‘Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon’ showcases a multi-faceted artist only just discovering his potential. What makes the album truly stand out is that it serves as a testament to the strength, power and knowledge Smoke held in his ambition to go to the very top.

The album was written immediately after Brendon’s recent stint in the Broadway musical ‘Kinky Boots’, and while it’s fair to say he’s always had a flair for theatrics, the experience has injected these tracks with unprecedented levels of sass and drama. Urie is clearly still relishing the role of the sonic bachelor, and it shows. On Pray, it sounds like he’s having a total blast.

Musically, ‘When We Stay Alive’ mirrors the feeling of physical rehabilitation, the sense of claustrophobia unavoidable on the knotty ‘Fold Up’. The second half of the album, though, strips away the fog and the anger, finding blissful moments of clarity and closure that feel like real eureka moments.

It is an elegant and, quite frankly, utterly beautiful record.

It is by all means a stimulating body of work with ample substance, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Less focused on his innate individuality, it’s a John Mayer passion project that toasts to the good old days, when musicians were more inclined to follow instincts and feelings than clicks and likes.

Sustained power and little in the way of variety can make for quick fatigue, but at just 38 minutes long Cope has hooks and energy to spare.

If you like loud choruses, ceaseless energy and the bug-eyed extremities of crunk, look no further. [15 Jan 2005, p.43]

'Kiss...' operates on a level of perversity, honesty and originality that blows most bands out of the water.

It’s Hall & Oates without the casual genius; Boy Crisis without the chutzpah; Junior Boys without the emotional baggage.

The album lacks that bouncy, bratty energy of old, while never really nailing a more grown-up emotional register. Even so, glad that they're still there.

While their love of premeditated spontaneity might be admirable in jazzier quarters, in reality it means that almost every song on their debut is marred by sudden changes in time signature, key and genre.

With pace set to 'perky', the occasionally impressive hooks of (oh yes) 'Summer Fling, Don't Mean A Thing' and (oh no) 'Dumped' merge into a glossy mud from which nothing to rival All The Small Things emerges.

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.

Not ‘dance’ music by any stretch of the imagination, but beautiful all the same.

Bitter Rivals is their toughest and most focused work yet. It’s also their poppiest, which is very much a good thing.

Band moniker-related developments of recent years (see also: Ducktails, Peak Twins) mean this now implies gormless nostalgia, smarmy irony and, in a nutshell, chillwave. Happily, Lowtalker--five songs, 14 minutes--is a bit smarter, and better, than that.

Owens remains a naturally intuitive pop songwriter, and ultimately Chrissybaby Forever is a fresh slice of Californian good vibrations that arrives just in time for summer.

The emotions might not be quite as strong on this record but Sea Of Bees still manages to wrap you up in her words.

Beneath The Eyrie is still arguably their most consistent body of work since their 2004 reformation and certainly their most inventive in 28 years. What a spooky surprise – that this incarnation of Pixies would turn out to be such a dark, dark horse.

Sure, there is some inevitable fan service – the title, after all, is an anagram of ‘Clancy is dead’ – but this album sees one of the most fearless bands of their generation continue to take risks.

Pretty. Odd. is a victory for artistic ambition over cynical careerism, and we should all rejoice in their decision to follow their instincts as opposed to their instructions and actually do something different.

Dismiss his second album, Songs, only at your peril.

Ultimately Anything In Return suggests a tendency to follow the musical trends du jour rather than defining a true Toro Y Moi sound.

McRae is evidently still wrestling with her ambitions. ‘Think Later’, however, contains enough intrigue to suggest that this is the work of an artist finally honing their identity, dancing and sparkling all the way.

Hippies is an uncomplicated, brilliant LP about what it's like to be young, stoned and having A REALLY GOOD TIME while not coming across like you're a complete tool.

Cranes is strong on ‘Honeymoon’ and ‘Easy’, but there’s also nigh-on-sprightly, post-Jessie Ware trip-pop on ‘I Only’ and ‘Feather Tongue’. It's just not enough, though, to struggle above years of similarly tasteful, slight efforts.

Soft and slipper-shod as it may seem, there's a complex coldness to Sandoval's lyrical persona.

A buoyant record that should widen his audience, up to now largely confined to his Bandcamp page--a trove of gently weird psychedelia.

Fractured techno, torch song balladry, oilsmoke rock'n'roll and soulful synth pop merge sublimely, all rooted in tales of romantic dislocation and repair.

There’s a reason that the London-via-Kendall four-piece, centred around siblings Fiona and Will Burgess, have been attracting such attention. In fact, there are 11 of them on this debut full-length. Much of it’s down to Fiona Burgess’ sad yet sultry vocals and the way they stretch across these dreamy, largely synth-based songs.

