As great as these tracks are though, it's difficult to shake the feeling that they just aren't really Daft Punk.

In Colour is ultimately too tidy and, Young Thug features aside, afraid to take risks, and is therefore all the more beige for it.

It’s underwhelming. This is not to say it doesn’t have beautiful moments, it is not to detract from Sisay’s exquisite voice; but overall this feels like one in a long line of emotive “indietronica” records that slots into one of those “chill and alt R&B” Spotify playlists. It’s fine, but it’s kind of forgettable.

Benji would have worked better as a series of EPs, playing to Kozelek's strength as a songwriter of certain stylistic preferences.

Pure Comedy (or, I would say, Tillman in general) doesn’t suffer for its big ideas, it thrives on them; the real problem is the constant circling and underlining and pointing out those big ideas when just letting them sit and mystify in their black hole weightiness would do.

The title track and the genuinely brilliant ‘MetaGoth’ Stripped to the bone and not so much sung as intoned by Josephine Wiggs, this is one of the creepiest yet compelling compositions The Breeders have ever put their name to. From there on in, the album goes through a variety of fits and starts before descending into anticlimax.

The narrative and sonic stylings of these songs have the aesthetic qualities of intimate music, but Snaith’s anonymous intonations, sometimes bathed in layers of muddy distortion, hold the listener at a frustrating distance. Like the album’s artwork it advertises transparency, but delivers only more obscurity.

Voivod have a hardcore following and for most, this much anticipated album will be received with adoration. For the rest of us, it's to be hoped that with relatively new bandmate in Mongrain, this is a transient moment before they head off to fight new battles.

Harmonicraft often strays into pastiche when they attempt to cling on to their past, but comes into its own when it strides confidently into new realms.

Grinderman 2 RMX provides an enjoyable enough distraction but ultimately this is a collection of material that would have worked better as an EP rather than an album.

As Compton progresses, it rarely seems to shift out of second gear, evidently favouring laid back grooves and sparse production over aggressive break beats and G-Funk swagger. All the while an almost listless lyrical style on occasion provides a narrative, or lack thereof.... Cynicism aside, there are moments of brilliance here.

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.

Blake may have dispensed with some of the more experimental and emotionally obtuse trappings of his debut album on Overgrown in an attempt to engage more directly with a wider audience, but his intentions are all but drowned out by a thick glass porthole being hammered on feverishly by a dozen drowning onlookers.

The lack of immediacy isn't Vile's biggest problem here: it might seem trivial, but Wakin On A Pretty Daze is his first release that doesn't improve upon his last.

For the most part Hiss Spun comprises what can be succinctly described as downtempo dirges with a handful of diversions. ... Whether this reliance on slow burners is a good thing will largely depend on your appetite for diversity. Arguably the weakest aspect of Hiss Spun is the hit-and-miss nature of its ability to land blows to your gut--a goal which tends to be fundamental to music of this stripe.

Despite its best intentions, Straight Songs Of Sorrow is an album that would’ve worked considerably better as a well-pruned EP. As it stands, there’s too much intent and not enough delivery to maintain attention throughout its sprawling running time.

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.

Tyler's latest album remains ambiguous and uncertain, however.

Gainsborough seems to be testing not only what his crude instrumentation can withstand, but also his listeners. For all the physical exertion though, the album sounds surprisingly sexless and apathetic at times.

Most of the album sounds like a kaleidoscope of every “indie” rock archetype, to the point that, whilst it's never debatable that Monomania is a Deerhunter record, you still find yourself thinking of Silversun Pickups, The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips or Arcade Fire, not necessarily with positive comparisons in mind.

It's more that Kveikur feels more like an unfinished trip (through said glaciers, perhaps), where the destination is in sight, but seen only from the halfway point.

On Drunk, Thundercat aggressively grafts said humour onto his spacy throwback fusion r&b, and the results are mixed.

Senni presents not so much a cohesive album here, but rather a series of studies on a form, like Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. But not like Scarlatti’s sonatas. More like Marc-André Hamelin’s revisionist Omaggios to Scarlatti. Senni produces music with alternating measures of respect and irreverence. But the results lack emotion. Scacco Matto’s production values are modern and bright. But they don’t move me to move.

Overall i,i sounds expensive and yet – simultaneously – all too safe.

A crescendo of electronic drums and stirring strings draws Distant Satellites to a close, and leaves you with the impression that, while inconsistent and desperately overwrought on occasion, Anathema deserve to be heard out with the private members' club that is prog rock in 2014.

