Their second album is largely flat-packed stadium pop at its most anonymous.

Coyne’s quivering voice still captures the frailty of the human spirit, and his band have made songs that will draw tears from frazzled audiences until the Earth slides into the sea. Yet too many of his death-obsessed drug lyrics are lamely predictable and uninvolving, and swaddling his vocals in effects until he sounds like Rob Brydon’s “man in a box” doesn’t help.

There is nothing wrong with Rihanna’s default dead-eyed vixen delivery--it’s one of the seven wonders of the pop world. But ironically, she actually sings the hell out of this record. If only more of these songs could actually carry the weight of Rihanna’s bid for freedom--a bid that is, ultimately, half-baked.

Singing, producing and performing his own material, Labrinth has high ambitions but falls disappointingly short.

There are flashes of something special on Suffer, and the surprisingly sultry Selena Gomez collaboration We Don’t Talk Anymore, but in general, Puth’s anonymity is infuriating.

This is not so much a dreadful record as a wasted opportunity.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is another one of these perfectly serviceable Spiritualized albums.... But there's a lot of old rope here, let down further by Pierce's singing.

Whether they are covering You’ll Never Walk Alone or rubbishing the single life on Kicked to the Curb (“I ain’t got no honey/ She took all my money”), the music is depressingly rudimentary.

The result is an awkward shouldering of styles and personas in search of one that fits.

Although Songs feels consistently summery, it lacks coherence: the diverse elements don't completely gel.

Death of a Bachelor is hollow and shapeless.

Throughout, there’s a wearying feel of vanilla indie designed by committee, with barely an original idea between its 10 tracks of chirpy inconsequence.

[The Truth About Love] veers between two modes: workmanlike ballads delivered with beyond-workmanlike shading; and chunky guitar pop stuffed with shouty, bad-girl choruses. Unfortunately the second dominates.

There’s promise here, but ultimately too little to mark them out from the rest of the pack.

Snoop has some way to go as a conscious voice before he convinces anyone that he is the reincarnation of Bob Marley.

Other than the perky pabulum of prostitution singalong Lola and a big fat feelgood chorus on Step with Me, the hooks and hits are thin on the ground.

The album's sole affecting track is the simplest--See Me Now.... Elsewhere, though, Listen exudes desperation, its shortcomings underlined by It Was London, a graceless stab at social commentary.

Elsewhere the mood is flat and the tunes forgettable, Rumer’s muted voice lacking the mystique of the 70s folk artists she reveres.

His debut is anodyne if ruthlessly efficient. A touch more chaos would not have gone amiss.

Sun aside, Beacon is prosaic and frenetic, its tireless synths and fidgety guitars unable to camouflage the group's dearth of ideas.

An album overloaded with artfully polished tedium.

Sadly, his second album is blander than supermarket jerk chicken, and its wistful, ruminative opener, Watch Who You Tell, promises depths that never surface.

The totalitarian self-regard of these bombastic modular synth symphonies owes more to Queen’s One Vision than it does to Kraftwerk’s Man Machine.

Its sound design may be impeccable, but World… sorely lacks grit.

Despite only lasting 22 minutes, towards its end Peanut Butter feels more gruelling than gruesome.

Too much is forgettable.

While Bleachers is far from being a bad album, it’s even further from being an exciting one.

Unfortunately, Gordon’s spiky, staccato delivery is too often drowned in distortion and diminished by tune-dodging cacophony. So many songs, such as Trophies, are tense yet torpid, and when the airless intensity clears briefly on Shelf Warmer it’s too late.