Free Weezy Album is one of those records you sift through for flashes of greatness, rather than sit back and let it wash over you.

St Catherine’s surface may be polished to perfection, but much of what’s underneath feels hollow.

Communion takes no risks and says nothing.

What Work It Out never quite manages to do, however, is leave any sort of lasting impression: the album’s near 45-minute runtime passes with the agreeable impermanence of a mid-afternoon reverie, a pleasing diversion that melts imperceptibly away as soon as it’s over.

It’s hard to knock stompers like ‘Roaring Waters’ either, but the vanilla title track and the plodding ‘Hammer & Tongs’, come off as cheesy, even for this lot.

Only ‘The English Summer’ and ‘Pink Lemonade’ bear much resemblance to the antsy, fidgety post-punk The Wombats made their name with, and both end up falling somewhat flat. In its place are the sleek, synth-laden likes of ‘Be Your Shadow’ and ‘Headspace’ --precision-engineered for mass appeal, but no less effective for it.

The little dude is a poet. Still, at a relatively lean 30 minutes, it’s hard to argue this is a heavyweight album.

Ultimately, Rebel Heart feels like a wasted opportunity.

What Happens Next is a distracted listen--an experimental Gill production that should be out under his name only.

For all the music's cagey intelligence, Drake sounds like the kind of guy who comes sauntering out the traps in a 100m race and immediately breaks out into a victory lap, pausing only to remonstrate with hecklers.

Sure, it has its moments.... However, things come unstuck when Joker swings for romance.

Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt 2--don’t go looking for a part one, you won’t find it--sounds like it’s on its own strange course.

It's odd that parts of it sound too careful.

It's all wildly self-indulgent, but pleasant enough.

None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.

It's no classic, but perhaps the surprise here is that Manson’s music can work without the shock shtick.

Opener ‘Teenage Exorcists’ really would have been an awkward fit on ‘Rave Tapes’, a rare vocal-led effort with the enveloping guitar of shoegaze and REM’s anthemic tenderness. More plausible is the idea that ‘History Day’ and ‘HMP Shaun William Ryder’ were left off the album because they’re basically Mogwai-by-numbers. Of the remixes, Fuck Buttons’ Ben Power, trading as Blanck Mass, triumphs.

‘The Balcony’ is informed both by their struggle and their noughties indie elders. All this adds up to a dated sound.

After 64 minutes of the same, it all starts to feel like a bit of a grind.

‘Stay Awhile’ and renditions of The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ and the Burt Bacharach and Hal David-penned ‘This Girl’s In Love With You’ are stunning in isolation. A whole album of Deschanel’s wholesome, entertaining-the-troops voice and M Ward’s tasteful instrumentation is cloying.

As a reminder of Eminem’s vocal showboating, ShadyXV is impressive. The problem--and it’s a persistent one--is that where once his anger was energetic, now it simply betrays lethargy.

Listen speckles similar crackers (‘Goodbye Friend’, ‘Hey Mama’) between gushes of sizzle sewage, as if all of Ibiza’s been trying to get high on glittery laxatives.

Constant jangle blurs the songs, and a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Revolution Blues’ only emphasises Ranaldo’s newfound likeness to the Canadian in one of his dirgier moods.

Too few tracks leave as forceful an impression however, and for all its added bells and whistles, Palme comes off more mildly quirky than exhilarating.


It feels distant and phoned in.

While it's an impressive document, it can’t quite recapture the nocturnal intimacy of ‘Nothing Else But This’ and ‘Dream’.

It's the sound of a band once introspective but alive, now lost, depressed and completely unavailable.

It’s interesting from a certain geeky perspective, but it's never quite as satisfying or substantial as you want it to be.

Stateless is impeccably executed, but also unsettling to the point of off-putting.

It’s a shame the saccharine musical backing too often makes it hard to empathise.

The sound has clearly dated, and John Cooper Clarke’s guest vocal on ‘Let You Down’ feels phoned in, but uptempo limbshakers ‘You’re So Good For Me’ and ‘Changes’ are as solid as anything they did 20 years ago.