The issue for both Femi and Made’s records, is that they feel too conscious of both their modern international audience, and their own political weight. It feels like there is too much scaffolding and careful consideration around the tracks, and as a result, the spontaneity and freeform funkiness of afrobeat gets diluted.

It's a record that doesn't undermine their body of work, but nor does it stand out as a career-defining highlight.

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.

When Brood Ma gets all his dice in a row, he comes close to nailing it. But more often than not, his attempts fall short because of their sheer hyperactivity.

They perfect the formula occasionally - penultimate track 'Swept Away' matches its name, a pillow-soft cascade of plummy bass notes and piano house, across which their voices whisper like wind - but for much of Coexist they sound halting, nervous, afraid to push beyond the boundaries they've created around their sound.

Ultimately, Hoodies All Summer sounds like it’s been ‘fixed’ by a major label trying to improve Kano’s chances of radio play by throwing some poppy hooks and production into the mix and praying for the best. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but in this case the result is simply banal.

Wahile Girls have returned brimming with confidence and enthusiasm, this record seems to overstretch them.

It's sad to report then, that Psychedelic Pill is nothing less than a crushing disappointment as it gives way to Young's most meandering and directionless tendencies.

For those that need a bit of background music The Slow Rush is a competent record, but it’s impossible to actively listen to it for a prolonged period of time without despairing. At least now that this is out, there probably won’t be another one for a few years.

Miss Anthropocene is a Kanye West of a listening experience. Strengthened by listening less hard and chilling out. Weakened by due diligence and the artist’s cerebral disconnect between what she's great at making and who she believes she is.

By the album’s end, they seem to be stuck in a cul-de-sac. The next album, one hopes, will come along soon and help them out.

This is yet another chillwave album. An album so typical of the genre that it even has the audacity to use the word "polaroid" in a lyric. What rescues it from mediocrity, however, is the flawlessly melodic melancholy of Edwards' voice.

Three good tracks [songs, "Motion Sickness," "Ends of the Earth," and "Flutes,"] do not an album make - and, unfortunately, this is the sum of the worthwhile moments on In Our Heads. Elsewhere the album is pure drudgery, remarkable only in its dullness.

At times things get messy and sound a lot like Ferreria and her various producers totally forgot what was going on ('Omanko' & 'Kristine') but these moments do a great job of hammering home the fact that the record clearly wasn't signed off by someone with a seasoned commercial agenda.

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.

Though their sound is undoubtedly unique, their music has become formulaic.

Ultimately, nothing hangs together long enough to enable a consistent or enjoyable listening experience.

Mother finds the band tremendous on all fronts, but the rabid, manic excitement of ‘Only Love’ overshadows everything else. There are no other moments on the record like it, nothing as intensely unhinged or exciting. However lovely and affecting the rest of the record is, as it drifts further and further into more serene climes, the spectre of this extraordinary early blast grows in the back of your mind, and you're willing them to let go of their beautiful refinement just one more time.

Given the rigid stylistic direction of Meliora overall, Ghost seem to be writing for the expectations of the general metal community with songs like the stock metallic chugging of 'Absolution' and the AC/DC-baiting 'Majesty'. Such safe playing prevents Meliora from being something truly special.

When the album stops playing the temptation to categorize Family and Friends as a literate Streets project or Buck 65 with a flair for topic sentences is irresistible. Only one song exceeds the five-minute mark, though, and most are just over two minutes, so boredom isn't a problem.

Guzo is a strange album--it feels like the record label (or management) are calling too many shots, unable to decide whether Yirga should play the Ethio-jazz which we've come accustomed to through the Ethiopiques series, the cool Western jazz of Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, or a fusion in-between that also includes soul and Caribbean flavours.

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.

Bloom is in part brilliant but maddeningly safe and, ultimately, is a decidedly unsatisfying listen.

Seabed never really gets out of first gear. The general vibe given off is that of a teenager moping about in his bedroom, albeit one with the skills to emote through slick, well-produced pop music.

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.

The album is by no means horrible, just disappointing and repetitive, chock full of revamped old school rhythms that don’t have the gratifying content to match. A good handful of songs--‘When Cats Claw’, ‘Since C.A.Y.A’, ‘Fine Ass Hairdresser’, ‘Julian’s Dream’, ‘Moon Whip Quäz’ and ’30 Clip Extension’--deserve to be judged independently.

