There's a strange disconnect here, one that might be ironed out by facing the past head-on rather than treating it as a concept.

There are some particularly heady flavours here to be sure, some blended well, others not.

Each song feels fully formed yet tells a unique and important chapter in this period of Owens' life.

The album has a coherency that was absent first time around, and there is also a rattling freshness to the sound that Timbaland has rustled up.

Diasporic dancehall reggae, spruced up and polished around the edges, but essentially retaining the artist's signature style.

The psychedelic outings sound too sharp as a consequence, but it's an effective repositioning overall, even if it's hard not to want to scruff up their hair just a little.

The whole thing wafts along in a pastel anasthaesia, Dadone's vocals rubbing against barely-there songs crafted with shards of synth, glockenspiel and harmonium. Conversely, the only times Weathervanes descends into twee is where it tries too hard to be noticed.

It's far from their best work, yet from the fuzzy lollop of the title track to the reverb-drenched "Pendleton," it reaffirms that not only are Buffalo Tom one of America's great lost bands, but that real estate's loss is rock'n'roll's gain.

Mostly, Landshapes sound like a band that might be a better prospect live, where their ever-shifting ideas can fully flourish.

Love Me follows up 2012 debut album ‘Salton Sea’, but edges away from sleek, techno throb towards something more tender and torch song.

Their debut sounds sleek and exhilarating, although Foals seem cautious about completely breaking out of the punk-funk strictures that have confined them so far.

In many ways Boys & Girls it is as note-perfect an album as you'll hear all year, yet it's also often perfectly inert.

Their spooky, sexy, dark folk is kept bare and bolshy, like Laura Marling with sex and humour.

This psychedelic folk pop-athon of tickled riffs, snappy elastic basslines, shimmering synths and sweetly sung vocals is all dreamy eccentricity, with a bittersweet hint of rhythmic unrest, from start to finish, and should send Hidden Cameras fans into an amorous tizz after just one listen.

Triumphantly succeeds in underlining Dulli's deft touch in understanding the magic woven into the fabric of great pop. [4 Sep 2004, p.73]

It might have taken a decade, but this feels like grime finally beginning to grasp its vast potential.

Teenager is simply more wonderful, bittersweet laze-pop of a hue at which The Thrills have become grand masters.

For in the Düsseldorf duo's continuing remit to bewilder and dazzle, conformity is the enemy. Sick of being billeted as d'n'b smugsters, 'Idiology' is a post-everything record - it's the sound of music being carefully shredded in the hope of finding something new and better.

Her songs sound even more spaced out and unreal than ever.

Slightly predictable, but the work of master craftsmen.

There is an admirable consistency to the production, and at its best Event II is touched by greatness.

While there are a few too many lounge-bar moments - a hangover from his NERD days - when 'In My Mind' is good, it really is excellent.

This album, like their previous two, has one moment of utterly triumphant rock Valhalla amidst a bunch of pretty good retro-soaked poses.

It sounds like the start of another beautiful friendship.

In less dexterous hands, of course, this could--and most likely would--be a disaster, but Darnielle's lyrical prowess and songwriting nous ensures he just about gets away with it.

ts revolving synth pattern revolves relentlessly, before bleeding into the aptly named ‘Dreamy.’

As a sort of lyrical sermon from the mount with uptempo beats to crush the weak-hearted, 'The Sneak Attack' raises the stakes on the microphone skills front as KRS-One lectures, hectors, drops streetwise politics, and laments the state of the world.

It critically casts an eye over Wolf's public persona.

Smoke And Mirrors [is] a dense, torrid quicksand of clattering shoegaze chaos at the heart of this six-track stopgap between Brooklyn duo Widowspeak’s celebrated second album ‘Almanac’ and their soon-come third.

It allows this album to coast through even its dodgy moments and emerge as a loose and easy proposition.

The singer's curious persona is mirrored by the musical pyrotechnics, Queen meets Rage Against The Machine in a metal production of Godspell!, an inventiveness and fury that makes their MTV contemporaries look as dynamic as lard models of Linkin Park.

