The Best of Luck Club is not quite as immediate as the bruising garage-rock intensity of her debut, but this is instead a world-building release.

This rag-tag collection, dating from between 1999 and 2010, sets out his stall as an outsider savant in an Ariel Pink vein.

Nobody can deny this mini album flirts with brilliance, and feels like a pop cultural moment straight out the gate; we just wish there was a little more to it.

When it works, the results are astounding.

While her commitment to reviving the golden age of hip-hop by harking back to the likes of Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown is admirable, it looks like we’ll have to wait for Milli’s next release for that consistent collection of sure-fire hits we know she’s capable of delivering.

Ultimately, comeback albums are about consolidation rather than reinvention, and there’s just enough of the old ‘Smart’ magic here to satisfy the retro crowds. But there’s little sign of a route to relevance, and that’s not something to sleep on.

It’s admirable to see him balance his signature sound with hints of exploration in collaborations such as ‘Monsters You Made’, all while remaining true to his mother tongue.

Much of the 'Smith's music is reassuringly familiar, barely changed over their previous 12 albums, a mix of loose-jointed Stones raunch and vast power ballads impressive enough to bring out the 40-something in all of us.

Maybe Beth Orton, unlike some of her still-desperate-for-kudos contemporaries, is merely growing old gracefully, but clearly gracefully aging doesn't necessarily make for great records.

It's only on 'Ghetto Stars' when that ominous whisper comes to the fore, that Mixed Race excites, and a cascade of strings that don't so much make us yearn for past glories as wonder what Tricky thinks he has left to prove.

There's a tiny bit more to Mystikal than mere male piggery set to damn fine production.

This album feels more like a deserved victory lap than a forward step or a new instalment, but apart from his sole vocal on 'Feel So Close', the victor seems oddly absent.

Equal parts lo-fi sketch-like song structure and buffed-to-a-shine ’80s soft rock, these 12 songs are evidently personal and, at times, thematically obscure.

The track list lurches, rather than blends seamlessly, and on the spacey ‘This World’ she plays with an atonal vocal line (and the admittedly great lyric “you little prick – what do you know?”) that typifies her preference for experimentalism over accessibility. Even so, Moolchan remains as singular – and sophisticated – as ever.

'Invincible' is a relevant and rejuvenated comeback album make overlong and embarassing by the unavoidable fact that Michael Jackson is a) exceedingly rich and b) a bit of a wanker.

What's most promising is that GVSB's often melodic noise now, thanks to emo, exists less in weird isolation than it did, and the band seem to be headed dangerously close to getting what they deserve. If this means they must intermittently sound like Feeder, so be it.

Sandé clearly has the chops to stand out in the sophisticated cross-platform arms race of modern pop music--the soaring ‘Shakes’ and ‘Sweet Architect’ are proof of that--but you still wish she didn’t fall back so readily on cliché.

If Two Door are to hold onto anything from ‘Keep On Smiling’, it should be the playful, curious moments that convey a sense of fun, even if that’s deceptive. When things get serious on this record, the band stumble and the smiles begin to slip.

Too many songs blur into the next (‘Interlocking’ and ‘All Out of Catastrophes’, to name just a couple). Perhaps it’s due to Nadler’s dependence on certain vocal patterns and a no-frills, three/four guitar chord approach. Simple song structures aren’t to be scoffed at, but trouble lands when things become a little too predictable.

Weezer have delivered an album that’s intimate, thoughtful and resolutely human.

It’s a brave record, but also a frustrating one. While you’re persuaded by the clarity of Rostron’s vision, it’s hard not to also suspect a shortage of ideas.

It's still party music, but for a different kind of party.

They don't quite conjure the heart-slowing plod of Pecknold's mob on their second album.

Killer Sounds gets away with its confused billing because Hard-Fi have always known instinctively how to navigate their way around a chorus. That skill set survives here in big, stupid bloody pop songs.

