If you don't mind the odd reflective moment, the odd luscious production value, then this has plenty to offer. [25 Mar 2006, p.37]

The pair [Ghostface Killah and D-Block's Sheek Louch] strike up a good chemistry... The rest of the record, sadly, struggles to get out of first gear.

An expansive ode to human ingenuity and the boundless ability of music to foster connection.

This record’s slower pace won’t be for everybody, just as unassuming previous album ‘This Old Dog’ wasn’t, but, should you let it, this record will transport you somewhere calm and reflective.

DB's spry, Breeders-style way of recasting '60s and '70s rawk is enough to rescue it--and us--from tedium. [23 Jul 2005, p.50]

Fantastic Playroom packs enough innovation in its boosters to reach new rave escape velocity.

What it shows is that if you're going to do the hits, the thing to do is pin them down, fuck them up and HURT THEM. [average of scores of 90 for Disc 1 and 70 for Disc 2; 16 Oct 2004, p.48]

Its portraits of downtown legends like Lou Reed and Alan Vega are far more affectionate than much of his scabrous output, with music that flits between dreamy Velvets simplicity and the synthetic throb of Suicide.

Their classics remain buried in web mixes, but this set captures PC Music’s sublime pop philosophy.

Zayn has clearly achieved his aim of making an album of sexy, credible pop-R&B.

Guilty of knocking underdeveloped material out one minute and trying to be too clever the next, It's What I'm Thinking... is surely the most focused and mature record of his career.

Unfortunately though, Fields never quite reach such dizzy heights on the rest of the album, preferring instead to apply their considerable talents to creating numerous prog-outs that lack the heroic factor of their first single.

This effort is a bold step that shows no compromise on the horizon.

The main criticism of this record is that a few tracks are merely good, as opposed to epochal.

Much like the sardonic vocals heard in the latest post-punk revival, Ice Spice says plenty in her delivery, relying on the tonality of her voice – levelled, calm – to do much of the heavy lifting. It makes ‘Like…?’, her debut project, such a sharp listen. Her voice remains monotone but that only makes the lines hit harder.

If this is an indication of what to expect [on the next LP], things are going to get very hairy. [8 Oct 2005, p.43]

Let it be said that Lex Hives is amazing.

A mix of Trent Reznor and Patrick Wolf, he’s both an industrial piledriver and theatrical show-off, making this debut record disorientating, confusing and exciting.

The production is too breezy in places and at 19 songs, it is at least half a dozen too long. Not the classic Adams fans demand, but he’s moving his ducks into a row.

John & Jehn probably imagine themselves as Serge Gainsbourg’s Bonnie And Clyde, when in reality they’re more like the indie-goth Richard & Judy.

aside from the throaty rasp of singer Kyle Falconer on lead-off single ‘5Rebbeccas’, the mushy ‘Temptation Dice’ and Paolo Nutini-featuring ‘Covers’ – there’s little here that’ll appeal to the hundreds of thousands of people who bought "Hats Off To The Buskers." Yet it’s a good record regardless.

The result is an album as art smart as Franz, as disco droll as Hot Chip, as pose pop as The Naked And Famous and as catchy and cool as the Two Door lot on the other lot's Indian cycling holiday.

Things are less enjoyable when musical boundaries are pushed--and at 25 songs long, albeit with nine of them shorter than a minute, it’s a joke that wears thin.

There's undoubtedly something there with Frankie--those effortless, skippy choruses aren't as easy to do as they seem. But he and his Heartstrings haven't quite found their true north yet.

While a couple of songs--most notably ‘Satisfaction’, a three-note guitar riff spun out for eight-and-a-half minutes--suffer from an acute case of stadium bloat, it’s all done in such a jubilant fashion that it hardly matters.

An exuberant record that is well worth your time.

They pick a traditional genre and do everything in their wicked power to leave it a broken, quivering wreck by the time they’re finished with it.

At times, in the past, he has relied on his autotune to compensate for lacklustre lyricism, but Future is a megamind whose pioneering spirit is the very reason trap feels alive today. With ‘I NEVER LIKED YOU’, you’ll happily applaud him for that.

The odd well-intentioned platitude hardly spoils an album of killer choruses on which Ryder’s infectious likeability shines through at all times. Next time he might want to chuck in a few more curveballs, but for now, ‘There’s Nothing But Space, Man!’ sounds like the beginning of what could be a really stellar career.

It’s the kind of album that sounds best listened to solo.

