As a collection of songs, Disco is a terrific soundtrack to washing the dishes or a dance-off. But this album itself underestimates its own artist, which is in a small way unforgivable.

They don’t sound like a band trying to tap into an otherworldly and infinite negation, they sound like a band trying to recreate their early power and glory.

Del Rey plays a winning strike with Honeymoon's four opening songs: powerful ballads, lain on ethereal and soft arrangements made of smooth strings and jazzy winds.... If 'High By The Beach' still can sustain its four-minutes length, the same unfortunately cannot be said for the most of the following songs.

The Big Dream is vaguely interesting, but not very interesting.

Everyday Robots signals a sea change in Albarn's oeuvre because it is, ostensibly at least, a work that tackles its creator's origins with something close to sincerity. I say close to, because there are plenty of moments here when the familiar orientalism returns to produce slightly nauseating results.

As part of Berlin's Janus Collective, M.E.S.H.'s work is very much on the hardest edges of club culture to such an extent that it becomes hard to discern any humanity at work here.

It is largely an album that, despite finding acmes in doing what Rustie does best, has more troughs than peaks, and lacks the impish, distinctive touches that made Glass Swords such a striking listen.

Phoenix gets the motions nearly right on Bankrupt, but that crucial snap simply isn’t there.

Despite the many hugely talented performers involved, Dr Dee is less philosopher's stone, and more curate's egg: a handful of fine songs where Albarn plays to his existing strengths, but mired in a sea of over-reaching folly. And ultimately, both Dee and Albarn deserve better.

In boxing up their inner fire, The Souljazz Orchestra have starved it of oxygen, so only the embers remain.

This is their pointed after-hours comedown LP, it's not enough of a disclaimer to save what amounts to an occasionally flourishing, but largely frustrating and tedious record.

There's a huge lack of definition, and even with the volume cranked high, the dynamic surge previous albums from the group have led us to expect is absent.

Continuing Hard Candy's pattern of awful try-hard title and 'show the young uns you've still got it' bangers, it's disappointing in its lack of ambition.

His vocals never really gel with the music--he mutters and spouts over the top, as ever sounding like he’s having some difficulty keeping jaw attached to his skull while sucking on a gobstopper.

This isn't an album; it's a series of OCD thoughts thrown together in passing, the only sense of cohesion coming during a rare chance for bassist Chris Wolstenholme to take centre stage on vocals.

It is gloss and fluff masquerading as euphoric heartbreak. It makes Savage Garden sound like Leonard Cohen.

Magna Carta offers only a few vivid images but even fewer full songs. The album's relentless spewing of wealth will be enough to repel some listeners, but that's not exactly the problem here, it's that his brags are often unimaginative and humourless.

Nicki Minaj's second album is pop postmodernity in an advanced state of hollow, banal meaningless, and the first causality is Minaj herself.

Fans of the characteristic Kylesa stomp will find enough of it remaining in the cracks to keep them entertained, but the originality and kinetic force of their vision has become a splutter.

This is a piece of work in which good-quality ingredients have been handled without a great deal of tact.

RZA does his fair share of huffing and puffing on A Better Tomorrow (see hooks to 'Hold The Heater' and 'Crushed Egos'), but the widescreen production lacks the intensity to motivate a jaded clan.

Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, on the other hand, is a tired and somewhat cynical album that’s simply responding to market demand. It’s kind of like when your dad busts out his old-school skate board—cool for a bit, but, after day three of him “getting back into it” (he also refuses to change out of his old Pink Floyd shirt), you just want him to stop.

While they’re [Genuine American Girl and You And All Of Your Friends] two of the album's best songs, they, like the previous ten tracks, suffer from not just overproduction and out-of-date musical aesthetics, but also a half-hearted attempt to assert something pure about the rock of yore.

There are plenty of nicely recorded aural treats dotted across 6 Feet Beneath The Moon, but they're swimming in a sea of dull mediocrity.

Convenanza regularly dips into a bag of tried and tested moves that are little more than default settings: dubby basslines, plenty of space, echoes, jazzy trumpets that sound like deflating balloons and so on.

The only thing Settle succeeds at is repurposing generic late 90s funky house into a sound that people seem to have been brainwashed into thinking is new and exciting.

It's all too hammy, too rich to absorb.

The net result is a lack of texture and the element of surprise that made this album's predecessor so wonderfully seductive.