Yes, the Secret Machines do prog, but vitally they do so much more.

Somewhere along the line the Chilis got sophisticated on our asses.

In contrast to... 'Yr Atal Genhedlaeth', which was a bunch of promising, but half-finished song sketches, 'Candylion' is a much more coherent and loveable affair, and up there with some of SFA's better moments.

Clearly, still in love.

The Glasgow trio bring an almighty ruckus on second album Youth Culture Forever, building on the ear-splitting success of 2012 debut ‘Cokefloat!’ while discovering enough new shades of grey to give EL James a run for her money.

There are so many distinct yet intertwined influences peppered throughout Slave Ambient it would be remarkably easy to lose the thread altogether. Yet somewhere in the haze it all just kind of… fits.

Fucked Up can remain relevant without the need for continual, exhausting reinvention.

If you like your rock with sawdust on the floor and blood in its mouth, this is as good as it gets. [14 Aug 2004, p.49]

Out there, sure--but this is the sort of experimentalism Radiohead scoop plaudits for. [18 Feb 2006, p.35]

What remains is pure, unspoilt guitar-pop genius that demands to be marvelled at. [18 Sep 2004, p.65]

Beneath the plasticky politeness is the same old wry fatalism that the likes of Smog continue to strive for.

Their sound is timeworn and instantly familiar: the “set me free” chorus of ‘Streetwalker’ is pure Springsteen, while the honky-tonk of ‘Trashcan’ is classic Stones, made more remarkable by the sandpaper snarl of their frontman.

The debut album from the London five-piece is impressive enough.

'We Are Science' has a spooky cinematic scope with a dubbed-up, electronic gospel feel for our times.

As an album, it’s uneven, but its stream of highlights make this a fun listen, perfect for the summer.

'Jarvis' never quite gathers an irresistible momentum like his past glories did. There isn't a bad song on here, but there are several which don't fulfil their full potential.

It’s refreshing that his second is so subtle.

Policy is a gloriously unhinged sprawl of a record, but fittingly for the man who constructed sparse piano tech-paeans for the soundtrack to Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her, the downbeat moments resonate, too.

This gallopingly demented album comes off like a battle between two gargantuan, city-pulverising, sci-fi beasts engaged in an epic ruckus.

Still Flyin’ are a silly, dumb blast of a bash worth attending.

A standalone success that also whets the appetite for Fuck Buttons’ return.

Those heavier cuts are the album’s best--dark, dreamy and abrasive.

The only clanger is 'Do It'.... This aside, it's a nest of treasures.

The Nextwave Sessions EP careers wildly between moods and atmospheres, and sounds like a band happy to let go and experiment because they’re comfortable with who they are.

So, yes, it’s a tougher collection than the first, lacking the merciless hilarity you’d expect. But it’s also a strong step forward and one that proves they won’t disappear in the changing breeze of fashion.

There's a smorgasbord of top tunes here.

It's surprisingly gentle, allowing the emotional context of a soundtrack or accompaniment rather than the vacuum-packed, controlled conditions art of their last album.

'Reformation...' is darker and deadlier--more Cramps than Killers. [10 Feb 2007, p.32]

While I Want To Grow Up doesn’t exactly break new ground, it compensates by being affecting, relatable and having occasional gnarly solos.

Boy do they give good ocean of sound. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

It's a fine debut that hints at a finer future - and for their determined attempts to twist something new out of retro influences, we salute them.

After three Twilight albums that never lived up to his previous might, he's now hit paydirt. [13 May 2006, p.41]

In the album's quieter segments he proves that his deft touch remains.

It's a record of rare precision; the kind that comes from figuring out exactly what you want. The kind that comes from being all grown up.

Evan Patterson's lyrical turns of phrase are still subtly unsettling, and the overall collision of punk and blues is a bit like Grinderman, without the spectre of ironic smirking.