To The Bone exposes and splinters insular communities and their ideas of elitism. But by observing the album through this prism alone, its real nature is obscured--that of a flawed and powerless homage.

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

The album is by no means horrible, just disappointing and repetitive, chock full of revamped old school rhythms that don’t have the gratifying content to match. A good handful of songs--‘When Cats Claw’, ‘Since C.A.Y.A’, ‘Fine Ass Hairdresser’, ‘Julian’s Dream’, ‘Moon Whip Quäz’ and ’30 Clip Extension’--deserve to be judged independently.

The eleven tracks here are life-affirming and motivational, from the evocative mother and daughter scaling a mountainous landscape on the cover, to the big beats that pervade This Is What We Do. The problem with the album as a listening experience is that it lacks a change of pace.

Despite the high quality of the arrangements, the orchestration and the recording as a whole, it is a bit too much at once. A case of less would have been more.

For every instance on III set to give the listener an aural acid bath, there are nearly as many that might induce a snooze on the bus, and a dribble on your neighbouring passenger's shoulder.

There are moments when Clarietta breaks from being the wallflower at the indie disco, and lets fly with a few carefree windmills.

Akin to scrolling down a Tumblr dashboard, A.L.L.A as a whole lacks coherence but features some impressive displays of aestheticism.

As the title of the soporific, sunbleached skank that is 'LO HI' suggests, 'Lucifer' is more a subdued warm bath of than a plunge into the psyche.

This is a timid stand for a band who've made a career out of courageously embracing their fears.

Instead of a coherent collection of songs, Animal Joy feels like a series of very clever blueprints that, while admirable in form, are often (despite that title), rather bloodless.

Boys And Girls is a somewhat predictable trawl through the back catalogues of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Stax Records, Janis Joplin and the recorded output of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios amongst others, but with none of the grit, passion or emotion.

Unfortunately, Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance is the net effect of an effort that goes nowhere at all; and this deviation appears furtive, as if they're trying to hide their beloved quirks from an expanded audience.

Hype and arrogance created Watch the Throne and stifled the creative revelation it could have been. It would be nice if that could serve as a kind of lesson for the hip hop world, but somehow that seems unlikely.

All too often the album lacks the requisite light and shade to make for a consistently enjoyable listen.

Intermittently enjoyable, Wonderful, Glorious is unmistakably the work of Eels but unlike previous and successful meditations, their tenth album frequently feels like well-honed schtick rather than a worthwhile insight.

The second half of the album lacks the spirit of its first two transcendent tracks. ... But, for those first 19 glorious minutes, Thrice Woven skirts the eye of the storm, flitting between untrammelled power and celestial beauty with a finesse that few can match.

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.

In 2013, a Pearson Sound album would have been a great event and certainly a major step in a career already full of them, but waiting two years effectively sapped the urgency.

You'd think that with the weight of success behind her, Adele could, and would want to, do anything. Instead, she largely retreads the same paths and explores the same tones.

It may not be his finest hour, but that doesn't mean it's without value. Yes, there are both righteous highs and tedious lows, but the inspired moments are worth cherishing.

West is consistently the weak link. The musical patchwork of The Life Of Pablo is frequently--but not always--diverting in its restlessness and detail, from the abruptness with which Price is faded out on 'Ultralight Beam' to the scrawling guitars that underpin 'Feedback', probably the most straightforwardly good song on the album.

Unfortunately, with an appropriately filmic, best-part's-in-the-trailer irony, it seems like Timberlake gave away too much by making 'Suit & Tie' the first glimpse of the record. From hereon in, it's a fairly dull affair.

Certainly, Pinkshinyultrablast have their sonic template firmly in place but it's difficult to shake the feeling that without a greater focus on melody and sharper songwriting there remains a very real danger of their efforts vanishing into the haze like so many decaying chords fed through a series of delay pedals.

Mosquito may conjure a similar frenzy to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' previous three albums, but it paints a disjointed picture of the band's turbulent history, on an already messy canvass

Ultimately, Requiem is something of a mixed bag and you can’t blame a band as idiosyncratic as Goat for trying to break out. But Goat seem to be too consciously searching around for a new route forward rather than going with their instincts.

Despite this crippling reliance on traditional psychedelic touchstones, there’s certainly a few thrills to be had on the album, and things do pick up somewhat toward the second half of the work.