Beyond the familiar name drops and signposts, there are flashes of a band in control of their destiny, and willing to try something new.

Although the off-counter flow can get monotonous at times – unfortunately making a number of the tracks on ‘Michigan Boy Boat’ rather skippable – Yachty’s embrace of the Michigan scene here come across as a daring way of reinventing his once-bubbly rap aesthetic.

Over length of 12 tracks, the soul/G-funk stuff becomes a little one-note, while the Disney-fied material lacks the charm that makes Prass such an engaging, idiosyncratic performer.

The truth is, though, there's just a lack of magic, a lack of something special going on. It's not bad. It's not good.

By going back to the sound of his early work, Scott steps back into the gargantuan shadow of his mentor. Kanye West – particularly the mechanical abrasiveness and fragmented textures of 2014’s ‘Yeezus’ – is not just an inspiration but an apparition that looms over Scott’s identity on this album.

For the most part it lacks either the experimentation of James Blake or the pop sensibilities of SBTRKT.

Good, but not "The Greatest."

At the moment, her music is best consumed in blog-sized chunks, not as a stodgy 48-minute album.

The Moog returns here, but 'Suns'--two minutes of busted TV static--is an inscrutable opener.

Lyrically, this is the best Rose has ever been. Poignant, affecting and candid, at times it’s spectacular. Yet the music fails to reach the same heights, resulting in a mismatched record.

Risk To Exist is a cracking post-debate disco record, certainly, but no one ever changed the world over cocktails at Club Tropicana.

She's far less successful when she goes into full-on retro pop mode, as on the incredibly cloying 'Put Your Brain In Gear' and 'Runaway', but when she decides to plump for the darker end of the spectrum, she shines.

‘Flatlands And The Flemish Roads’ evokes feelings of motion, ‘Ode To Viennese Streets’ a sense of relaxation, but strip away their titles and the concept evaporates, leaving a warm but undemanding album.

Solid singer-songwriter fare with more longing than your teenage years.

If Christopher Nolan ever does one of his gritty makeovers on Twilight, the soundtrack’s as good as sewn up.

Where he’s inventive and precise in directing his energy, he’s able to make real uplifting and imaginative indie bops. It’s a shame this album’s not full of them. The potential is there, but he’s not quite hit it.

Memphis sextet Magic Kids started out in the midst of the city's celebrated garage-punk scene, but you'd hardly know it on the basis of this airheaded and obsessively nice-ified debut album.

There are ideas here that could have been developed into a stunning 10-track album. Unfortunately, Quaristice contains 20 ‘tunes’, many of them elusively experimental ear-tormenters.

It's all solid stuff, but if Murderbot wants to be an ambassador for the genre, then perhaps he should try tackling less divisive subjects, such as politics or war.

There is little, if any, advancement in the band’s sound, which leaves them predictable after three albums mining The Jesus And Mary Chain and Phil Spector’s girl-group production.

It’s all deranged enough to convince us that Sleigh Bells are still menacing outliers, but on a deep cover mission to infiltrate the mainstream, horns still poking out of their ’80s mullet wigs.

The result is an often thrilling, semi-symphonic ode to joy that peaks with ‘The Plans We Made’, a lilting trip-hop nursery rhyme on which Chapman sighs through the line “there’s only so much I can do” like a man who’s suffered a thousand defeats and still maintains his optimism.

They're hardly bringing in a new era, but there's definite promise here.

Things do pick up with messy, closing tracks ‘Self-Immolate’ and ‘Hell’, but these are proficient rather than remarkable moments. Ultimately, it’s not enough to prevent ‘Infest The Rats’ Nest’ from feeling like a case of “look what we can do!” rather than a record fully realised.

Gorgeous closers ‘Grenade’ and ‘Beautiful Boy’ run the risk of ending proceedings on the glacial landscape that you’d expect from Sigur Ros, but there’s enough of a futuristic sheen and optimistic vibe to keep it feeling fresh and make you wanna dive back in for more.

