Ho-hum third record from brit chanteuse.

Former Cranberries woman gives us too much of a good thing.

A surprising afro-beat, trance-pop return from Penate.

Brendan Benson expertly assembles pop music using the manual.

Brooklyn's latest greatest deliver heartbreaking concept album.

Mournful folkie not quite as desolate as usual.

Sci-fi hi-jinks from ‘the nerdy Kraftwerk.’

Interpol frontman Paul Banks makes his solo debut with a surprisingly worthwhile side project.

Pleasant young fellows cause record reviewer to suffer acute fit of niceness.

A gorgeous, swoonsome album that electrifies and stimulates in all the right places.

Norwegian masters of melancholic synth-pop get back to basics.

All-star collective make unholy hot-and-sweaty psycho-blues racket.

Perfectly natural indie music from Scottish band.

Concept album about cricket from Divine Comedy and Pugwash frontmen hits the sweet spot.

Surprisingly laidback new dispatch from uptight country rockers.

Divine blues and roots from Americana veteran.

Patchy covers album from alt.rock veterans.

Poor man’s Usher wallows in hip-hop cliches.

Decent stab at Queens Of The Stone Age rawk from Mrs. Josh Homme.

RATM guitarist and hardcore troubadour participates in dodgy agit rap/rock experiment.

Weird but exhilerating outing from Williamsburg Hipsters.

Stonking new record from former Lad rockers. Who’d have thought?

Warm-hearted folk pop from New England.

Ragged glories from punk's oddball.

Steady as she goes on AOR eighth outing.

Emo pin-ups milk last moments of glory

Shakey’s long awaited archives box set.

Franz Ferdinand attempt to put some dub in the music and end up with (re)mixed results.

Essentially, the record finds Phoenix doing what they do supremely well – danceable indie-pop with touches of shoegaze guitar and ambient electro.

Assuming they haven’t all grown up by now, Manson fans will adore every dark, juvenile flourish. For the rest of us, The High End Of Low serves as a cautionary tale of artistic regression.

Pittsburgh gene-splicers manage to overcome three minute attention deficit barrier.

Further mystical adventures from grunge-era Kate Bush.

Brit pop aesthete goes Rawk--sort of.

Snoozy delights from the polyphonic twee whose outright nerdiness is charming.

Wayward offering from hip hop legend with distinct lack of finesse.

Quietly bucking the trend are The Shortwave Set, whose follow-up to 2005’s The Debt Collection confounds convention by actually being pretty good.

Widescreen return from Jam wannabes.

Nuptial celebrations yield surreal pleasures from Odd-ball Americana Folkies.

Welcome to the (haunted) house of fun.

21-year-old future-dystopian grime DJ breaks new ground.

Good, not great, comeback from epic Mancs.

Craggy eco-concept record not the car-crash it could have been.

Quality electro from Canadian groove mechanics.

Raw, beguiling psychedelia from Californian newcomers.

Food-obsessed lyrics tinged with medieval mischief.

NYC art-rockers go in for some ch-ch-changes on excellent third album.

Swedes living la vida on curious new outing.

Heavy on aspiration, light on inspiration on rapper's second outing.

OAP releases best live album ever?

Karin from The Knife makes desolate but inspiring dance record.

Lo-fi freakster doffs cap to minimalism & screaming chipmunks.

Upbeat comeback from the kings of coffee-table electro.

There’s nowt nu about this nu metal.

Shallow and unfunny third album from london boys

Dark things stir beneath the surface as alt.country figurehead Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy releases umpteenth solo record.

Grand old dame delivers stunning Hal Willner-produced extravaganza.

An edgy rock album, reminiscent of Razorlight’s great debut, had been promised but is nowhere to be heard.

Though this hook-up frequently pushes at the boundaries of plausibility, there's lots about Scream that makes perfect sense.

The rave revival starts here!

No Line On The Horizon is a mature, tender, reflective record of great musical variety, depth and beauty that could only have been made by four people who've experienced just about everything that life can throw at you.

Thrilling indie jinks from Arcade Fire wannabes.

It's like he'd never been away after an absence of five years.

A game of two halves as Brooklyn world music troop go synth pop on split disc.

New York dreampop combo meander a bit.

LA producers bond over Sao Paolo funk.

California dreaming, diminishing returns.

Slick yet soulless second effort from Denver’s Answer to Coldplay.

Detroit punk rockers come out swinging on feisty third album.

Four middle-aged men discover a dance element to their music... and it’s good!

From the grim and gritty depths of east Glasgow, Glasvegas tout a sure-to-be-huge mix of ragged emotion and vintage vibrations straight out of the Phil Spector playbook.

Cynical vocodered mediocrity.

The Circus isn’t terrible. In fact it’s very listenable; genre-wise it falls somewhere between Beatlesy ballads and Billy Joel’s 'The Piano Man.'

Messianic rapper Kanye West has survived grief and heartbreak to expands pop parameters on his new release.

A slight change of pace can be seen in this EP with a hip-hop icon cameo and some Eastern embellishments that may hint to new musical endeavors for Coldplay.

68-year-old lothario goes back to his white soul roots with a passionate performance showing that Jones still has "it."

STP singer on the solo comeback trail.

A few decent songs can't outshine this record's over-produced stadium rock. The Las Vegas rockers' latest just doesn't have the same sparkle.

Even though her debut album didn't go off so well with her label, Dixon's latest album gives her another chance in the music biz.

Pop and R&B backroom boy steps into the spotlight.

The album fifteen years in the making that sounds like a slick but robotic imitation of what it might have been long ago.

Beyonce still proves that she's an all-around good performer even though her attempt to branch out into an alter ego fails a little.

Their sunniest record yet, Campbell and Lanegan continue to impress with this short, but sweet, mini album.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Seal re-visits some soul classics, but dresses them up in a way that turns pure gold into something of a different color.

Chapman creates yet another soulful, personal album that adds to her repertoire of timeless tunes with a few mentions of Jesus and Barack Obama.

Mancunian greats turn out definitive two-CD hits collection of live recordings, alternative takes and hard-to-find tracks.

Not many tricks up their sleeves on this album. The Bronx make more of the same noisy, aggressive songs on an album with the same title as their last two.

‘Amarillo’ Man records Richard Hawley-produced album of songs from Sheffield.

Q-Tip demonstrates his unique talent in this sleek, soulful, silky-smooth hip-hop album.

Despite initial misgivings, our reviewer found that Little Joy's album delivers an old fashioned pop feel with a little DIY indie sound.

Piano playing songwriter straight out of a ‘70s dinner party.

The girls play to a new beat in this album, as they focus on evolving their sound while changing up their lineup.

Released on the web fully two months before it hits record stores, Bloc Party’s third album is as gleaming and hermetically sealed as one of Kubrick’s monoliths.

Freddie-less queen fail to recall old glories.

If it ain’t broke you may smear it with red lipstick and back-comb its hair. But do NOT fix it.

Irish Rockers still going for the emotional jugular on impressive fifth album.

Deerhunter's latest features more pop melodies and fuzzy soundscapes, forsaking the raw, intense sound we all love.

Though it doesn't exactly live up to its name, Legend manages to capture the optimistic sprit of Barack Obama in