Loud Like Love has bright spots, but the laborious moments threaten to undo their good work.

The combination of Lewis and Rodriguez-Lopez seems promising, albeit one that could use a few tweaks and a tad less self-indulgence on the conceptual front.

Zig-zagging cross-country has afforded the band a subtle grasp: while West Coast sunshine glows from their every chord, they are not bound to Pacific pop principles, and their dexterous handling renders Modern Rituals a beguiling proposition and Chief a band to keep a very close eye on.

With half of rEVOLVEr emulating his older tracks and the other half making strained attempts to branch out into rap and dance, it appears that the rappa ternt sanga simply hasn't found anywhere else to turn.

When it does flare up at its brightest though, [despite sounding a little burnt out at times] Weapons is exhilarating, a real call to arms from a band that deserves every bit of their continued prevalence.

While undoubtedly a bit too long, The Time Is Now reaffirms Craig David’s standing as a fine and flexible pop songwriter with all sorts of hooks up his sleeve.

One Good Thing is a fine album, and individually the tracks are pleasingly reflective, but the instant familiarity and maudlin cosiness is more soporific than it is arresting.

There's too much that should have never seen the light of day, that is little more than a band riffing on ideas in the studio without ever taking them anywhere near consummation. But Down In Albion just about remains afloat because there are moments on it when Babyshambles make us care.

Even with an unfocused album like The Colourful Life as a debut, Cajun Dance Party are doing much, much better than some of their young contemporaries (Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers Band, for staters) in terms of crafting genuine, soulful art.

The songs often seem underdeveloped, two brief verses buried between more noteworthy hooks.

The landscape has changed a lot since Gomez first broke down the door, announcing their arrival. This shouldn't take away from the fact that Whatever's On Your Mind is decent enough, as albums go, but you feel it's been preceded by too many slight returns to make new ground this time around.

There's nothing complicated on this album, but then when did things ever need to be complicated?

The confidence of a band that took over a year to record the album is notable, and theirs is an assured voice.

All in, it suffers from a lack of focus and direction.

It delivers what you'd expect, but ambition is unfulfilled and the constant pursuit of seemingly random stylistic tangents reveals a lack of focus.

It's far from perfect, but Dear Reader's Idealistic Animals is undoubtedly a bold second album, with the almost cathartic outpouring from MacNeil giving it an unnerving and eerie beauty.

While the album does tail off slightly towards the end, III is for the most part a solid comeback for Shiny Toy Guns.

Ultimately, it is a decent return from a band who continue to show promise.

The top hat-wearing guitar hero has gingerly handpicked a diverse palette of vocalists to accompany each of the 16 tracks and contribute to the lyrics, while he takes care of the riffs....Yet the iconoclastic guitarist is careful to never upstage his guests.

Aguilera has a fantastic voice, which, when used properly, can carry a song that would have otherwise been fairly ordinary (Prima Donna being just one example) and the production on most of the songs is exemplary. It's just unfortunate that either Aguilera or her label didn't have the balls to make a very brave and exciting pop record.

Although The Brink does sound more assured and accomplished than their debut, The Jezabels’ return poses a number of problems, the most central of which being that it is just far too pedestrian.

A thoroughly professional, exquisitely produced, and utterly soulless album.

Tranquilizers is an album that’s entrancing enough to survive its occasional foray into the lacklustre, and definitely one to cue up when the sky gets a little bit bluer.

Unfortunately there are too many moments where the pace flags, however, and Lavelle, while not exactly running out of ideas, falls back on the familiar ones.

It's a sometimes bleak record, but one that shows that Armstrong and his cohorts are not satisfied by taking the easy route.

As a whole, Painting is not a bad effort, with some nice tunes, though it’s all a bit dull and predictable: good brushwork but lacking inspiration.

An all-out disco party record is waiting to be unleashed amongst it all somewhere, but Discodeine's debut is something of a mixed bag.

In short, the album is great but you do wish these bands could learn to dress better.

On The North Sea Scrolls, Haines stays true to his own brand of dark, surreal mystification and harnesses two other individual talents to create something that some will find highly satisfactory.

A collection that contains no weak links, no fillers, no afterthoughts and almost no mistakes.

Certainly there are some interesting moments on Music From The Spheres. But overall it’s the sound of Coldplay treading water. More alarmingly, it begins to sound like they’re trying not to drown.