Devout is bold, fascinating and sweet, then, with moments of melodic brilliance and sonic mastery. But taken as a whole, the result is slightly unpalatable. As a good father Mr Mitch undoubtedly knows that too many sweets can upset the stomach. And the same logic applies to Devout: you need some some roughage to balance out the sugary treats.

It is in that setting [an art gallery], unfortunately, which appears to be the most appropriate for The Flaming Lips’ latest release as neither the story or music are dynamic enough to hold the listener’s attention over an extended period.

Recorded in Budapest with a 40-piece string orchestra in tow, the Iris soundtrack feels far too paint-by-numbers, gathering yearning strings to ebb and flow atop xeroxed prairies of arpeggiating synths. It’s muzak for gritty thrillers, maintaining a thin soup of emotion with enough colour to paint the background without muddying the foreground.

While World, You Need A Change Of Heart is pleasing in places, solid it certainly ain't.

This album falls victim to the more-is-more syndrome. It douses otherwise stronger and more distinctive songs in far more reverb and echo than it needs.

What could and should have been a coolly assured olympic plunge is instead a remarkably ungainly near-belly-flop of an album, weirdly devoid of the dense musicality, crooked charm and sheer kinetic potency which characterise Ghersi's works to date. ... The problem with KiCk i's particular brand of spontaneity is that it feels procedural and expository, rather than organic. It can seem, when the smoke clears here and there, a bit hollow.

Valtari is by no means a bad record; it's extremely easy to enjoy. It's even beautiful at times. Unfortunately, it's even easier to forget.

There are just too many occasions where Malkmus' tone bypasses droll, flies directly over kitsch, and lands way out in the rough with no hope of ever retrieving the ball.

There's something exhausting about this manic exuberance, too. All rush and almost no plateau, it's so fidgety and full of swarming textures that it wears you down.

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

The results just feel like a watering down of his vision, leaving the listener in a strange hinterland which doesn’t leave much of an impression either way.

Cornelius’s mastery of the mix is still evident, but the album as a whole comes strangely across as a throwback to former glories rather than an expansion of an idiosyncratic universe.

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.

More or less everything here sounds anaemic, lacking in body, squashed, diminutive, like it could be pushed over by a strong breeze--or, worse, drowned out by light conversation on the dancefloor.

Hard Rain is not a bad album. It will very amiably sit, out of focus, in your field of vision as you do other things. It doesn’t, however, have whatever special something it needs to transcend the sense of a backwards referent.

With little meat on the bones, it's difficult wrap your jaws around and as those occasional deep-filled prog wig-outs keep slipping away, they provide a glimmer of hope, but the doses are far too small and far too measured to have any real effect.

West of Eden is a flawed album, a patchy album, and an album with some really bad lyrics in it. But nonetheless a very fun record. It might lose its magic quickly, as most of the thrill comes from the band’s willingness to skip from genre to genre, but every so often you can forget the flaws and get lost in the many worlds it tries to create.

I feel as if it’s mostly the gathering of pieces for a record that was being constructed prior to a tragedy, with the grief itself manifesting in the abandonment of that work and this half-complete thing we get instead. Tricky is a shadow of his former self, playing the role of a shadow of his former self, which was always a selfhood in shadow.

The Family Sign commits a few of hip hop's cardinal sins and doesn't provide nearly enough justification for doing so.

Like a vivid dream melting away in the first few minutes of morning, Love Letters has an uncanny beauty, but one that remains firmly out of reach.

On the whole Body Music's tracks feel like little more than fairly unimaginative collage pieces: fifteen years of pop trends, compressed into one very indistinct style.

A few instrumental passages could have been reined in, while the misguided inclusion of the irritating 'Dark Side' is an unfortunate blight on what is, overall, a cascading and rewarding listen.

If Par Avion wasn't so clearly aiming for the cheap seats with its ideas, it would be easier to forgive its flaws and just appreciate how great these synthesisers sound, how stunningly they're utilised.

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.

A pleasant, professional offering that rarely goes anywhere you wouldn't expect it to.

This panoply of styles is both the most impressive and the most frustrating thing about Noise, the result being that only at select moments do they approach the majesty, the fists-pounding-the-ground righteousness that many have come to associate them with.

Without a single in sight, even by Outkast's loosey-goosey standards, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors feels like three or four different records surgically stitched together illicitly by some cross-eyed back alley quack.

Perhaps there's a danger here and there of Singh and Ayres getting their heads down and too deep in the blissed-out funk ... but really they just want to see what sticks. That's all they've ever tried, and most of it does.

