentation, but please: Nashville?

There are no surprises or unexpected turns and the overall dearth of spontaneity ensures an empty and shallow experience.

This "Baby…" is bloated and bursting from its nappies - and that goes for the songs as well as duration.

It's a case of too many beats failing to earn their keep.

Everything here sounds familiar.

The melodies feel functional at best, surprisingly charmless affairs that push all the right buttons with little passion or joy, while the lyrics are that depressing rock cliche: woe-is-me deliberations on the pressures of fame.

The problem is not that The Rakes haven't sought to evolve; it's that they've done so too self-consciously and slipped out of their depth.