It’s with a sense of relief then perhaps that Revolution Radio, whilst feeling a little like a pastiche of their forms selves, sees the trio steering a steadier course on more reliable ground.

Unfortunately, instead of producing an album that feels new, exciting, and refreshing--exactly what you’d expect from a band in their position--you get some lazy attempts at something different, before a retreat into the comforts of a tried and tested sound.

While Joyce Manor's fourth record is still a very enjoyable romp through ten expertly written pop-punk songs, the album's plain-view influences, cleaner production and vocal delivery feels like it just slightly misses the mark on being the something truly special the band have threatened their entire careers.

On the whole City Club is full of the type of synth funk nonsense that should have been left alone in the late Noughties.

As a whole, Remember us to Life feels a little patchy, with enough ups to make it good, but too many downs to make it great.

While Head Carrier may right some of the wrongs of Indie Cindy, it still remains a distinctly average affair from a band once considered the best band on the planet. Too often this sounds like a younger band's best impression of Pixies, or worse, a parody of themselves.

The band have retreated back to their pre-4AD line-up and reined in the overtly pop instincts of After the End, instead content to needle at a single idea in the hope of coaxing something memorable.

There are only fleeting glimpses of brilliance on a long-player littered with ideas that never seemed to get past the kernel stage.

The tracks' durations are, to these ears, not wisely distributed and this is possibly the album's biggest drawback.

The problem with clipping. is that they sometimes seem to have an unusual idea of what makes good hip-hop. Sometimes it feels like the purely hip-hop side-project of a dodgy rap-metal group circa 2003.

[Nels Cline's] noodling is nice and all, but it’s akin to casting Jason Statham in an ITV period drama. Worse still is the treatment of Mike Jorgensen, who has such an instantly recognisable sound on the keyboard; I genuinely don’t know if he is even on this record. Some nice fluttery percussion on ‘Quarters’ aside, the brilliant Glenn Kotche barely is.

With Ultra, Zomby might have finally removed any remaining warmth from his sound: the album is cold to the point of inaccessibility.

No alarms and no real surprises, yet the execution carries Crystal Castles 2.0 through.

It’s possible it just too hard to produce a record of straight classic songwriting in an era that has heard it all, but Blind Pilot make a good stab at it.

With S+@dium Rock, Titus Andronicus have managed to create a live record that says everything and nothing at the same time.

There is plenty of decent stuff going on in the duo's third record, but it still never really takes off into any rarified territory.

Comprising of a sound that, though perfectly pretty, has already been done, and words that have already been said, Theyesandeye doesn’t really bring anything new to music.

Five years on, BBNG stand poised to write jazz standards for the next generation. In some circles, you’d call that progress. But for folks that turned to BBNG as infiltrators, rebels, the razor edge of the new--in those circles, you’d call that a sell-out.

This is something of a missed opportunity.

What the record lacks in the main part is a sense of urgency and excitement. Too often the songs wash over you, making no serious appeal for your heart or mind.

And yet for all this effort the album itself is at times curiously empty, both overblown and underwhelming, with loads of smoke but not much atmosphere.

Liquid Cool is at its best and most interesting, though, when Gonzalez’s sound plays with the way our brains and human interactions have been rewired in the modern age, raising the bar by creating impactful moments via osmosis.

If only the album had been made up of songs where they’d allowed the songs to be low key and interesting, it could’ve been really good.

Musically Weaves is a hodgepodge. It opens with surf-pop synths that later give way to meaty, big and bouncy bass lines and bright colours shooting from guitar lines that slip and slide all over the place.

Bugg has always had one foot in the past and that’s fine, but On My One might as well be an official challenge to The Strypes in the ‘parents record collection’ department--though a mercifully more bearable one.

Just seven tracks seems an odd length for an album, especially when they are chunky (all between four minutes 40 and seven minutes, most around five-and-a-half-minutes) rather than substantial. Ultimately, it is hard to shake the feeling that My Best Human Face should have given a lot more.

Although by no means a bad record, Driving Excitement And The Pleasure Of Ownership would probably work better whittled down into a pair of EPs rather than a whole album.

Yes the songs are catchier and slightly better executed, and the music evokes a by gone era but remains grounded in the modern world so it’s not a pastiche, but it all sounds, well, too safe.