Blues Control are no longer noisy or childishly rudimentary, at least by most avant-yardsticks. Cho, on piano and keyboards, improvises with a new deftness; Waterhouse claws back a degree of rockism with thudding boogie drums and a guitar choked with the dust of its own basement.

As it stands, Trans-Love Energies is too archival.

Their arrangements are accomplished, and even the constant falsetto vocals are tempered enough to be pleasant throughout the album, but it's difficult to discern what exactly--if anything--Jungle actually stand for.

BBF is a rare example of an album that invites both arty introspection and head nodding. Much like Blunt himself, BBF is not always easy to love. But that makes the eventual rewards even more satisfying.

The Flower Lane is far from a failed endeavour, but something special has been lost in the graduation from bedroom to studio.

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.

While the album itself falls short. The ambition is admirable, but what makes the songs commendable is their refusal to thrive. They are deeply melancholic. There's a focus on Rothman's drug addiction itself rather than the desire to resolve it, a resignation to dying rather than a desire to learn how to live.

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

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.

Sadly Arabia Mountain's residual nastiness and speed is pretty much gone, replaced by slow tempos and weird deviations. It's experiments with synths and disco beats that cause some of the record's truly worst moments.

With its slow-disco hi-hat and splashy snares, 'Ma bien aimée bye bye' sets a sedate groove that the rest of the album never quite picks up. There's no irresistible '80s soul-funk like 'Girlfriend', nor a sprightly dance-routine-friendly hit like 'Tilted'. Instead, the pace is usually and resolutely stately.

Profound Mysteries III is decidedly weirder and slower, allowing the band to explore the leftfield theatrics and grittiness intrinsic to the best side of their sound. Yet there are plenty of moments where bombastic pomp overshadows this restraint. ... All in all, a mixed bag.

Feel The Sound, their first album since 2007, boasts the kind of incremental shifts in emphasis that no one but fans will savour.

There are some enjoyable tunes on here that might appeal to the curious who lost track of Pollard and GBV over the years. But the numerous less riveting, just-a-bit-too derivative, run of the mill rock songs will leave even newcomers with the feeling that they've heard it all before.

There are flourishes that hint the singer is still capable of reaching those heights in pop that few ever reach, moments when she still sounds like she’s actually having a good time recording the songs. Unfortunately, these moments are all too fleeting. When Hurts 2B Human works, its great. It reminds you why Pink is such a big star. When it doesn’t, it hurts.

This album, for all of its sharp musicianship and the ever-brilliant play-off between vocalists Greg Barnett and Tom May, just doesn't capture the gravity of its predecessor.

While With Love is an ambitious and entertainingly composed undertaking, offering glimpses into Zomby’s varied inspirations, it can still be frustratingly piecemeal and somewhat self-indulgent.

Where 2008’s Rubbed Out and 2014’s Await Barbarians saw him reconfiguring Hot Chip’s understated synth-soul with impressive results, Beautiful Thing bears the outline of transition rather than bold progress.

Whales And Leeches ultimately fails to capitalise upon or recapture the spirit of their previous releases.

Bossalinis & Fooliyones is, at worst, an amiable enough diversion, at best it's very entertaining.

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.

The Classic is a flawed piece of work, no doubt; overly cluttered and in sore need of reining in at times, it suffers for the hubris of its title. But when Wasser hits the sweet spot, as she does on 'Ask Me', 'Get Direct' and its ebullient centrepiece, she hits it with conviction.

All in all, though, a sort of affectlessness emerges here as one songs blend all too smoothly since, not unlike an automated playlist, the whole becomes less than the sum of its parts.

On the bright side, at least it isn't as bad as Yuck.

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's only at this point, ["Incredible Exhausted Bunny Ears"]... that Transistor Rhythm actually feels vital, resulting in in a luscious closing suite to an otherwise arid record.

It’s a mixed affair, with moments of excellence interspersed with filler over a sprawling twenty-two tracks. The production is a strongpoint on FlySiifu’s, with fourteen different producers making a contribution across the project. Most of the beats are dreamy and relaxed, almost merging into one another such that the album frequently feels like one long, continuous melody.

In its loose instrumentation and sometimes confused layers (and some questionable lyrics) it does sound noticeably like a side-project from start to finish, and that it was written and recorded in a hurry. There is magic in that of course, but you do feel that is not the way to coax out Finn's A-grade material.