We’ve heard these songs so often it would have taken a Christmas miracle for even a pop legend of Robbie’s stature to make them new. Still, his longtime collaborator and co-producer Guy Chambers has brought a great deal of warmth to this collection.

As bewilderingly little logic as Black Dice's rave collages contain, they're nailing something close to unique.

Uncomplicated, exuberant melodic thrash. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

‘As The Love Continues’ is an album that opens impressively but falls short at times during its second half.

The whiff of soft-rock schmaltz is occasionally close to overpowering. [16 Sep 2006, p.36]

It's not quite diminishing returns, but more a sense that Oldham's going round in decreasing circles.

It is hard to know whether Bloom wants us to engage with the zen-like revelations that arose from being trapped in the thudding reality of one identical day following another, or whether he is inviting us to switch off our minds, relax and float downstream. The result is an album that has the capacity to do both, but never truly perfects either.

No-one could accuse this Portland trio of skimping on sarcasm--even if it is the kind of sarcasm that dribbles likes a student rallying against capitalism as he pulls in to a McDonald's drive-thru.

Mabel’s gorgeous silky vocals soar, the glossy production is stellar, but the exuberance and effervescent attitude that make tunes like ‘Don’t Call Me Up’ so brilliant aren’t found throughout.

Though often overpowering and, by the end of the record, a little wearing, this palette provides a consistent buoyancy and energy – and there are plenty of times when The Maytals turn it to their advantage.

Its nine tracks were composed solely on keyboards as the duo – Wolf Parade guitarist Dan Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry – forced themselves into a new songwriting regime.

As it is, it’s good, but not as consistently great as we’ve come to expect from him.

‘Parachute’, the album’s first single, shoots for voguish, vaguely tropical production via Kylie and Girls Aloud hitmakers Xenomania, but is a tad sappy. Wilson’s pop vocal is much more convincing on the album’s bangers, ‘Press Rewind’ and ‘Happen In A Heartbeat’.

Worship The Sun continues that approach, sounding more cohesive in the process. Somehow, though, it’s also more sluggish--their ‘60s indebted garage-rock drags where once it excited.

It’s those sudden, inexplicable breakthroughs, those little lightning strikes of inspiration, that this compilation is ultimately concerned with. And it’s in those moments when these crappily-recorded fumblings become a source of real fascination.

This is an album that can and should be enjoyed without over-thinking.

This is instead a solid collection of outtakes, rather than a full display of their songwriting muscle.

Silly? Indisputably, although Dani Filth's theatrical vocals ensure that 'The Abhorrent' is every bit as grandiose and ridiculous as a classic Hammer horror.

Ridiculous, yes, but to Thrice's credit, wanting to be Deftones (which they attempt here, at length) is a noble endeavour. But the results are still clunky.

Stylistically, superficially, this forward propulsion sees him loop back to the start with six-track EP My Dear Melancholy,, which appears to sink back into the browbeaten R&B with which he made his Google-friendly name. This works--sporadically.

Timberlake, having failed to imprint his personality on 'Justified', simply stands or falls on the strength of the songs. Luckily for him, half a dozen of them - mainly Timbaland's - are brilliant.

It’s less nightclub, more drunken iPod selection, typical of late-period Tricky: brilliant, frustrating and fatally inconsistent.

This is Yo La tengo on snug autopilot. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

What could’ve been a savvy dissection of seeking out connection during a surreal year instead see them go straight down the line.

Sex & Food comes with a handful of missteps, like the forgettable ‘Not In Love Were Just High’ and ‘This Doomsday’ in the album’s final third. But by and large, it sees UMO pushing their sound impressively, bending the rule book as crudely as they can before the spine break

As a tribute to Antonin Artaud, The Peyote Dance captures the frightening, ambitious and surreal work of an artist who was misunderstood during his life, albeit from a spectator’s perspective.

