Junto holds few surprises and its not the strongest album to sit in their catalogue, but it is reassuring to know that the boys are still making the music they love for a global dance audience.

While the atmosphere of Slow Air enthralls with captivating layers of sedated synth and breathtaking reverb, the stunning production quality can’t save Still Corners from sinking into the increasingly crowded waters of the dream pop scene.

Whilst it's certainly performed with skill and respect for the golden era of soul music, there's a sense that it's a bit too tightly controlled.

Unfocused in places, it only comes together as a whole in fleeting moments... but those moments are really rather lovely, so there's enough here to say that Lia Ices remains a talented artist and one to keep watch over.

At its best, Antisocialites is a raw effort from a band who swears they've been around longer than they have, composing a handful of very good songs, with a majority of flukey, bored-out-of-my-fucking-mind songs that seem to drag one after the other. Alvvays' main flaw remains their lack of authenticity, a tragedy for a band with this much potential.

Quite possibly rushed so the house number could match the year, J. Cole's latest album is a damn good attempt, but it just isn't the real deal.

i,i is an album meant to please their least demanding customers; a session of pure, light nostalgia, and given the band’s rabid following, it’s still certain to succeed, even to receive knee jerk, overeager accolades. That’s all well and good, but it’s hard not to recall just how much more these guys are capable of.

Donker Mag is unashamedly synthetic in its make-up--a carefully constructed affectation of hooks, melodies and outlandish braggadocio.

It's just a shame that these gems are surrounded by material that's just not as strong, or consistent as we've come to expect.

It’s palatable, well-performed, but rarely involving. It’s a shame that the most exciting thing about a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore is that it’s a collaboration between Charles Hayward and Thurston Moore.

Both the fact that this effectively represents a collaborative effort and also that there's three different singers across the album's twelve tracks are probably reasons behind the fact that it feels like a pretty diffuse collection of songs; the only real unifying characteristic to Hold It In's songs are their punishing level of loudness.

To be sure, his willingness to descend into darkness, both regarding the world and within himself, is a large part of the man's appeal, but here he seems to have misunderstood, or simply ignored, what makes him truly great.

Despite the lack of variance from song to song, each of the 10 songs here are finely written candidates for radio. ... The issue is that it’s not worth it to dig through all 10 of these tracks to find the nuanced intricacies that so frequently play second fiddle to loud rock and roll.

Too often there doesn’t seem to be a definite roadmap. Other than a few brief moments, this record feels like a missed opportunity.

At their core, the songs are fundamentally concerned with unguarded and confessional intimacy yet the manner in which they are presented is a hindrance as, on the whole, there is a sheen to Designer which it could well do without.

It is a shame, as when this album shines, with tracks like 'Kid Corner' and even 'Ruination', it seems like Archive could have really been onto something here, but have just missed the mark.

Green Twins is impeccably tailored and has some gorgeous ideas. What it lacks is the confidence to stretch its colour palette into areas the listener might not immediately associate with other, trailblazing artists.

Although She-Devils falls short of the high expectations it had built up prior to the release, all in all it is a solid album, one packed with loads of potential and major signs of forthcoming genius from the Montreal duo.

It is worth a listen but won't hang around in the memory for long, which is not what we've come to expect from a legend like this.

Although it is by no means a bad record, it just represents the first time that he has lost the emotional power that has previously made him so much more than just a man with a guitar.

Sundays may not be a collection that will live long in the memory, but when it rises out of its spiritual funk there’s a glimpse of something sparkling in amongst the fuzz and breathy introspection. It’s certainly not a dog of an album. But perhaps it’s not as cute, or as diverting, as a Tanuki.

It's disappointing in some ways that quite a chunk of the record feels like offcuts; of precisely what, we can only wonder.

This collection would've been much better off as a coherent release if it came on just one disc. Two discs and thirty-one tracks really is a bit testing and the songs eventually feel like they've overstayed their welcome.

The majority of Fear Inoculum’s songs are more or less interchangeable, achieving the same overall effect in slightly different ways. ... Toolheads will find much to enjoy here, I am sure of it.

None of the tracks on New Material could fit any such textbook definition of "bad". It’s stylistically inconsistent and at times bafflingly chaotic, but each track has a certain quality that defines Preoccupations as a willingly evolutionary band.

Where Nothing Feels Natural suffers is in the R&D department. Many of the ideas only make a couple of appearances. ... Still, there’s quite a lot to like here, and it’s mostly due to Greer--the speak-sing existentialism of ‘No Big Bang’, the Everything Goes Wrong-era Vivian Girls homage on ‘Nothing Feels Natural’, the ragged heartbeat of ‘Appropriate’.

Overall, this is an album with fleeting moments of joy, but these are not sustained.

There are hints of previously visited melodies, familiar heard-befores and usual arrangements, but perhaps what it lacks in innovative compositions and originality, it augments through euphoric beautiful moments that feel undeniably genuine.