While there are undoubtedly a number of interesting tracks here, it is debatable how well they work together. With judicious editing U & I could have made a truly killer E.P

The album is at its best when the margins are jammed full--tinny tambourine here, guitar feedback there, a wash of cellos dipping into the mix.

Belle And Sebastian fans have long ago learned to take the rough with the smooth and the quality control on The Third Eye Centre is all over the shop. The odd flashes of wonder within show they're still not a lost cause though.

Inter Alia is a disappointing return to the saddle, expressed with awkward confidence and bravado by the band seemingly misremembering itself.

Overall, Madonna’s fourteenth album Madame X feels as if Mirwais had mostly completed a decent run-of-the-mill modern pop record, albeit with a cool hotch-potch global feel; hip nods in place to fado, dub and other micro-genres dunked amongst the trap and retro disco. But then just before sign-off, Herself went through the top-lines with a sharpie. ... None of these carefully curated flourishes feel as if they truly live inside the ‘whole’ of this music. Instead it all feels plonked on top of a template.

It is not even sprawling and directionless but just painstakingly mediocre throughout.

Lantern still shows clear signs of the producer attempting to find his feet, if at times faltering.

Anything In Return feels again like the work of an artist still exploring his sound and yet to pin it down to something concrete.

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

Wild Strawberries is an enjoyable record and there are some interesting moments, it's just that the overall sound sort of politely hangs in the background with not much cutting through the haze.

The result is something of a mixed bag: moments of tender and enduring beauty broken up by landfill indie pop with a French accent.

Padding the album with ambient interstitials would be a forgivable peccadillo were the other songs seriously weighty--after all, even Kid A had 'Treefingers'--but the remaining seven tracks can themselves come off as a little half-baked.

Trimming back their signature embellishments leaves an album that strangely is more focused sonically, but somehow aimless in intention.

As a whole Pre-Language appears a little unfulfilled--a whole lot of build up, with minimal release

Make no mistake, this record sounds amazing... But in choosing to stick to classic song structures rather than utilise their incredible sound technology to explore the experimental avant-garde, or to make killer dance tracks, A Place To Bury Strangers run the risk of all their songs sounding pretty much the same.

It's SMD's overstated attempt to take the listener on a journey that is the album's drawback. In the end Whorl feels overlong, and the excitement and variation of the first two thirds of the album eventually dissipates into a somnolent slog.

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.

Mind Of Mine is an impressive enough debut, with excellent, laidback production and assured vocals. It's lyrically stunted, it's too long, and the overall sound is not starkly original, but the subtle elements of South Asian sounds set a promising tone of fusion.

It is not boring. It is not that good. It is simply meh. The epitomeh of meh.

While in a way this record sums up everything the Cribs are about, it fails to foreground their most exciting aspects.

In many ways Sub-Lingual Tablet is, like any Fall album will be, a stranger and superior record than most released in any given year. But by The Fall's own standards, this time that's just not good enough.

'Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart' goes some way to harking back to their former glories but moments like these are in all too short supply.

Re-recording one's old songs in an older style isn't a revolutionary manoeuvre.... Kylie's addition to the tradition is also a fairly mixed bag.

That Four is laced with some of the band's hands-down strongest work, then, makes its weaker moments and occasional in-your-face insistence all the more grating.

The combination of Eno's obsession with stasis and his attachment to novelty for its own sake does the album in.

Wrangler sounds neither like a Mallinder solo project (which of course they don't want to be) nor like your average electronic jam band (which they are pretending to not want to be either). If White Glue is a dance album, it only succeeds half of the time. If it is something else, it is not clear what exactly.

The album requires the exact right mood and setting and even then it fails to become much more than pleasant background music.

Nothing on Comedown Machine really sounds natural either; it comes across awkward, hollow, like dead-chemistry trying listlessly to spark.

For such a self-avowed perfectionist, and judged against the admittedly high standards of his magnum opus, it comes up a little short.

The result is that you're having fun--on tracks like the stellar title-track and the popping candy overload of 'Let Me Show You Love' you can't help it--but increasingly it feels hollow... almost kitsch, and deep down you know that you, and the band, can really do better.

There are some genuinely fun, compelling moments of music, some striking lyrics, and the smattering of modern electronic dance sounds definitely livens things up. But at an hour long, it feels too convoluted: lacking in cohesion and, ultimately, too devoid of specific intent.

There's very little to be found within From The Very Depths to warrant repeat plays, and it's safe to say when the dusk mercifully settles on Venom (or on 2015, for that matter), this clumsy attempt at modern metal will not be remembered.

