The relentless energy expended throughout the album will no doubt also make the album appeal to fans of Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Pendulum or the Prodigy. But listeners with a broader appreciation of dance and electronic music would be well advised to source their dubstep fix from elsewhere.

The Bird and the Bee end up sounding like the soundtrack to some glossy drama about a bunch of over privileged kids living in Notting Hill.

Chance of Rain is a good techno album, but never strives for much more than that. It’s a bigger adventure, for sure, but it never feels more adventurous.

Consider Grace/Wastelands more of a step in the right direction, a sign that maybe all is not lost and he can turn things around yet.

After a promising EP that hinted at many directions (not to mention that it was a succinct five tracks) Blue only amplifies their indecisiveness instead of pointing out their strengths as songwriters.

Dear John is a definite step in the right direction.

Kindred’s arrangements are a heap of disjointed sound fragments glued into a form that exists solely to support the glossy veneer.

While it would be remiss to question an artist’s chosen working methods, perhaps if Elizabeth hadn’t been quite so fiercely independent in its recording, and had had to compete with the usual unwanted distractions of the outside world, then Dancing might not have been just an impressively accomplished album, but a more striking, perhaps even outright essential one.

They do rest a bit comfortably on what they do right, circumventing the idea of exploring new territory. This is, of course, a curse and a blessing. In presence or not, Azure Ray's stark simplicity will always remain intact.

There's not a lot fundamentally wrong with The People's Key; it's just that we know Bright Eyes can do better.

A lot of the time, this album doesn't do enough to sound much more than merely pleasant.

When We Stay Alive at times unintentionally underscores that struggle through its weakest moments, but it also embraces the perseverance required to come out on the other side with a renewed sense of self. Poliça sound eager to take that next major step and embrace a fresh start, even if they don't seem to know exactly where to go from here.

While these tracks may not have made the cut, some strong melodies and ideas make this release worth the listen.

There are so many ideas in Heartworms that give substance to Mercer’s unremitting passion to create, and though he manages to enliven and push the project forward it more so blurs Mercer’s artistic and commercial ambitions.

It’s an unfettered display of eighties-evoking posing that suits them perfectly well, but it also sounds like a step back after they’d already figured out how to match their compositional smarts with a clear message.

Sure, a couple tracks hit it just right, but by and large, once the album's over, it's not liable to pop back into my thinking.

On the new one, the drums still thunder and the space rock vibe is intact, but something is missing--and I’m not sure that something is Ben Curtis.

Ultimately, like many live albums before them and certainly after them, it's just okay. It succeeds in capturing a performance that is an apt representation of the band and is largely an aural pleasure, yet you never really shake the fruitless nature of the album.

Please Be Mine is a charming record that remains engaging and consistently pleasant, but you have to feel that there’s another gear in Molly Burch’s engine-room that could get the most out of her prodigious talent.

The Loves of Your Life was designed with each song intentionally being about a specific person, which makes even the worst songs interesting tales.

Violet Cries is the kind of album that will find a niche audience who will it defend fiercely. Broader appeal is unlikely for songs that seem so blurred around the edges and on the point of evaporating.

Saviors doesn't stray too far from what they've done in the past 10-15 years, but it's far more impassioned despite their pairing things down, proof that maintaining an agreeable middle ground with just enough anger suits them best.

The themes explored throughout the record’s massive 130-minute runtime are remarkably current--for example the Orlando shootings and the Paris attacks--and it’s these moments where the album commands absolute attention. Not even Kozelek can command it entirely for 130 minutes, though.

It's when Bridges merges a pop-oriented approach over a modern R&B groove where his creative diffidence shows.

Lupercalia, despite its flaws, does provide a satisfying sense of closure. Now, hopefully, Patrick Wolf will be able to graduate onto subjects other than himself (and an attempt to do a full-on disco record would not go amiss either).

Carrying features stellar glockenspiel work and a beautiful chorus, but uncharacteristically poor drumming and a gaudy ragtime piano solo. Perhaps the most damning indictment is that the worst songs are all similar enough to blend into each other.

Saturday Night is a record that is almost misanthropic in its progression, and an intriguing insight into Tim Darcy the artist.

It has ten passable tracks and one certified super-smash that will either get listeners gleefully singing-along or reaching for the skip button. You decide.