R&B concept album about binmen turned superheroes. Yup.

Third mediocre outing in twelve months for Swedish starlet.

80s clubland legend Grace Jones returns with Hurricane, a patchy but fascinating comeback record.

Ex-Verve singer teams up with the cream of modern R&B for some far-out funk soul brotherhood.

Starry-eyed debut hits more often than misses.

The Thrills meets The Polyphonic Spree--in a good way!

Teenage dreamer turns in nightmare of a second record.

Raw, sparse, low-key, vocodered hip hop.

Marshall Mathers tackles his most complicated subject...himself.

Averegeness abounds from budding UK starlet.

Berlin based electro crooner ratchets up the goo factor.

Good, but I can't get behind the voice.

The Canadian supergroup return with super new LP.

Mockney songbird grows up--but is she any wiser?

The musical equivalent of a puppy humping your leg. This is not a recommendation.

Solid outing from country veteran.

Jazz maestro takes a turn towards the electro.

Aging punks flog a rapidly expiring horse.

Underwhelming Third outing for nu-gaze duo.

Ringo solo album... Come back! It’s not that bad!

The Doggfather part 10. Ho Hum. What else is on?

Thrillingly experimental hip-hop.

Howling good fun from Lupine superstar.

Millennial ‘It’ Boy gets the horn on eighth album.

Great songs played well, but...

Bernard Sumner delivers decent Enough Post-New order solo platter.

Predictable return to stadium soft-rock from former Poodle-permers.

Four years in the making second album from Oz hard rockers.

Devon’s finest makes a Motown-laced return.

A spirited return from Beth Ditto and company--but where are the new ideas?

There’s still something oddly admirable about Alice In Chains’ stubborn refusal to change.

Surprisingly enjoyable party rock.

Return To Form from last electro band standing.

Earthbound offering from hyped to the heavens duo.

Avant-rockers make shameless play for the aging Generation X market.

Close but no rosette for the new British diva on the block.

Steady as she goes from the indie institution.

Houston, We’ve got problems

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.

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

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

Perfectly natural indie music from Scottish band.

Patchy covers album from alt.rock veterans.

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

Warm-hearted folk pop from New England.

Steady as she goes on AOR eighth outing.

Emo pin-ups milk last moments of glory

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

New York dreampop combo meander a bit.

California dreaming, diminishing returns.

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

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Solid and stolid live album from glam punker turned roots rocker.

Anastacia’s voice--once described by a critic as a ‘human air-raid siren’--is still hard to love: when she reaches for the trembling high notes your first instinct is to duck under the table and lock your head between your knees.

After an eight-year hiatus, these hard rock legends return to the music scene with a banging album that has just a little less bite than others past.

The Little Ones are, for the most part, pretty melodious producing indie pop fun with touches of Afro-beat, maybe, possibly!

A rackety, sing-along sound from a band on a largely undefined mission.

Woodly prog rock for weird beards.

Michael Angelakos, aka Passion Pit, brings us a temporary electro pop classic.

For just under two decades, brothers Bubba and Matt Kadane have spent the majority of their time together crafting as near perfect slices of sonic Americana as they could.

This album leaves no doubt that the former Beach Boy is now fully recovered from the 1967 nervous breakdown that effectively stalled his career for decades.

Despite boasting another stellar line-up of guest vocalists, James Lavelle’s dance-rock project once again fails to convince.

The catchiest tune on The Block is ‘Summertime’, and in dignity terms it’s Cohen-meets-Waits compared to their hyperactive teen-pop of old.

Howe’s duet with Neko Case on ‘Without A Word’ is the star of the show though, boasting a gorgeous melody that owes a lot to Gelb’s Tuscon roots.

Men out of time, The Verve were a neo-psychedelic jam-rock outfit who got fortuitously swept up in the Britpop boom and stumbled upon a timely form of Big Music.

Bad-boy rapper fails to raise his, er, game. There is something peculiarly insecure about The Game (AKA Jayceon Terrell Taylor).

This slight, shrill and, ultimately, underwhelming debut album has its moments.

A definite sense of fun permeates Conor Oberst, with the singer allowing himself to indulge a few whimsical idea's.

Surprisingly radio-friendly System Of A Down spin-off.

Sounding, for the most part, like a Stars In Their Eyes version of Cat Stevens, the album lacks variety, imagination and charisma.

Donkey is the mediocre second outing Brazilian electro rockers CSS – will it show that they have more substance beyond being a mere good-time party band?

The second in command of the good ship Broken Social Scene, for quite some time he’s been in the shadows of the band’s co-founder Kevin Drew.

The fact that Hammond can’t actually sing that well is rendered practically obsolete on this album; his hazy drawl may not be the strongest in the world, but it suits these songs just fine.

Perennial underachievers once again fall short of the mark.