It needed to be a Blackstar, not a The Next Day Part 2. Instead we're left with a lightweight affair that reminds us all that John Carpenter is far from infallible.

It'll be comforting to know that Plaid certainly haven't 'lost it', that said they haven't strayed far enough outside their comfort zone in order to do so.

More of the same, then, but a productive kind of dead-end, clichés run hard into the ground.

Unfortunately, therein lies the biggest problem with Joanne: for every time that Gaga seemingly breaks free of her shackles and embraces something more “real,” she quickly scuttles back into her comfort zone and hides behind glistening production. This probably isn’t quite the sound of the real Stefani Germanotta, but if you squint hard enough there’s a semblance of a real person in amongst the pop haze.

Perhaps its on-the-hoof, anomalous nature is the source of a sense that High Hopes, though good, doesn't feel either like a set of surprising others sides or quite as cohesive or great as the title of 'new Springsteen album' (as opposed to say 'iTunes bonus tracks', or 'B-side collection', which might have been more fitting categories) might demand.

Ultimately, Hexadic is more compelling as a concept than a piece of music, and few folks are likely to follow Chasny deep into the record's blistering hot core more than a couple times.

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.

After such an imposing start, the rest of My Love Is A Bulldozer was bound to struggle to keep the standards up, but even with this in mind, it's a confusing and muddled album.

Theoretically there’s enough variety here to take Bolan’s songs in the many and varied directions they deserve. The results, however, are mixed enough to ensure that debates about Bolan’s place in the canon of greatness will continue.

There was a time when Primal Scream were considered essential, an acclaimed element of the indie rock landscape, and more than anything, Chaosmosis simply confirms that those days remain firmly in the past.

It's clear that this band has focused too much on referencing and too little on songwriting.

A mixed bag then but one that will doubtless prove that one person's high will be another one's low.

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

Crush Songs certainly has the consistency of intention to draw in new listeners, but for those who love the pace and grittiness of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the end result might leave them crushing hard for the band's next record and the indefatigable side of Karen O.

It's not really until tremolo laden third track, 'Love High' that the band starts to feel familiar. But once we've gotten into familiar territory, it's clear that what's at fault is not the songs, but the recording and mixing.

One play is enough to confirm that defining moments refuse to peak through the murk.

Much of Glow is tasteful to the point of bland inoffensiveness, the sort of thing that'd suit a branch of All Bar One at half nine on a Friday night.

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.

If only perhaps, the allusions were more developed: the sound doesn’t quite manage to create or replicate the enveloping atmosphere of its influences, perhaps because the mood shifts between melancholia and languidly upbeat between tracks, and is overall driven by melodies that feel ordinary and familiar. It makes for nice listening, but by no stretch is it challenging itself, the genre or the audience.

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.

On the album's first half, everything sounds correct but lacks any intoxicating, addictive spark.... [Yet] when its mood alters, somewhere around the metal wasteland of 'Lagoon Leisure', and things start getting sinister, then Regional Surrealism becomes (finally) exciting. The record transforms into a deeply disconcerting experience, all eerie shadows and claustrophobic spaces.

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.

The Saga Continues is lacklustre. At times it ventures into sellout territory. It’s not a terrible album (maybe I’ll add a few tracks to my ‘Chill’ playlist) but it never breaks new ground and it never touches the magic of 36 Chambers. Instead, it settles in a slightly anaemic midpoint between nostalgia and commercial compromise.

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

Pixies have played it straight and stayed in their lane, their once vital weirdness cast into the laundry basket like a vampire costume post Halloween. Head Carrier is 80% classic Pixies. But it turns out the missing 20% is as fundamental as oxygen is to air.

By compartmentalising Emika as it does, DVA leaves a nagging sense that she's still selling herself a little short.

Honey, when it works at least, is the sound of piecing together the night before: a love letter to not making it home, to the Tequila salt still stuck to your hand, to hands brushing under the cover of the smoke machine. Unfortunately, half of the time, it says precisely nothing and if that unquestionable potential is to be realised, Kathleen Brien has to make a choice.

Grinderman 2 RMX provides an enjoyable enough distraction but ultimately this is a collection of material that would have worked better as an EP rather than an album.

Yuck aren't actually terrible, but their second album--and first since the departure of frontman Daniel Blumberg--is just eminently forgettable.

So, this is not an incredible album. But in the context TLC’s legacy- as a goodbye tour to end one of the biggest girl groups of our time--there is still something touching here.

