On the whole, Sorceress is a decent album, but Opeth are capable of more.

Musically, TROUBLE grows more assured as it goes on.

It’s never quite clear whether the album is an arch exercise throughout which Berry keeps an unimaginably straight face, or if any comic leanings are the fault of the listener, projecting “funny” on to what is a wholly accomplished work.

With its cinematic strings and glacial synth arrangements, Rise is certainly rife with theatricality--but rather than play-acting at the role of singer, Gainsbourg’s patchwork embeds the answers to those questions, and many more, deep within.

The first [half] sees Adams’ spectral vocals go up against a furious string section, while the second is reminiscent of Joanna Newsom’s work with Van Dyke Parks. It’s all interesting stuff--albeit with a predilection for the twee--but may be a little much for some listeners to take in one go.

There’s a fine college-rock jangle to The Beat’s Save It For Later and some fab California-kissed harmonies on XTC’s Towers Of London.

To put it bluntly, it’s the sound of REM album tracks circa 2001-2008, only with a less interesting frontman and a lyrical conceit that can often exclude the listener.

There’s a void at the album’s centre; edges so rounded they’re virtually flat.

As a Bad Religion record, it’s certainly not gold and you won’t be demanding myrrh.

You Against You, which benefits from that unpredictable, bolted-together feel that all the craziest Slayer songs possess; and Implode, the first advance single released last year, and now re-recorded. The rest, unfortunately, lack spark.

What began as a series of bold experimentations dressed in a warm fuzzy melding of genres feels half-baked second time around.

When in sharp focus, the sound is utterly charming, with Le Bon’s almost trademark Welsh tones a fine match for the amp buzz and Presley’s meandering guitar lines. Too often, though, it spills into whimsy, lacks direction and frequently infuriates.

Musically there’s nothing new here, though Anthems For Doomed Youth feels particularly sanitised, especially compared to the freewheeling, ragged approach that gave The Libertines’ first two albums such charm.

Yours, Dreamily is tight without purpose, bordered where it should be wild, and only occasionally feels alive at all.

Storytone’s deluxe edition carries an extra disc of solo takes: mostly Young and ukulele. It’s more palatable, but perhaps doesn’t reveal any more depth to the material.

It’s experimental in a kitchen sink (including Chris Isaak) way rather than studied and arty à la Everything Everything. Too often, the results are a bit of a mess.

Electric Trim is a missed opportunity. The emphasis on meandering acoustic balladry is a real shame.

Most of Billy 2.0’s low-key lullabies are pleasant enough. Indeed, you could place any one of them in the middle of a big rock record as an eyebrow-raising, spine-tingling palate cleanser. Enduring them all in one sitting is, unfortunately, less fun than consuming 11 consecutive courses of the same pumpkin-flavoured sorbet.

With its garage production job, loud tinny drum tracks and an overriding sparseness hanging between each instrument, Drift resembles a very promising demo tape for an album yet to come to proper fruition.

Particularly bad is For The Kids, which could come straight from an amateur production of High School Musical (complete with repellent husky spoken-word middle eight), while the just up-to-scratch Beck track, Time Wind, and his presence on the record as a whole, only really serves to illustrate how poor the songs now are.

Hold On It’s Easy is in fact one of Cornershop’s most difficult works, for all the wrong reasons.

Paranormal lacks both the nostalgia factor of its predecessor and a concept such as the one behind 2008’s Along Came A Spider. It also can’t claim to be a return to heaviness such as Dragontown from 2001. So what does it offer? Not much, other than a moderately listenable set of songs.

It is not that The Optimist is awful, exactly--just uninspiring.

The problem isn’t simply that he starts the album fixating on his reflection in Mirror and rarely budges. It’s that without a foil to contribute drama or dynamism to his doldrums, Pierce’s echo chamber of mithering is all-consuming.

There’s a sweet familial feel to the opening Wonderful Woman, Berry leading the line of guitars that also features contributions from his son and grandson, but its generic chug disguises a typically leering lyric that, frankly, sounds sinister coming out of the mouth of a man pushing 90.