Dry, controlled music. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

By turns anthemic, experimental and boldly poptastic, Forever Neverland hits multiple grooves, proving she’s a fascinating, multifaceted musician in her own right. As an artist, she’s much more than someone to lean on.

From the brief flamenco break in the pummelling ‘Night Night Burn’ and the doomy guttural rumblings of ‘In The Name Of’ to the horns-up thrash anthemics of ‘Distortion’, ‘Metal Galaxy’ is a wild ride that, through its sheer energy, is somehow infectiously accessible.

Lo-fi electronica ('Getaway Ride') and ambient pop ('Dominic') create the spine of a charmingly off-kilter record, while 'I Love Our World' is essentially a field recording.

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.

Woman is a joyous album of hope and optimism.

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

Oczy Mlody is the sonic equivalent of a deserted space-ship adrift in the cosmos, with Coyne as the lonely repair-bot dusting the diodes. A psych rock Passengers, then, rather than Barbarella.

The Messenger isn’t just a summary of everything worthwhile in contemporary rock music, it’s an insightful and informed dissection of life in 2013 and all the futile iOS updates, cyberstalking conglomerates and financial travesties that clog up the spaces between us. In a world claiming to connect us all, it argues, we’re getting more and more dislocated.

Second album ‘Cry’ sees the band not stray too far from proven formula of slow and sexy sadness, but this time with a little more love thrown in and all held together by a more filmic approach.

It’s unspectacularly solid stuff.

After years of chopping and changing, Bombay Bicycle Club have finally found an iteration worth sticking with.

About half of 'Rock Steady' is just great, a career salvage job to compare with Madonna 's 'Ray Of Light'.

This is a left-field masterpiece and Brown's best work for a decade.

Adams has stripped most of '29''s tracks down to spare, brittle bones.

Coheed have picked up more prog nuances so it fits that this, the last in the sequence, is their most ambitious yet, best embodied in the eight-minute 'The End Complete.'

Crazy as a second Gorillaz B-sides album might sound, this rummage through the "Demon Days" cutting room floor is totally justified.

Largely, though, Nash sounds just like herself, and that's exactly when she shines most brightly.

Austra’s music has always felt like it comes from the same place, too--a dark dancefloor mania of hot-blooded movement and dark sentiment – and new EP Habitat is no different.

Kill This Love ... showcases a band who are certainly talented but perhaps not quite ready for the next upward arc in the ride they’re currently on.

Rather than sounding like a vintage group struggling to find their identity, though, Swedish House Mafia’s debut album sees the trio flexing their musical and emotional muscles across 17 brilliant, fearless and often surprising tracks. The kings of dance music are very much back.

His most confident, cohesive album.

Despite its underwhelming second half, ‘Barbie’ is packed with a surprising diversity of sounds paying homage to the Mattel muse. The soundtrack has some wonderful highs and some miserable lows – but then again, it’s not all rosy in Barbie Land…

This is an album that grows in quiet stature with every listen, new nuggets of wisdom making their way to the surface, peeking through its beautiful instrumentation that weaves a stunning, leafy tapestry. Few artists strike gold on every record they create but, for the third time in a row, Lorde has done it again, crafting yet another world-beater.

The big question: is it any good? Well, in places.

Rat Boy’s international profile might be growing, but he’s not ready to conquer the world just yet.

Expansive, immersive indiepop; how these Pains have grown.

It still defiantly goes against the grain, but also explodes with immediate, attention-grabbing riffs.

The initial feeling that this album is destined to be one of their many jokey, disposable ventures dissipates slightly as Osborne’s near-peerless ability with a brain-alteringly great riff takes hold.

They seem driven by the joy of making music great again. It won’t change the world, but record is a wonderful world all of their own.

It’s crisper and glistens with ambient atmosphere and mellow beats.

With the liberty of turning attention to new creative pathways, Williams has crafted one of their finest albums to date, this record an unshackled upping of the game.

Black Francis has brewed up a pretty thirst-quenching prospect with Petits Fours’ the debut album from this new venture with his wife.

Without the gritty substance of the first album, it has all the depth of a packet of peanuts.

It's good in flashes but frighteningly unstable.

Welcome To The Walk Alone may have the skeletal blueprint of pop genius running through it like words in a stick of rock but it verges on insulting.

Synth-heavy disco and boogie, sleek Italo and plenty of New Order course equally through their veins; the duo spin a heavily thumbed vinyl library into something largely fresh, and even coax '70s smoove-rocker Michael McDonald into guesting at the end.

