It may be a slightly face-flattening wind tunnel of love The Killers offer. But they still have the gale force sincerity required to blow your socks off.

On [Cat Power] Marshall has changed direction yet again, abandoning her soul charm for something much less appealing.... But her natural grace shines through on "3, 6, 9"... and "Ruin."

Scott's overly melodramatic delivery sometimes gets in the way of the words, although his arrangements are for the most part respectful and apt.

His guests include Lana Del Rey, whose affectless manner makes her a perfect match for him; though the best grooves here come courtesy of Daft Punk, bookending the album with the scudding title-track and Michael Jackson homage “I Feel It Coming”.

Actor Maxine Peake delivers the combination of historical narrative and polemic in her blackest-pudding accent, over a gamelan tinkle of synth tones and string synths that evoke the blend of grit and gentrification now surrounding these events.

Ironically, though, it’s the more old-school tracks that furnish the highlights.

Though marginally better than its predecessor, BE can in no sense be considered a progression.

This fourth album is produced by south London’s Paul White, and a shared taste for Talking Heads and especially Joy Division (the LP is named after their song, more than JG Ballard’s novel) takes it way off the mainstream hip-hop map.

Spare Ribs certainly reflects the personal and political overload of 2021, but half an hour in you’d be forgiven for scanning the horizon for your stop.

Due to the choice of material, the arrangements lean heavily towards the dramatic and angst-ridden--well, it is Peter Gabriel--with the sole recourse to mellow calm reserved for the undulating strings of "The Nest That Sailed the Sky".

Musically, it’s an odd mix of ambition and disorder, with Doherty’s familiar raggedy-ass rock tempered with poignant moments.

Habibi Funk deals not in the indigenous strains that occupy the main focus of world music reissues, but rather local crossovers that slipped between the cracks, reflecting outside influences from the Caribbean, Cape Verde, and overwhelmingly, Western funk, soul and disco. ... The more recent examples are somewhat diluted by developments in technology.

Some of the better songs lack that adhesive zeitgeist quality that used to be the group's stock-in-trade. But at its best, there's enough variety and invention to recall The Beatles, sometimes directly. [Review of UK release The Future Is Medieval]

Beyond these introductory tracks and a couple of others (“Give It Up for Love” struts to a Nile Rogers beat), the album chugs along at a pleasant mid-tempo pace.

The arrangements are pleasurable enough, less rootsy than before, with some skilled use of orchestration; but it's a shame to find such a gifted songwriter sounding so gullible.

The deceptive geniality of his delivery, meanwhile, recalls Gilbert O’Sullivan, enabling him to bring darker undertones to apparently pleasant pieces like the lilting waltz “I’m Gonna Haunt This Place.”

The songs on her third album are more concealed in their arrangements than before, despite a sonic palette still based in the slim, austere piano and cello settings for which she’s known.

It's impressive, slick alienation for the Y Generation, but as with Del Rey, it's a one-trick-pony sort of act.

The drawback of having such a cross-cultural appeal as Shakira is that you’re expected to try and satisfy its every demographic niche, a demand that weakens her first English-language album since 2009’s She Wolf.

It seems like they just ran out of interest, and gave up.

Some of the guest vocalists are questionable--Shara Worden and Sam Amidon seem detached--but Vernon's delivery of Dylan's “Every Grain of Sand” has charm.

In some cases, that sugary voice which works so well as a pop vehicle lacks the full-bodied character to carry a big ballad.

Jim Moray's filtering of traditional folk music through a mesh of modern sensibilities continues on Skulk.

An album that frets gently and artfully at the wounds of human attraction and rejection.

#willpower is stuffed with sounds that, while in no sense as cutting-edge as he likes to make out, crest the wave of the popular.

What a couple of charmers.

Musically, it's the same kind of electro R&B with which radio is already awash--in large part because it's produced by the same small coterie of hip producers, with Timbaland appearing to take the most prominent role amongst the likes of Detail, Jerome Harmon, Pharrell Williams and Ryan Tedder.

In places, Vanderslice’s more abstruse, jazzier ideas grate with the material--notably the clarinet discords closing the old departing-soldier-boy tale “When The Roses Bloom Again”--but he’s usually on the money with things like the elegiac strings accompanying “Betty’s Eulogy” and the lachrymose pedal steel, vibes and shaker underscoring “Wreck”, a heartfelt plea for a lover who’s “a worker, not a volunteer”.