The most vibrant cuts here, Long Time Coming and Brand New Name On An Old Tattoo, rise above generic nostalgia, but very little else is worth a second listen.

High on ambition, musicianship and charm the end result is a set of well-meaning if often uninspiring afro-rock.

Good Sad Happy Bad feels like a curio: a work-in-progress raw recording that hints at better things to come rather than the real deal.

There are likeable enough moments: Cuomo has such an instinctive way with melody that he won’t ever release an album without some saving graces. But, for the most part, this is no improvement on Weezer’s medicore output of the past decade.

Willie’s battered old voice too often sounds strained and strangled on the higher notes. What should soar barely scrabbles to the right pitch.

At its best this album is innocuous. Don’t focus on the lyrics and it is palatable and will be Fleetwood enough to please some. At its worst it is the musical equivalent of trying to squeeze yourself into your favourite clothes of yesteryear: uncomfortable, unflattering and not worth the struggle.

The unpromising combinations separate rather than coalesce. The talented, pugilistic youngster’s best feels yet to come.

Trouble is, the songs themselves are instantly forgettable, devoid of alluring melody or interesting lyrical content, and sung by a limited vanilla voice lacking in character.

At their best, Garrie’s songs are tender, well-observed vignettes of a life well travelled, mostly on dusty French roads with a bar at the end. At their not-so-best, Garrie’s lyrics are more than a touch hokey (the quite frankly awful Boy Soldier) while the jauntier back bar numbers (Bacardi Samuel) are for Francophiles only. The Moon & The Village is destined to again divide punters and purists. One for fans new and old it is.

Sadly, it’s a plodding, semi-acoustic dirge of little note, while When Shipman Decides--about homicidal doctor Harold--also fails to live up to the shock factor of its title. It makes for a mostly meretricious, self-important record with delusions of grandeur.

While not entirely lacking new ideas (the louche, second version of Infinite Content would make Wilco proud), Everything Now feels like a brainstorming idea with one too many executives in the boardroom.

A record that struggles to catch fire.

It’s as capricious and confusing as it sounds, yet the overall result is one of surprising cohesion.

It’s competent, and some of the songs are good, but it’s just so much old hat.

It’s hard not to hear these songs and think of a hollowed-out Echo & The Bunnymen, devoid of the magic, mystery or the passion that made that band so vital.

Little of the imagination promised by the concept seems to have seeped through into the covers, which are remarkably sedate and faithful for a world supposedly in the grip of two opposing ideological extremes.

The band’s writing and performance is so tight it’s actually become uptight and as one accessible masher follows another, Only Ghosts reveals itself to be regrettably one-dimensional.

Torrini and collaborator Dan Carey envisioned the record as a chance to explore the possibilities of the studio, and it does sound lovely, in a New Age kind of way. It seems, however, that this has come at the expense of strong songwriting.

Although at times it underwhelms, at its best this album absolutely convinces and leaves no doubt as to the ability of its creator.

While it’s certainly soundtrack material, anyone with good taste would, for instance, go for the original Strauss and Ligeti over this album’s Hollywood light music take on Hal… and dare we say it, anyone with good taste should know not to attempt the latter.

Some of the material threatens to drown in a mire of painfully bland songwriting and sleepwalking guest appearances.

There’s good songwriting in places, but with the artist’s idiosyncrasies effectively airbrushed out by a bloated production, the result is a dull, vapid collection of songs desperate to please.

There doesn’t appear to be much of a connection between any of the songs, and you’ll have to be fairly willing to wander through the wreckage to find much of any delight.

It’s hard not to be cynical about such repackaging, even if the music within is so special.

Only the hushed Living Lux, which closes the album in delicate velvet drifts, escapes unscathed. It is, sadly, not enough to give Bloc Party redemption.

Like its clumsy title, this release finds itself falling between two stools; stuck in mid-Atlantic, perhaps. It does have its moments, but may fail to win new converts.