While Tyranny is wildly self-indulgent--and often at the expense of quality - you could never say that it's boring.

The shortcomings of Bainbridge’s own vocals, which sometimes lack soul and are rarely memorable.

...And Star Power is the sound of record-collection rock having a nervous breakdown.

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

He ought to save the apologies and descend into full-on self-loathing mode more often.

His production work on this fourth album adds a brittle EDM crunch to their formula, but lacks enough choruses ripped from the candy-curled fingernails of the Pet Shop Boys to stop the likes of 'Chemistry' and 'Real Real Love' sounding painfully dated beside Jungle, La Roux or even Daft Punk.

The tunes offer a smooth enough ride, but The Vaselines aren’t really stretching themselves here.

Moments when his former wretchedness is recognisable rescue the album.

No Romeo may be sweet, but it doesn't leave a lasting impression.

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.

Their first new music in three years, is a cohesive listen.

[Songs Of Innocence] has only a handful of standouts.... This is a serious mis-step that might win a week's worth of good publicity, but could foreshadow a year's worth of bad.

Rather than evolution, Listen offers questionable overindulgence in funk, soul and chopped beats.

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

On this evidence, SMD aren't quite there and the result is, sadly, a bit boring.

There's something a little too ‘phone advert’ about it all to properly excite.

Sadly, the promise of desert-rock heaviness is, if anything, underplayed.

While they’ve never been terribly fashionable, they’ve always used that to their advantage, projecting a underdog siege mentality whilst simultaneously selling out arenas. Concrete Love, however, is nothing to beat their own drum about.

While charming, Albumin suffers from a distinct lack of harmony.

The result is not just unimaginative and lyrically anodyne--it’s boring.

The album title promises much in the way of forthright antagonism and the Jessie J hair she sports suggests some kind of ironic statement on the chart mainstream, but the content fails to deliver, save for two isolated moments.

The cream of their output is undeniable--the Air-like stringed beauty of ‘Les Nuits’, gut-wobbling soul wailer ‘I Am You’ and early singles ‘Dextrous’ and ‘Aftermath’--but there’s an awful lot of so-so wallpaper here, especially for a Best Of.

Moments do [stand alone]--instrumental 'Enrolment' is dark, stark and almost krautrocky, while closer 'Graduation' lilts with beautiful melancholy--yet, devoid of its context, it all feels somewhat banal.

The messy trip-hop of 'If I Could' and screeching synth line of 'First Snow' mean Nausea lacks consistency, but it's a clever and rewarding record.

For all its prettiness, though, Passerby is a record that boasts about as much excitement as a gentle breeze, and its rewards are too few and far between.

The result is joyous electropop with depth--dance beats, '80s-ish synths and Caila's soulful, voluminous vocals fanning out into gorgeous harmonies.

While there’s nothing quite as dynamic as the best work of Shelton’s labelmates Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley, Cold World provides a rousing listen for fans of vintage soul.

Intrepid it ain’t, but sometimes the straightforward approach has its rewards.

‘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.

Ultimately, the pop sheen Adams applies on The Voyager is at odds with Lewis' songs. By always opting for directness, he's failed to let her do justice, musically, to the darkness of her inspiration.

Having now racked up multiple albums of tastefully burbling electronics and inscrutable guitar oddness, Instrument still suits the term: rarely does it ‘rock’ at all, so TRR may as well have progressed beyond it. It’s by no means without merit, though.

Creosote’s first album since doesn’t have quite the same woozy charm, trading the lush and eerie textures for gentler, more traditional ditties, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still pleasures to be plundered.

They fare better on the more tuneful, less screechy 'Midnight Hours', but as a whole the album would have benefited from some ruthless editing and extra production spit and polish.

For all the flash and flair, the freshest, most intimate moments here are the result of holding back.

It’s respectable enough but a stronger dose of Fink’s maverick tendencies would be welcome.

What saves that song ["Slow Motion"] , and indeed the album as a whole, is Monica Martin's honeyed voice; it's full of soul, even when the arrangements aren't.

