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.

Haiku From Zero offers up plenty of mesmerising moments, but they come with a damaging amount of baggage and ultimately the record falls a little short of the tropical dream that it envisages.

While Cherry Bomb's low moments hold back the album's highlights, hopefully the high points are a sign of things to come.

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.

Overall, The Dew Last An Hour is a solid debut.... it's all been done before.

Clocking in at just over twelve minutes, Sunne is a jarringly short EP in a genre that has always been characterised by these expansive and immersive albums.

It’s not that Scorpion is bad music - it’s exactly what you’d expect, and too much of it. Its maximalism offers plenty for the converted (and the charts), after all, this far in, nothing is going to turn those set against him. For those of us with more complicated relationships with Drake’s music, there’s also nothing here to overwhelm the sense of stagnation dominant since Views.

Only ‘Peanut Butter’ stands out amongst the morass by dint of its crashing introduction. Even that track eventually settles down into the record’s bloated template. It’s a shame, because there are some lovely moments.

In general, Young Romance is a record that wears its influences plainly on its pulsating sleeves. It may not astound you, but like a pleasant day by the pool, it’s more than pleasant enough to be worth it.

This collection of tracks could be spunked on by a Joe Satriani-type noodle, and individually each member could break free and have their moment to shine, but instead they shun solos and move as unit, maintaining collective power and defiantly sticking to their modus operandi.

Standout tracks, melancholic interludes and stylistic jumpiness add elements of unpredictability to Everett and co. that they’ve sorely missed. But these same things also make it an overarching mess.

This latest effort isn't comparable with the visceral exoticness that Jimmy Page began to find on Physical Graffiti, but a more focused and staunchly unified project, designed to push the conventions of improvisational rock music and provide Rhyton's competent credentials with actual substance.

You can hear [that the songs were written very quickly]; the atmosphere across the album is very constant. However, it makes them very similar by the same standard.

Nektyr is a tough record to like. Fans of Cocteau Twins may be better placed than I to pierce the veil and properly appreciate the wonders within. For me, trying to pull away the mud and heavily-baked conceit left me exhausted.

Vessel's ambition has exceeded his abilities. By trading in his synth for sheet metal he has lost out on what caused people to stand up and take notice.

Individuality has been smoothed out by production and a lack of lyrical diversity. Undeniably a star, Maggie’s light has been dimmed here.

This is still a lovely, lovely record, on the surface at least; I'm not sure it'll stand up quite as well to heavy rotation as its predecessor.

At the end of the day, an outtakes record only appeals to super-fans and aficionados. Cowboy Worship is an interesting look at the evolution of Amen Dunes, but it doesn't add much to their oeuvre.

The message behind the music is much more clichéd, and much less interesting.

White and Mosshart's collaboration feels like a tale of the proverbial nearly men--close, but no cigar.

On I’ll Be Your Girl, The Decemberists do a few things well, a few things poorly, and most of them acceptably and nothing more. The fact that it never goes completely off the rails is almost as disappointing as the fact that it never finds its footing or seems interested in doing so.

The ideas are fleshed out so well sometimes, and it's upsetting that I have to wait until 'City' to once again get to a place where the records conciseness is shared with its depth.

Sometimes he lands on stanzas worth savoring (“All that I fear is that all that I have given you is a ship out to nowhere that wants to be out of control/but I see the light in oh so many things out here, and a lifetime so gently now sits on the stairs to my home.”) Other times, timelessness gives way to stuffiness, with lyrics that act more like riddles he doesn’t really care about solving (“When every wind is an afterlife out here, what language do you dream in when you’re drunk?”)

It's decent and fairly enjoyable, but nothing astounds.

Though it definitely has its moments and manages to grapple with the horror of modernity there’s a split keeping this from feeling quite as cohesive as it should.

Juice B Crypts is certainly a decent-enough math rock album, but when you have people as experienced and talented as Williams and Stanier “decent-enough” doesn’t cut it.

Electric Würms as a whole: cool and weird with some great moments, but little structure or direction.

The White Album is a return to a particular state, but it was never going to be a return to form.

The band still show the glimmer of potential they’ve always carried, and it’s nice to know that consistency is possible with the band. ‘Doctor’s In' ends with an abrupt fadeout, and your memory of Tasmania can depart at a similarly unsatisfying rate.

Many Moons is the fussy, neat feeling we already know of him. The only real change is that we now have to look deeper and listen more closely to invoke a powerful connection between artist and listener. If the songs were more engaging, this would be easier to do. However, they all resolve to their same base parts, and thus become more forgettable than the feelings Real Estate's best songs have conjured.

Cabello is finding her footing, and with more swings than misses here, the album signals a hopeful future for a fledgling pop giant.

Hourglass Pond is an off-balance album. If you played the album to someone who didn’t know Tare had a new album, it would be very unclear where it belongs in his discography.

‘Unspoken History’ and ‘I Want U’ show she has real talent. With more work, and more pain, she might graduate from The Best of Luck Club.

There are lovely moments on this album, but often they are repeated far too many times and for far too long; it's a fatal mishandling of what could be a lithe and catchy collection of electro-pop.

The reality of A Pill For Loneliness is that it gets carried away with flights of fancy that are, more often than not, boring. In the past 14 years City and Colour has released some vital albums, and while this certainly alludes to them, it isn’t quite on a par.

Younghusband's new record shows the band can turn out a great sounding bunch of songs and the odd moment of brilliance. If they spent longer letting their songs grow before unleashing them they might have produced something more distinctive.

While calling Fishing For Fishies stale at first may be a bit harsh, it becomes pronounced once you consider the adventurous image King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has carved out for itself over the last five years. With this passive listening experience, rarely was I ever intrigued by the band’s songwriting.

1989 is full of cliches, but the truth is that we wouldn't expect them to not be present anyway.

An uplifting and varied listening experience, if only some of the other tracks didn't have a habit of passing you by.

There's nothing bold or groundbreaking about Let's Wrestle but it plays to its strengths. It's almost what you expect it to be, but not quite.

There's some great individual tracks here, but they need their next full-length to be less Jekyll and Hyde and more Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson.

Though undoubtedly a handsome package, the experience of Lease of Life as a whole feels somewhat insubstantial; its impact is elusive while any real staying power is negligible at best.

While it is a solid, if unspectacular debut with promise for the future, it's difficult to fight the feeling that Before We Forgot How To Dream is an album which hides behind big production because it is afraid to be intimate.

Unfortunately, aside from a couple of other stronger tracks (‘Gonna Get Better’ and ‘Towers and Masons’ – one of Brendan Canning’s contributions), the rest of the album isn’t something I have a desire to return to.