The jangle and thrash of Terry Bickers’ guitar and the wistful air of it all could come straight from their self-titled 1988 debut.

It seems Paradinas' real talents lie behind the scenes.

For the most part, Model Of You pushes Cloud Boat out into broader, more turbulent waters.

Yusuf now far more believably inhabiting the role of the kindly dad offering his offspring life advice, while ‘On The Road To Find Out’ showcases the most impressive transformation, weaving in North African desert sounds against steadfast lyrics of self-discovery. It suggests that Yusuf has now finally found just what he was looking for all those years ago.

An obsession with sex that's rarely heard outside Lil Wayne albums is combined with the woozy sizzurp lilt of A$AP Rocky and his own stunningly sinister devil's whisper delivery to create something remarkably dark and original.

At times its Cure guitars, thudding drums and eerie vocals get lost amid the fog (‘In The Mirror’, ‘South’). But when it finds a solid rock stomp, as on ‘Crest’ or ‘Raptor’, 2:54 loom like a monster in the mist.

Ultimately, from start to finish, you know what you've ordered: proficient, precision-executed blues-rock with few genuine surprises.

It’s the ‘meh’ shruggable moments of filler around them that dog the consistency of ‘Wallop’. There’s not the high-octane fuel or direction to take the record to the heights that it so constantly teases.

One Thousand Pictures is pop in a tar-pit--black and sticky, but wonderfully pure at heart.

Howling Bells aren't back to their best, but they're within touching distance.

Production comes from Steve Albini but here, unlike his work with (well, wouldn't you know) PJ Harvey and Slint, his less-is-more approach is the only point of weakness on an otherwise impressively dramatic record.

Turns out bringing his [Glyn Johns] old-school rock'n'roll expertise into the southern-fried fold makes for a perfect match.

They do propulsive pop-rock better than anyone. [11 Nov 2006, p.43]

This is a record that wraps itself around you like a kohl-eyed Winona Ryder in an early-'90s slacker movie and doesn't let go for a solid, dream-like 40 minutes.

The Sounds pick up where White Rose Movement faded out, with their melange of sussed Scandi cool, new wave pop pout, and Killers-style synth mayhem.

They mean well, but there’s something conservative about them.

Strange Creatures is an audacious and gratifying return that makes you want to envelope yourself in its gloom.

Musically, the album hits in all the right spots, solidifying their expertise at penning sunny, earnest Radio 2-core. And when they deviate from the easier path, most notably on the slow, deeply sombre ‘Strange Room’, which sees Chaplin’s voice take on a genuinely affecting, downtrodden lower tone, ‘Cause and Effect’ begins to exist as more than a comeback album for the sake of a comeback album.

Backed up by producer 30 Roc, Big Papito and Boi-1da, this 15 -rack album is sometimes ‘big’ and sometimes ‘clever’, but occasionally goes awry.

It all adds up to a thoroughly enjoyable listen that confirms what fans already know: even a middle-of-the-road Dolly Parton album has lashings of charm.

Carnation restores some of the eerie, discombobulated feel of his debut.

Yung Lean’s music has always been more interesting than it is good. ‘Starz’ features just enough captivating moments to prevent him – now an unexpected seven years into his career – from feeling played-out.

Taken as a whole, it's some of Nick Thorburn, Ryan Kattner and Joe Plummer's finest work to date.

Zooming sheets of spacious wind-tunnel prog and raw, solo-spattered soul. Commercially, it's suicide. [26 Jun 2004, p.55]

Even at his most self-referential, Bowie is still a zillion times more inventive, brave and rocket-to-Mars brilliant than anyone who's been prodded by the ubiquitous genius stick, like, ever.

Four years on, his fifth album just feels stodgily generic.

A cut above.

Taking inspiration from the best seems to have paid dividends, but it doesn’t half make you wonder what the real Harry Styles sounds like.

One hopes that with the confidence this record brings, she'll take a more permanent seat at hip-hop's high table. Because when she's at her best, she's the bestest there is.

Their truck-stop talk of tumours, drunk moms and Isaiah 11:6 focus the album on Deep South degradation, but the lush Lemonheads-pop of ‘Drive’, the stoned drive-in glam of ‘That Man’ and the girl-band psych-blues of ‘Baby Mae’ lend this record the tint of a narcotic and poetic take on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’ with Jack White on fuzz and Phil Spector on shotgun.

Clever and memorable--an electrifying frisson of underground meets overground, punk purism meets pop perfection, artistic integrity meets not minding too much if more than five people like you. [11 Jun 2005, p.65]