[A] groovily electronic, acid-addled collection of throat-tickling, Venusian rhyme formations. [23 Oct 2004, p.51]

This is an album that you'll like rather than actually love.

It shouldn't work, but it does - perhaps, because, for once Albarn doesn't sound like he's trying too hard.

There is a tail-off in quality at the end, but every track still has a chorus that Swedish song factories would sell their grannies for and, most of all, there's a sense that Take That are genuinely challenging themselves here.

It's not perfect--but no Big Star album ever was. [24 Sep 2005, p.47]

At times Siskin’s story is also the album’s downfall, the music suffering from a lack of diversity despite being heart-wrenching. The high points salvage things.

Mixing the exotic sounds of Laibach, Sparks and forgotten camp Euro-disco heroes Army Of Lovers, he's on to a winner even if he feels he's losing the corporate fight.

The album ends up as a tribute to each of the individual singers rather than Sound City itself.

II is the noise of all their Christmases turning up at once.

His [singer Brian Fallon] dramatic vocals might be in full force, but conspicuous by their absence are The Gaslight Anthem's usual lyrical canvases of Americana, save for a couple of brief glimpses of the old dive bar-dwelling, jukebox-thumping badasses in the pair of back-to-back weepies that close the album.

Tassili, too, sounds neither glossily packaged for western audiences, nor too easy to please.

There's a bunch of teary emotions bagged up in the spikiest of descending scales.

Things do sometimes get laboured and one-dimensional. But, there's a wry Glaswegian humour here, which ensures there are plenty of smiles to go with those dance moves.

Their fight-and-make-up pop is like Dananananaykroyd gone new wave, with the B-movie and comic-book geek-joy of early Ash. But that doesn’t mean there’s no depth, if that’s your poison.

The hooks have gotten naggier, the production crisper, to the point where 'LP4''s wide-eyed squelchy funk is carving them an oxymoronic niche: 'utterly compelling background music'.

As passion-packed as her visceral diatribes are, they suffer through being frustratingly free of dynamics.

Eschewing the slacker blueprint he practically invented for off-kilter pop tracks, Malkmus has shown that he's not defined by his past.

What is unfortunate is that she allows Lanegan to utterly dominate their duets.

The Bundles’ kooky childishness and playground melodies will beguile and irritate in equal measure.

Decent, but delivered with all the enthusiasm usually reserved for stool samples. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

Warm and welcoming, Alphaville sounds a great place to lose yourself.

A welcome addition to the intricate patchwork quilt of the new wave of Americana.

A set of sombre fingerpicked fables, Luminous Night’is heavy in spirit. It is cold to the core, as if it’s being played in the long shadow of a tombstone.

This is a great pop record. [17 Jul 2004, p.49]

Tellingly, ‘Be Brave’ is back-loaded with easily the strongest and most diverse cuts, and by the time the final acoustic plucks of ‘You Can’t Only Love When You Want’ fade out, The Strange Boys have done almost a sonic 180.

Where the songs are slow, the fruity Bontempi keyboards are gruelling and the singing comes on like Jimmy Somerville weeping over a dead pet in a marbled mausoleum. But get past the Bronski Beat animal trauma vibes and Savage's other life is rich and full.

If you really want a definitive collection of Ice-T's work, go and buy his albums 'Power' (1988) and 'OG - Original Gangster' (1991). This is not to criticise this greatest hits package, which, technically, does a decent job of presenting an overview of his illustrious career. However, when you have an artist like Ice, with such an impressive body of work, you have to come with more than 17 tracks.

This is folk music transmitted from the far corner of the universe.

Trust never want to be seen to be trying too hard, but finale 'Sulk' is where it all comes together, like Chromatics with an evil glint in their eye.

Dylan's voice is the star. [26 Aug 2006, p.43]

Monch stays versatile, political, and intellectual as he uses his many gifts to be at once motivational ("Hold On") and verbally ambidextrous ("The Trilogy"). A winner.