His attempts to revolutionise, strip bare and stretch the borders of R&B with all manner of glitches, gollums and glaciers are admirable, but it’s only when he tranquilizes his inner Usher for the downbeat piano throb of ‘See You Fall’, the spectral orchestration of ‘Pour Cyril’ and the acoustic minimalism of ‘2 Years On (Shame Dream)’ that he achieves the subtlety and invention of, say, Sufjan Stevens.

The line between self-aware irony and tragically conforming to type is thin, though, her knowing winks getting stuck in a tangle of false eyelashes, and ultimately undermining what had the potential to be a powerful artistic statement.

Only when Leithauser relaxes the template does he start to cock it up.

heir lighter moments can be a bit cringeworthy--too earnest by half--but when they go slow and heavy, they’re unfuckwithable.

It might not kill the Mumford and Butler clones, but The Hunting Party is an energetic effort at least.

Like the syndrome named after the titular city, you’ll fall for these tunes with repeated exposure, but you’ll live without them once you’re free from them too.

The nostalgic nods become wearier in the second half, but Beauty & Ruin is strong enough to add weight to the argument that alternative rock belongs to Bob Mould; everyone else is just borrowing it.

Luck has its moments, but in terms of defining a way forward for Vek, chance would be a fine thing.

It's not without charm--the needle-jump static of 'Dolly And Porter' gently drives a sweet melody; stroboscopic flickers of synth make a gripping arrangement for 'Closer To The Elderly'--but too often it's just Taylor's fragile voice cooing drab, introspective mantras over sparse electric piano.

‘Blameless’ and ‘Little Moments’ marshal some nice glimmering synths, but Alec Ounsworth’s mewling vocal--while unquestionably distinctive--remains a bit of an odd proposition to achieve the requisite Everyman appeal.

It’s lyrically weak, however, (sample: “The moon falls in your doorway”) and although there’s sparkle in the production, Johns reveals himself to be a far from charismatic singer.

There’s melody and slick production throughout, but all the life and soul of an accountancy website.

Sound Mirror’s mix of jazz rhythms and psychedelic funk cuts a distinctive, if unfashionable, path.

Round the back nine (‘Golden Fire’, ‘Kilmore’s End’, ‘Overnight’), the attention to detail slips, and they end up with a load of meat patties of twee that just come across as Owl City in fashionable shoes, a whiny inner-child deserving of a smacked botty-bot.

Breakfast, for all its modest attractions, never quite transcends its talented-journeyman origins.

As a whole, Meteorites fails to set the sky on fire.

Too often, though, the rage is vague.

The formula wears pretty thin towards the end--bee-stung emoting in the verses, splashy catharsis in the chorus--but Glorious is no failure.

Too often, Thumpers fall flat.

Tiersen never loses touch with his innate sense of melody, but the lack of edge means that Infinity's charms are, in fact, finite.

Easy Pain proves hard to like; and with little more than aimless aggression to cling onto for eight songs, you realise it’s all muscle.

It all sounds immaculate, but lacks the memorable lyrics and direct hooks of Papercuts’ pop forbears.

There’s a lot to like about Turn Blue, but it’s a cruel irony that the heaviest hand in Dan Auerbach’s warts-and-all confessional sometimes seems to belong to his producer.

It’s melodic, competent stuff, but if you’re going to try and push the crazy buttons you’ve got to go full straitjacket, and Liam Finn is just a tad too straight.

Asiatisch, however, is even more pretentious [than two previous EPs], pairing instrumental UK grime with Asian flourishes to explore the relationship between the west and China.

Their attempts to assimilate their record collections often fall between two stools--unlikely to do the business on a dancefloor or spirit you away at home through the power of its sequencing.

Not a misstep for Eno, but not quite the best of both worlds, either.

I Never Learn is an album about love, but not a record to love.

Rivas’ voice isn’t enormously distinctive, either, meaning Sky Swimming rarely eclipses the dreaded adjective ''pleasant''.

It’s all jam and no croissant, sadly.

It works, up to a point, but means the whole smooth and romantic-sounding affair, though not quite boring, lacks that special spark.