Strangers feels as if it’s trying to fit into a radio-friendly country narrative that’s surely already passed.

The band sorely lacks a frontman of true rock-god proportions to transcend the silliness.

The Coincidentalist, recorded by M Ward and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, often sounds inauthentic and contrived.

Yes, It’s True starts out along a rather pedestrian path of nod-along rock-by-numbers.

While it isn’t without its moments, that is not enough to forgive the sub-standard R’&’B and lumpy rock crossovers.

It’s wilful experimentation with no pay-off, sounding lonely, old, with only the occasional, tempting flicker of a genius that once burnt bright.

There’s nothing here as radical as Young’s brazen take on God Save The Queen, for his far more engaging 2012 covers set, Americana, and the performances are decidedly tossed-off, even by Young’s capture-the-moment standards.

On this latest effort, Edwards conjures echoes of various esteemed mongers of sweet-melodied sadness but never manages to equal their miserable majesty. At the same time, he fails to stamp much of his own individuality on the collection.

As a whole it’s all rather wearing; it’s a space oddity that doesn’t quite have lift-off.

Sadly, outside the context of the episodes, the actual ditties are only mildly humorous at best, and barely warrant more than one play through.

Much of what stems from his bands’ 15th standalone album never really gets past that “nothing of a track” phase. In fact, often the mood music Coyne and the gang have striven to make – as much about beats and textures as it is melody--is frustrating.

It feels self-centred and bored, and is reflected by much of the album’s music.

His tongue may be in his cheek at least some of the time, but parts of this album feel like the worst excesses of rock opera as applied to dance music.

Signs of progression are, admittedly, belatedly embraced by the ham-fisted, if heartfelt dub-out Serious Business and the bowel-quaking Sunn O)))-style title track, but it’s too little too late.

It makes for an uneven, unbalanced experience that, sadly, is better on paper than in practice.

Some tracks fare better than others, and it would certainly be a stronger album without the insistent disco party beats of SSD or Elle Ne T’Aime Pas.

While it believes it’s a storm of Ocean Rain-esque majesty, Meteorites fizzles out like it’s just another shower.

The lack of personality is most strikingly felt in Kim Deal’s absence.

10,000 Maniacs fans may yearn for the simpler music of old but, sad to say, given the effort involved, uncommitted listeners will simply shrug their shoulders.

The problems start with the songwriting. There isn’t a song that would have made it onto Howling Wind or Stick To Me, and it takes until track 10, Fast Crowd, to locate a decent hook.

Much of the album refuses to stick, drifting from one similar-sounding song to another.

While La Costa Perdida was worth the wait, El Camino Real leaves the listener having enjoyed the trip, but glad to be getting home.

Some tracks inspire more amusement than may perhaps have been intended.

There’s effortless and effortless, and this is an album that verges on the predictable.

Bang Zoom Crazy… Hello, their 17th album and first since 2009, is the latest in a number of stillborn attempts to recapture those glory days.

The result is that each side cancels the other out, rendering it somewhat ineffective.

Neptune may be swampier, but as side projects go, this is hardly an excuse for a great departure, more of an exercise in indulgence.

Sadly, Wyman can neither sing nor write a decent song.

Sadly, Exploded View’s admirable commitment to spontaneity has resulted in a muggily-recorded LP which fails to match the usual high-quality post-punk output of the esteemed Sacred Bones label.

The tracks drift by like soporific imitations of past glories--for the most part there’s nothing especially wrong with the songs, they just sound as if they could have been composed using a Van Morrison Song Generator.

An uninspiring audio fluff. Cruel, after having previously reached such satisfying heights.

Alt-J’s retelling of this age-old tale of ill repute has less edge than a mesh sack of Babybel cheeses.

Move on, there’s nothing to see here.

The guitar solos are the album’s single saving grace.

By track 11, Let Love Lead, you feel you’ve jogged along the cliché-rich, emotion-free AOR road for longer than its 43 minutes and 57 seconds.

It’s garage rock by numbers and sounds like it took as long to write as it does to listen to.