‘Pink Friday 2’ feels like a consolidation and refinement of everything Minaj can do – including dropping pop culture references that no other artist would think of.

A hundred miles off, and they might as well be a thousand. [16 Sep 2006, p.37]

Get Awkward is relentless, riotous and raw.

Yet although much of it coasts along on autopilot, it can be outrageously good fun.

Disappointingly, given his previous sterling output, this is a pretty boneless pastiche of the genre.

A 60-minute torrent of positivity, an open-ended love letter to his wife -

Perhaps Oberst finds it tough to bring his brilliant bile to bear upon a synth the way he attacks an acoustic; a shame, as The People's Key is otherwise synthetic perfection.

They may never recapture their ‘Dirt’-era majesty, but AiC’s second act is turning out very nicely indeed.

It'll do for a fleeting one-night stand, but Mechanical Bull isn't the rekindling of a romance that we'd hoped for.

The expansive arrangements feel like unnecessary decoration. But on the billowing ‘You Got Me Time Keeping’ and sweet single 'Sometimes' Black's experiment works, injecting new flamboyance into his introverted songcraft.

Despite its glimpses of greatness, though, this album revisits too many of the rapper’s trademark themes to truly make good on his jubilant pre-release promises.

Sadly, the Norwegians promptly undo much of their good work by interspersing the bombastic rocking with acoustic cobblers like ‘Lovescared’ and the sort of excessive, pompous emoting that even Pearl Jam tend to avoid these days.

So the album doesn’t sound old but there’s a refreshing warmth emanating from these fizzing and burbling Moogs and Parker Steinway keyboards.

The debut album from the Leeds sonic evangelists features tracks about an assassinated prime minister, the Salem witch trials and an East German border guard who committed suicide through guilt after escaping to the West....These subjects are then twinned with a sound rich in solemn and ultimately cacophonous guitar.

Ben Howard’s fourth record sees the artist move beyond his usual methods and proves, if anything, that he has too many good ideas to stay focused. Of all the problems to have, it’s a pretty good one.

E Volo Love may seem oddly relaxed at first, but acclimatising is a breeze.

Finn certainly takes a paddle – if not quite a dive – into fresh sonic waters.

The tender optimism of tracks like "The Morning" and the gorgeous, harpsichord-led symphony "Oh So Lovely" are wonderfully uplifting, but there's still room for some snarky self-deprecation on "Baby Loves Me" too.

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.

Audio, Video, Disco's success is in its album-wide consistency, and a contemplative depth of sound that outshines the expectations of their disco-biscuit crowd.

There's occasional crimes of flannel-wet schmaltz but mostly Smart is like an esoteric, London-based Dam-Funk with a fondness for chemically enhanced raving.

What used to feel like surfing amid the cumulonimbus suddenly feels like snorkling in soup.

Price has pulled off a smarter trick: after doing ’80s Britain and ’70s America, The Killers now finally sound like… themselves.

OK, at Disneyland. Yes, on drugs.

A remarkably intelligent and engrossing record for then, now, and the future.

The end result is a record rooted in the bass flicks, shimmering synths and lovelorn lyrics that defined their debut.

Music For Men is a sugar-coated dance record that echoes with universality.

It’s a pairing that, on paper, makes sense, given that Depper’s talents with a synthesiser leave Thank You for Today feeling like a more polished version of 2011’s ‘Codes & Keys’. Yet the wide-eyed freshness of that new songwriting pairing leaves things feeling a little too shiny.

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

Jaded & Faded strikes a fine balance between self-deprecation and the supreme confidence needed to get away with suggesting you've had your chips. But there's no second album syndrome here. It whoops ass.

[It] doesn't really sound like Prince at all. [25 Mar 2006, p.35]

This is not the carefree record Splashh were expected to make, but it is all the better for its dourness.

The album’s slower tempo won’t be for everyone: if you’re all thrills, no substance, then maybe this album is not for you. But you have to respect ScHoolboy Q’s dedication to showing us a different outlook on life, and exploring many emotions. Introspective--yes, but these are songs for the summer.

Still, it remains a challenge to crack their ice-cool exterior, to really feel things as they feel - but does that matter? The Strokes are, and have always been, a band that looks great at arm's length - and consequently, 'First Impressions Of Earth' remains, in the best way, untouchable: the first - indeed, maybe the last - word in New York City cool.

Fans of the Mancunian mood sculptor will see this lavishly packaged collection as the latest step in securing Bazza's reputation as the North West's sardonic answer to Barry White.

A little more emotional chaos, a dash of the dark stuff, might make such avuncular campfire grooves more worthy of our time and money.

A seething, furious album; a declamatory statement against cynicism and passivity and the simple injustices of everyday life.