Gruff's skills as a songwriter married up with his gentle, accommodating tones can, at their best, elicit the fuzzy feeling one gets listening to a Burt Bacharach classic, but this falls short of such lofty comparisons.

While there are moments of brilliance, it’s clear there are too many chefs in the kitchen.

As dated as it undoubtedly is, it still makes for a pleasant enough ride.

Lindberg’s first solo LP moves in mysterious, often circuitous ways, emphasising mood over melody and aesthetic over dynamic. Which is a polite way of saying that it’s something of a grower, whose charms are revealed like arcane secrets only to those with patience, persistence and a lack of proximity to heavy machinery.

Yesterday Was Forever was a record paid for by fans, and made for the fans.

Some may tire of Honne’s romantic lyricism, but it’s undeniably what they do best.

Thankfully lacking the comedy ska bletherings of their last two albums, this is certainly fast and furious and, where once they seduced the charts with songwriting, now they want to bludgeon with hardcore muscle.

You can't help but feel The Subways are stuck between rock and a slightly harder place, and are just a bit confused. [9 Jul 2005, p.57]

While we were expecting an opus about how the coalition government’s really lame, he’s delivered a relentless bosh-pop thump that’s more ‘Bonkers’ than bonkers.

All of which is to say that ‘The Great Dismal’ sounds big, and far grander in scope than anything the four-piece have done before. ... There are points, however, where the record gets bogged down under its own weight, where a wave of noise subsides without doing any damage.

A handy "best of the Stereophonics--for now." [8 Apr 2006, p.39]

He splits the difference on ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, indulging his immature ego (griping at bad reviews, stirring controversy for the sake of it) even as he offers salient social criticism and admits his missteps. He’s ready to pass on hard-earned wisdom before running his mouth like he hasn’t learned his own lessons. And he offers casual fans a hook or two before embarking on another lyrical work-out.

Though it's pretty easy to be the best band in their self-created genre of 'love metal', if you can ignore the cartoon goth twaddle that comes out of Valo's mouth, you'll find an extremely well-executed pop-metal album underneath.

Less a cohesive body of work and more a collection of tracks, ‘Exodus’ feels a little unfinished at times, because of a lack of verses from X and the occasional filler record. Nonetheless, it’s a wonderful tribute record loaded with stellar individual moments, and serves as a beautiful reminder of why the world fell in love with DMX in the first place.

It’s arty, it’s farty, it’s at times strangely hypnotic and if you leave it on your record collection it will make you look really cool. If that’s your thing...

Two Door’s fourth effort is far from a wall-to-wall success, but for a band who could so easily continue to tread their affable, well-worn path around arenas and festival main stages without a sideward step (as many of their indie contemporaries have and will continue to do), the risks and experimentation here are very welcome.

The guitarist and his normally hands-on producer are facilitators, with Tzur as the star. That might upset Radiohead fans expecting a stop-gap, but shouldn’t detract from an what's a largely immersive record.

There's a good single album here in need of editing.

Whether she's actually poverty-stricken or just pretending, the 29-year-old has put together a set of songs so delicate it has all the impact of a flutter of nymph wings.

There is disappointment that a number of U2’s big-hitters don’t translate well on ‘Stories For Surrender’, but this revision hasn’t been a totally fruitless endeavour: you just have to dig a little bit deeper to find the reimagined material that’s truly worth savouring.

There’s a playfulness in the way Gojira approach ‘Fortitude’. There are bursts of melody across the album – perfect for a stadium show of their own – and the likes of ‘New Found’ and ‘Born For One Thing’ flirt with crushing industrial breakdowns. There’s even a couple of soaring guitar solos in ‘Hold On’. The whole record feels agile, despite the weight.

A gloopy cheese-feast of sprightly psychedelic pop, served with a dollop of wanton James Brown funk on the side.

Easy to admire, but hard to really love. [27 May 2006, p.31]