A touch more volume on the instruments and a bit of extra distance between one man's mouth and his microphone, this might have been a blissful exercise in studied yet clamorous rock music.

The record's very nice, but swimming alongside adequacy rather than soaring for the top isn't a wonderful career move.

So Sad So Sexy is by no means a bad record, but while the Li of previous records was refreshing and stark showing us her vulnerability, the slickly produced nature of this means that’s often lost and in its place is cliché as Li tries to hang onto the weighty romance of youth.

Songs in the Key of Animals lacks the focus of A Love Extreme, but then again, we're talking about an album that was supposedly written on the fly.

Weatherhouse houses its own experiences but could just be listened to as a sub-experience of Radiohead. It shares many of experimental shifts using beat and synths to explore mood, only without the hooks and utterly unique melodies that nobody but Radiohead can produce.

The Detroit quartet's debut album for Woodsist is at times striking and catchy, but also finds itself digging up the same nostalgia-seeking melodies that showed some promise from Bonny Doon to begin with.

The production is tidy but one note, the instrumentation resolutely professional. The vocalist has a few touchstones and reverently shifts from one to another without exactly lighting any fires of his own. Back in 1992 they would call this alternative rock.

It works well enough as a snapshot of where Everett finds himself as he approaches middle age, but the overwrought agonisation on the past and infuriatingly samey instrumental choices make it a difficult record to love.

Garbus' sound is still a little too vague, still in need of some real streamlining; the promise remains blindingly obvious, but the execution, for my money at least, is still missing.

At Best Cuckold is much like the autumnal vibe it tries to project in that, like autumn, you don't mind its existence but you kind of just want to go back to that excellent summer again.

It's a pity they remain slavishly committed to a successful template and too often Atlas feels like a memory of a memory.

If, after an absence of 19 years, you are happy to engage with a band who are reprising much of their musical and lyrical themes whilst also dipping their toes into unexplored (and poorly realised) terrain, then no doubt there is much within White Stuff which will tick all of the appropriate boxes. But, oh man, that Kool Keith track.

As a continuation of U2’s work at this point in their career, Songs of Experience is a decent addition to their legacy that longtime fans should be generally pleased by. However, it still suffers from the same issues that have made U2 so polarizing in recent years, and is unlikely to change anyone’s mind about the band one way or another.

Wysing Forest has a time and a place but unfortunately falls short of the mark that was set by Abbott's previous memorable output and the work of his peers.

At times it's quite boring, but at times it's very good.

Public Service Broadcasting's intentions are to be praised, even if the result is weak and unfocused. If the SDP leadership had formed a band, it would sound like this.

It’s refreshingly spur-of-the-moment on an album that’s let down by constant overthinking and underestimating of her abilities. If Minaj wants to make a mission statement of an album, worthy of this title, she needs to figure out a mission statement for herself.

The production on the album is very shiny and polished, but at times far too cut and paste as every chorus seems to be layered with Sia's vocals, providing a backing falsetto.

Subtlety is in short supply on Lost Themes II, with soaring guitar solos, industrial synthesisers and violent percussion throughout.

Although Green Lanes is a total bore, it is cool how they bear this mask on a handful of different songs. They've made that style of storytelling their own.

The Moon Rang Like A Bell starts off with captivating momentum, a potential to take you on a whimsical, emotional journey. But along the way it seems to have sacrificed that sense of purity first apparent in its experimentation.

It's encouraging that there are some clear signs of expansion on Brightly Painted One, but the question now is whether Tiny Ruins really have anywhere else to go.

In terms of the surface tones and textures, the tracks in question are interesting enough--pretty, even. The underlying structures that govern these tones and textures, however, don't allow for anything approaching the band's typical intensity.

Noveller has created a pretty, stretched, tasteful, insubstantial record.

Volcano's songs seem to lack the spontaneity Sun Structures was built upon.

Overall it’s a fun album of two halves. The first half tows the line between the cheesy elements of radio pop that even the snarkiest Slayer fan secretly loves, and some truly inspirational, if not fleeting, compositional substance. The second half, although still very much a fun listen, somewhat strays.

The result is a mixed bag of songs with which the group continue to earn their moniker, through moody orchestral pop pieces adorned with the group’s signature electronics, but we’re left wondering whether the soundtrack might have been more interesting.

It's hard to decide if what Yeasayer have created with Amen & Goodbye is a case of pop genius, of if the result is a load of over the top, art-rock pretensions. It seems that whether Yeasayer are really the future sailors of experimental indie, still remains to be seen.