Gone are the ill-advised brass and bare-faced chart aspirations of 1996's awful 'Wild Mood Swings', as are the flippant pop songs that commercialised The Cure in the mid-1980s. What we are left with is the dark, dense core of Smith's psyche, and a reminder that The Cure are at their fearsome best when creating soundscapes awash with uncertainty and dread.

'Nation' is not bad - it's taut and tense and if you buy it quick you'll get to hear their logic-defying cover of Bauhaus' 'Bela Lugosi's Dead'. But it's hard to reconcile 'Nation''s obsession with the scourge of globalisation with Sepultura's conversion from third world pioneers to just another angry hardcore band.

‘Unnatural’ is full of sexy, snarling swagger and ‘Walls’ zips by on a wave of thundering riffs. Elsewhere there are hints of industrial (‘Money Machine’) and even reggae (‘Slow Down’), all proving that Nick Valensi has plenty of ideas and invention to offer outside of The Strokes.

In general it pays to avoid electronic producers with dreadlocks, but let Sumach 'Gonjasufi' Ecks be your exception.

The LP toes a line between eclecticism and kitchen sink, but the one thing he hasn't chucked in here is a little focus.

They've gone all mature, come to terms with their past and kicked on to the future too.

Migos are firing on all cylinders here, their new record a lush, chaotic patchwork that pops with primary colours. The fab three have done it again.

Ultimately, though, its success still falls on Lightburn's shoulders, a vocalist who's always straddled the line between impassioned and overwrought.

This could have been a vanity effort to prove their worth, but instead they prove that not only does crisis work--so does collaboration.

LM5 is the culmination of the band’s growth over the past seven year. Yes it may sometimes musically miss the mark; but with its strong and relevant message it’s something of a milestone for the band.

Blake Mills’ production is exquisite throughout what is Mumford’s most crafted studio recording to date; this album is a career-best for the musician. While it is undoubtedly an emotional and often heart-breaking listen, it’s also a record full of defiance, hope and faith.

Snoop takes a surprising back seat, singing low in the mix and seldom rapping--an odd decision, but it works and when Bush is good, it’s an absolute joy.

It'll never be your favourite album, but you'll wish your adolescence sounded as carefree as this.

Cherry Bomb might be the tightest, leanest Tyler album yet.

It’s not an essential listen but it does exhibit plenty of moody gravitas.

At points it gets too much, but Heavy Trash's steel-toed pillaging of the past still makes them a punk-rock Time Team.

Adding interesting new textures to his playbook, it’s perhaps helpful to think of ‘The Waves Pt.1’ as a soundtrack to something bigger, the wading out to sea before the full immersive plunge. By the time ‘Part 2’ arrives, Kele will likely have found even more ways to expand his horizons.

No great leaps forward from ‘Everything All The Time’ and ‘Cease To Begin’, just lovely, warm-hearted, full-throated harmonies and gentle melancholy.

Too often, however, Flory is prone to overcomplicating matters, and tracks like ‘In Time’ and ‘Get Down’ wind up too governed by the soulless stamp of the laptop.

When she steers away from pastiche and fully delves into cataloguing the mundanity, pomposity and sheer ridiculousness of grotty Little England, she’s at her best as a songwriter.

Views should be a slog. But remarkably, his signature brand of downbeat introspection remains gripping.

Nearly everything Robbie Williams writes is some kind of confessional and here it doesn't quite come off. There just isn't the sufficient depth of him in it to make it work.

Woolhouse mostly lives up to the dark nature of his moniker, but for brief moments he glimpses light at the end of the tunnel.

A collection of tangible emotional snapshots, brief but telling entries in a musical journal.

What diminishes War Room Stories is the songs themselves, which can feel a little ordinary. Rappak’s vocal is a bit sub-Yannis Philippakis, a monotone half-mumble that doesn’t make the most of his intriguing lyrics.

Album two features some catchy and classy electronic dance music.... Unfortunately though, ‘Broken Record’ sounds like a Eurovision-endorsed soundtrack to Cassack dancing and ‘Satellites’ is a limp version of Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light.’

Uncomplicated, Spinto Band-ish jangles like 'Second Look', 'Tallboy' and 'Everything I Know' plough casually and happily along without a care in the world, very much like the band themselves.

It’s not original, but you’ll love it for the summer at least.

On their third release Asobi Seksu have toned down the fuzz’n’raunch of old and come over all Cocteau Twins-y and mature--not necessarily a bad thing, just quite a bit less visceral.

Every album is a chapter in Frank’s on-going aural autobiography, and Positive Songs is his Getting Over It dispatch.

Ultimately it feels short on substance, with the sort of atmosphere that can drain through your fingers.