Many of The Libertines' finer qualities are made all too apparent in their absence on "Down In Albion", none quite so painfully as Carl Barat's Django Reinhardt via Johnny Marr charm with a guitar.

In a number of 'mature' developments to their sound they've laid down impeccably produced horns (see bombastic opener 'World War III'), come within millimetres of salacious classic rock in the excellent "Poison Ivy" (watch out for the implied "bitch" in the chorus!) and, on lead single 'Paranoid,' dispensed a chilled-out post-baggy number.

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

His records are not without merit and the better songs here more than deserve to find sizable audiences. But there's no sign that music is going to ever be anything more than an enjoyable sideline for a man whose greatest art continues to be created in other mediums.

It's a horribly overlong, confused creation and Aguilera's brash personality and lioness voice are often sacrificed in pursuit of its many different styles. But when its experiments work, she's never sounded so interesting.

Derulo's desperation to cover all commercial bases is only matched by an inability to stamp his own personality on them.

Emergency isn't quite the great leap that was expected but does at least carry a few optimistic signs for the future.

They’ve returned to the clamorous, powerchord-packed rock of their debut, with the inevitable result that it sounds fixed firmly by the formaldehyde of fashion in mid-90s post-grunge.

This may be the point at which even those well-disposed to the nice and the quirky start to note diminishing returns.

It's probably safer to view "Gettin In..." as the sound of an old man lying back in the ocean with well-deserved drink. A straight-up collection of rock n roll songs that he probably enjoyed playing on as much as anything else in his bizarre life.

While going reggae was always going to be risky, it's the severe lack of conviction - whether in Burgess's mumblings or songs general vagueness - that's the biggest problem.

The mixed messages are infuriating, and the complete lack of soul or identity perplexing.

It's effective, not good. More tellingly, it's catchy in spite of Ke$ha, not because of her.

Whacking on the slap and going electro needn't have felt so dysfunctional--the songs do hold up--but a complete disjunction in styles sounds confusing and ultimately robs the album, and perhaps her comeback, of an identity.

Kasabian and their brass-necks have long since appropriated The Music's mantle of anthem-whoring psychedelic horsemen and there's barely a moment over the course of 12 tracks here where they contest that.

Probably makes more sense in a theatre than on your CD player.

That it'll be her most scrutinised release is a problem, because its stilted, wearying, obsessive concentration on an uncomfortably forced notion of it's creator's sexuality means it's the only album she's made in the last dozen years that doesn't merit such focussed attention.

Had the production been toned down a bit, to just Young and some lo-fi synths, these songs would have worked much better. But then that would have invited even more comparisons to The Postal Service. A noble, but ultimately uninspiring, effort.

The paucity of innovative ideas, reliance on old recipes and directionless experimenting make for a fairly tasteless repaste.

Matinee is quite good; but 50 years on from the birth of rock'n'roll, quite good just isn't really good enough anymore.

Mainly, though, this is a terribly weary album, tedious when it strives to be seditionary, trading on utterly devalued notions of attitude and aggression.

Throughout, Southampton's own R Kelly, as silky-voiced as ever, seems determined to seize hold of his iffy image and re-establish his old school soul credentials.

His flow remains arguably one of the greatest out there; it would just be nice for him to have a bit more faith in his own mind, rather than those of our uber-producers.

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

Feeder are in danger of being a schizophrenic band, unrecognisable from their once “trademark” sound and prone to style swings on a whim.

Awesomely anodyne, breathtakingly boring and crushingly clichéd, â??Astronautâ? singularly fails to take flight.

It's not that Foxx can't sing.... It's not even really the lack of stunning songs. It's the fact that his super slick, super smooth R&B hasn't been either cool or fashionable for more than a decade.

A record that surgically removes all trace of sensuality and replaces it with calculated, mechanical, by-numbers bump'n'grind action.