Ultimately the album is three or four songs too long, but Man Of The Woods is rarely less than entertaining. Too slick to be a genuine man of ‘rough’, Timberlake nevertheless continues to lead the way in his field, even if he does so without consistently reaching the greatness he so clearly strives for.

As an album @Reverend_Makers provides infectiously good spirits, a good bit of Sheffield steel and a nice dash of humour here and there too, delivered with a dose of urban grit.

The whole thing simply flat lines into mediocrity.

For those expecting the worst ahead of Bloc Party’s return, Hymns is likely to validate all their fears. Change may have been unavoidable after losing two influential members, but to change beyond recognition is almost an insult to the original band’s legacy.

There's more than just a niggle that Free isn't breaking new ground. More disturbingly, the album is a wasted chance to build on Vivarium, and isn't as good as so much of the music it tries to emulate.

It may not be groundbreakingly new, but All Our Favourite Stories is one of the most entertaining albums of the year.

The record does admittedly sound excellent. Urgent and rippling with intensity it has a power that is let down by the lack of simply great songs. Far too many tracks follow an increasingly tired and weary rock formula.

As much as everybody appreciates a good reunion, 10 isn’t really worth getting excited about unless you’re a diehard fan.

The patchiness of the album is perhaps a consequence of Kylie trying to placate the disparate portions of her remaining fanbase. Still, seven keepers out of 13 is a decent hit rate. A merry little album.

The album is a 60 minute blur, and while there are brief moments of clarity there's just nothing special about Blood Money.

Sometimes moody, sometimes optimistic, this doesn’t feel sure of what it wants to be and instead feels a little like an Air outtakes album.

They haven't completely taken their eye off what made the Charlatans so successful in the first place, but the new sound is none too convincing.

The Great Escape Artist is the least cohesive of all Jane's Addiction's albums.

At times, it's so relentlessly bouncy and upbeat that you feel like mowing down an entire shopping centre with an AK-47. Yet there's enough promise here to confirm that the hype about Mika is pretty much on the money.

Clarke is a genuinely talented songwriter, if rather earnest in his intentions, but in Music for The People he and his mates seem to have lost the plot.

Too many songs spend too much time doing precisely nothing.

The desire is there for more of that visionary spirit--though the suspicion lingers that with everything just simply too available, Moroder no longer has the focus and inspiration that fired his finest work.

After a while, it grates badly on the nerves.

There's the sense that Wild Palms are a band who desperately want to create their own world but Until Spring never quite manages to draw you fully into its bubble.

Tom DeLonge does have talent, and maybe one day he'll make an album that deserves all his self-proclaimed hype. This, however, isn't it.

Arguments of purpose and meaning aside, Animal is an infectiously good dance-pop album, and by all meaningful estimations, a towering triumph

Overexposed is rather patchy and its highs are countered by some fairly wretched lows.

The memorable melodies expressed by Chadwick, drive Eyes Wide and Accidental Anarchist passionately along, and album closer Fight Or Flight is undoubtedly a gem in the rough of an otherwise largely underwhelming effort.

six songs may only run to seventeen minutes, but for the devoted it will be a case of quality overriding quantity.

This may be her strongest set of songs yet and, even if not every one of its experiments quite comes off, at least these are indicative of an artist who's not content to cruise on auto-pilot.

It's not perfect and there are two or three tracks that don't really work, but it's hard not to be won over by the LP as a whole.

Although there are some memorable moments here, none of them come close to tracks such as Mars or The Dozens.

At best, he sounds like he’s going through the motions, at worst, he’s crumbling inside, slowly realising he’s sold his soul.

It does sound very different from their previous two albums. Unfortunately, in doing so, they’ve produced the most crushingly average album of the year so far.

These dated trance beats and chunks of grime tinged R&B aren't going to earn him any new fans, so he's flipped the default switch; if in doubt, get a bit naughty.

The result is an album that is, for the most part, merely pleasant.

At times it's hilarious, especially the song openings, which evoke poodle-rock heroes in mock affection, but the tracks then go somewhere inconceivably cool, twisting, shimmering and generally rocking in drool-worthy style.

As an exercise in not-so-subtle re-positioning the album is never less than effective and its high-points are more interesting and persuasive than most of JLS' peers.

Here, Pritchard and company aim for an even more mainstream success than Konk, and they will likely succeed in selling a boatload of albums. But they've lost something in the process.

