While Borrell 1 has many faults--too many sax solos, insufficient sackcloth and ashes--the jauntiness with which Zazou disport themselves often makes up for it.

At its worst, Paradise Again is derivative and dated. Tracks play like pastiches. ... In its livelier moments, the album tries to revive sounds in new contexts. ... Most of the record is palatable but unremarkable – an algorithmic play for radio airtime.

While hardly a move into brave new musical pastures, it's not without charm and the use of a female voice puts just enough distance between this and the original.

If Damage and Joy isn’t quite the echo of their pomp, neither is it a disappointment.

The record is most effective when Lindén sounds more animated, as on I’ll Be the Death of You and the nimble, propulsive, Kraftwerk-influenced Neon Lights. Unfortunately these moments are overshadowed by lengthier excursions that give longueurs a bad name.

For every genre-busting banker such as Human (inventive, effects-laden soul) or Recovery (pugnacious swing-pop), there are so-so tracks that should have been palmed off on to someone else.

Tellingly, there’s a quiet contentment replacing the bleakness that marked 2014/15’s companion Single Mothers/Absent Fathers sets.

Mainly for completists, then, but they'll feel lavishly rewarded.

With the exception of OK (Anxiety Anthem), produced unmemorably by the usually excellent MNEK, these 14 tunes could have been made by anyone with a well-oiled larynx. Even as Mabel’s voice stands proudly without Auto-Tune, High Expectations is just disappointingly all right, lacking any playfulness, or top spin, or a sense of who Mabel is.

There are blank pages for fans to fill in. At nearly 30, the singer-songwriter remains an intriguing mixture of industry power-broker and giddy cat-obsessive. Lover is fine with that, but the real battle is where she goes after this.

There are songs here with a cinematographic grasp of gesture allied to countermelodies of aching prettiness, almost casually thrown away. In the very same breath, though, Voyage packs in a surfeit of hokey oompah and two Christmas tunes too many.

His influences--Orbital, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada--surface at various points, but he pays off the debts with thoughtfulness and skill.

Their snarling debut album, all cowbells and warped grooves, is competent punk-funk that rarely deviates from the model established by the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, whose vocals singer Will slavishly imitates.

Ultimately, it's a risk-free album of covers: accomplished, certainly, but hardly a novel experiment.

Too often, though, you’re left wishing for the thuggish bass and head-severing hi-hats of less cerebral dance music. There’s not enough food for the brain or fuel for the feet here.

From the pristine coffee-table electronica of the album’s opening and closing tracks, through the sub-Underworld clatter of Entirety, to the Muse-meets-Erasure extravagance of Carousel--it’s with the brazen 80s electropop of Beaming White that his heart seems to lie.

Never overstaying its welcome despite its 16-track length, there are little pockets of unadulterated joy peppered throughout, specifically the buzz guitar-laced opener Headspace, and She Loves Anime’s electro-tinged tale of a boy who draws himself the perfect girlfriend.

At this point, merely shoring up his personal brand with scattered highlights means that Future is stuck in a holding pattern.

The results are intriguing, occasionally frustrating, rarely boring.

As an album, it never comes close to Guided By Voices at their mid-90s peak; it isn’t even the best one by this incarnation of the band (that’s possibly 2019’s Warp and Woof). But this is yet another solid addition to one of the most impressive canons in US indie rock.

Fans of long standing might actually find The Rip Tide a bit too restrained now that Beirut sound more assured and less like a tipsy string quartet stumbling around an accordion factory, egged on by a hopeless romantic in his lowest register.

Sonik Kicks barrels along hectically, throwing out ideas like a particularly exuberant catherine wheel, though nothing ever quite matches the exquisite shock of that dub bliss-out [on "Study in Blue"].

Brevity sharpens the ex-Clipse rapper’s focus, though: rarely has he sounded as urgent, even with his signature laconic tempo, as he does on bravura opener If You Know You Know; or as authoritative as on Santeria, which packs three different movements into under three minutes.

Toots may sing in a more confined register, but the exuberance and moaning soulfulness from his youth in the Baptist church remain splendidly intact on this vigorous final outing.

The melodies are familiar, but the stuttering guitar style and weathered, laid-back vocals are still unique, still oddly touching.

It shouldn’t work, but pleasingly, most of it does, thanks to the conviction of Young’s delivery.

The album sags a little in the middle but there is much here to justify a nearly five-year wait.

The Trouble, with its richly twangy slide, spooky reverb and oblique enchantments, is particularly powerful, but throughout, Middleman’s voice is dark and engaging, her songs possessed of a deceptively subtle charm.