The problem is, when you project a futuristic, magical and otherworldly image, you’d better have the sounds to match. And unfortunately, Ice On The Dune is a four-to-the-floor electro-pop album that has literally nothing to do with the cheesy fable invented to go with it.

Brandy is on fine form throughout, purring pillow talk and murmuring sweet nothings to anyone insane enough to listen. Now she loves him, now she doesn't. Really, it's too much.

Like Eminem, Williams is desperate to give his own spin on tabloid coverage and determined to prove himself as human as the rest of us, but incapable of letting us forget he's a star. Except Eminem is the voice of a generation while Robbie Williams is just the voice of Robbie Williams, and while Eminem has Dre, Robbie has a ramshackle posse of musicians roped in to create this album's (wait for it) 'spontaneous' live sound.

The nuance and specificity of his last album’s songwriting is largely absent; instead ‘Autumn Variations’ is akin to aimlessly swiping through Instagram, blurry snaps of followers’ leafy happenings whizzing past in a distracted daze.

Young ends up smothered by unconvincing soundscapes on all but two acoustic tunes that stand out by virtue of actually not sounding like a hurricane.

Elephants on Acid is a frustrating listen, flitting between the unbeatable glory of Cypress Hill’s 90s and the eventual journey into middling experimental rap that followed.

Moby has created an album full of saccharine strings, endless loops and narcoleptic synths. The mind boggles.

He's terribly earnest. [4 Nov 2006, p.35]

Unfortunately, Lupine Howl's debut long-player errs on the side of the canine, wolvish thrills hidden behind some positively vegetarian noodling.

A curious hybrid, channelling both Bruce Springsteen's 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' and Hendrix's 'Electric Ladyland' into proper classic rock ('Cherokee Werewolf') moments, but elsewhere sounding a bit elevator music.

The truth is that metal fans used to have a word for music like this, and that word is wimpy. [1 Oct 2005, p.45]

Save for the brief reprieves of the barbed, anti-everything 'Words I Never Said' and the historical rewrite of 'All Black Everything', Lasers walks a fine line between conscious hip-hop and sleepwalking.

But trying to be something you are obviously not does have its downfalls, the main one being - true colours are never easy to hide. Early on, songs such as 'Take Care Of Me', and 'I'm Keepin' You', have a guarded and helpless feel to them. She sounds even less confident and seems to provide a glimpse of inner pain.

For All The Dogs- his third solo LP in as many years – not only feels tiring, but sounds tired too.

Wilson's voice is a sorry wisp of what it once was. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

Here they're going through the motions, missionary style, with mechanical jangly pop and the wince-inducing triteness of Cosentino's lyrics.

Underclass Hero they've gone straight for the commercial mother lode, pitching their sound almost equidistantly between 'The Black Parade' and 'American Idiot' (insert your own 'parade of idiots' gag here).... If you already own those albums, why waste your time with this?

Kasher wrote this as the soundtrack to his screenplay, but on this evidence it could debut on The Hallmark Channel.

Red is more a poor parody of the genre than a booty shaker.

There's no deely-bopping 'Wow And Flutter' on here. [4 Mar 2006, p.29]