The whole thing just feels so lightweight, as if the remaining members of CSS are struggling not to play their instruments but to get any magic out of them.

This then is an album that doesn't quite work, being as it is constantly in a state of conflict.

Christopher comes across as so eager to please that parts of the album lack vim where it’s needed, despite the luxuriant polish that’s been spread across all 10 songs.

The concept pays some dividends, with production that frequently finds a pleasant hybrid between gospel and contemporary production and subject matter that surprisingly doesn’t outstay its welcome. The big problem is Kanye’s lyrics, which have lost a lot of the charm they had in the early years without improving in technique, and at various points the tracks have a big hole where a genuinely powerful verse should be. Nonetheless, Jesus Is King is certainly an improvement on Ye, and a purposeful if novel release.

Although he may never touch the glory days of his heyday again, there are enough glimpses of his genius gathered here to satisfy.

For someone who has a lot to say and is such a unique figure in music, it's a disappointment that Light isn't as captivating as it should be.

At its best, this album is nothing more than a passable appropriation of pop reggae in 2013.

All too often Rudebox plays like an undeveloped collection of half-baked ideas.

While Angels & Airwaves are pretty good, don't pick up We Don't Have To Whisper expecting a revolutionary sound designed to shatter your worldview and change your life. On the other hand, if you want something to fill the gap while U2 are recording are their new album, look no further.

This is a rather catchy, rather clever slice of electronica that you could easily find yourself falling in love with. It is also the kind of album that you could hate yourself for buying because you get off on the kind of tunes the Tweenies find annoying.

Unfortunately Night Visions is so safe and middle of the road that it leaves you with the same hollow feeling that Las Vegas can, without the dizzying high and sensual assault that got you there in the first place.

Though this isn’t a complete comeback, frustrated Kanye fans certainly have more grounds for optimism after this record than they did before it.

Aside from the album not standing out from the competition the individual tracks have trouble standing out from each other.

An energetic ride with plenty of musical thrills and spills which will sound a treat live, on the road or in the club, but one which doesn't fully convince when the vocals are added to the mix.

It's unclear whether Pop Etc have branded themselves as an out and out dance pop band, or if they remain an alternative, slightly niche group, masquerading as a clichéd pop group.

I Cry When I Laugh never really manages to become more than just a collection of singles.

The Balcony may not have the presence of a Definitely Maybe or an Is This It, but it’s certainly a solid step in the right direction.

His voice sounds better than ever, and while nothing here recaptures the glory years of The Verve, his songs are more focused than ever before.

Just when you think the album is sinking into mediocrity, Borrell and company respond with two of the best tracks they have ever put their names to.

Ultimately it's hard to see this matching the levels of their early success.

It's not an album that will change your life, but its airy grooves make for perfectly pleasant listening for under an hour. And sometimes, that's all you need.

If New Glow is anything to go by, the creative well seems to be starting to run dry.

Foxx's music and range of vocal techniques are not unique, but perhaps this added touch of genuine, heartfelt realism is what will see the actor make a successful jump into the music industry.

At its best it's a wonderful homage, at its worst it's a vanity project.

Easily HIM's most accessible album to date.

The band's experimental side (the side that made them good) has suffered, as if "Wires" was the new blueprint on how to write successful songs.

The 10 tracks that make up Tales Don't Tell Themselves brief-though-engaging narrative are deeper, more accessible offerings that need those vital extra two or three listens to really sink in.

Whereas their first album hit the mark perfectly, The Pick of Destiny swings wildly and misses.

There are numerous highlights on Coming Up For Air to ensure success in sales and chart placings and that is, of course, the dream for any aspiring act: fame and fortune. But it comes at a cost as the charm and character of their early guise is being tempered.

It’s another long album – if there’s one conclusion to be drawn from this record, it’s that Justin Timberlake desperately needs an editor – but it’s a return to the slinky RnB pop that made his name. The problem is that there’s not much of the sparkle that was evident about 20 years ago.

The list of guest stars includes Jessie J, Robbie Williams and will.i.am, and the album is as overproduced as those names suggest. Worse still, on The Fifth Dizzee Rascal succumbs to the worst stereotypes of rap music.

So there are a couple of silly tracks - but then there were two silly Bennett sisters [in Austen's Pride and Prejudice]. Sadly, the remainder of the album is all Mary and no Elizabeth; devoid of life, wit, or energy.

There is much to admire here, and much to cherish.