One of the first things that jumps out at the listener, and it's something which persists throughout, is the disconnectedness between Smith and Elena Poulou in the control room, arsing about with daft voices and keyboard squiggles respectively, and the big lads at the back.

The demand for our awe at an accomplished--yet unfinished--triumph is confusing. The feeling each song inspires is indeed that of a religious service, one in which the endless standing up and sitting down leaves one a little exasperated. And fatigued.

On its own merits, it's a decent enough record with some interesting tracks on it, even if they sometimes sound like nicely turned B-sides rather than top drawer material.

No amount of street cred can make up for this mostly middling, only intermittently marvellous record.

Good intentions, interesting sounds, and a handful of great songs; compromised by an inflexible house style. It makes listening to the album from start to finish an experience that is occasionally rewarding – especially with a decent set of headphones – but ultimately, well … trying.

There are moments when Soft Hills' sound slight; even middle-of-the-road bland. But there's a beguiling soulfulness and a darkness to this record that will seep into your heart if you give it a chance.

Meteorites is still, on initial blush, like all those other albums from Evergreen onward, "the new album from," a reliable entry but not a jawdropper.

Is Walking On A Dream the sound of things to come then? Clearly not. Empire Of The Sun's grand ambitions are certainly worth applauding, but unfortunately they amount to nothing more than a cold and pale facsimile of the superior conquests of others who have trod these lands before.

There are moments where she reminds us that she can still do wonderful things, but for the most part, Artpop shows us an artist who is trying to do too much all at once.

With occasional flashes of their previous excellence, Spine Hits has too many drab moments to make this anything other than their weakest work yet by far.

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

What really makes Sheezus so frustrating, though, is that among the dross there are some genuinely interesting tracks here.

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.

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.

Each featured artist at the top of their games, masterfully dominating their segments, leagues above Tha Carter IV's comparatively tired host.

It's not all bad, and sometimes the reverse is true, with the strings the best thing about the track; the opening figure from 'A+E' is very pretty and the violin rising up in 'Cologne' is melodious and elegant, but they both give way to more of the electro-flotsam.

The fact that BE is patchy, and solid rather than surprising in its best spots, you have to put down to a failure of nerve or drive. It's not Different Gear, Still Shit, but it is nowhere near as exciting as it might have been.

It's not that Thicke can't carry a tune. It's that he thinks that having songs that smoulder with sex appeal a la Luther Vandross, Boyz II Men or Barry White means that you have to degrade woman and boast about how your penis is bigger than the next fella's.

Ultimately, The Endless River is another Floyd album about the inability to communicate--it doesn't "say anything" or "go anywhere", but maybe that's the point. While it's unlikely to win the band many new admirers, the casual Floyd fan will find much to enjoy here.

Even without the cushy padding of Welcome to: Our House's clutch of Alex da Kid, AraabMuzik, and Hit-Boy beats, No Love Lost predictably sounds an awful lot like everything else on the radio.

It might be better to think of Hotel Sessions as a surviving collection of demos and rarities rather than a planned project. Handled in this way, the album begins to exude at least some charm.

If there's one problem with this pop/rap hybrid it is the skittish way she sometimes departs from the beat, losing her flow in EDM choruses or radio friendly R&B pop hooks. Iggy is strongest when she welds her words to a minimal yet delectable bass boom, spelling out her name with mischievous exaggeration.

The one-paced nature of the album ensures that it fails to hold the attention throughout, with the mind frequently dipping in and out of the record, and the suspicion lingers that I Declare Nothing would work better as a pair of EPs and some judicious pruning.

Most of the songs flatline – ambient, rambling soundscapes that are largely indistinguishable...It's no coincidence that the briefest songs, when Syd really gets down and makes her personality felt, are also some of the best.

For the majority of Hymns' runtime Russell decides to play it safe and prop up Kele's uninspired musings like he's just another programmable component of an increasingly polished, synthetic entity. That the two longstanding partners can still lock together so seamlessly musically is nice and all, but it also highlights the essential ingredient missing from this half-baked album: chaos.

Excuse My French so blatantly plunders rap radio's past and present that once one stops expecting anything original there's little left to do than mentally catalog the references. Yet while French Montana isn't doing anything new, he's also not doing anything wrong.

Even the most hardcore of Yes fans may forget that this exists in a couple months.

A curious listen, Sounds From Nowheresville is akin to having your memory wiped at exactly the same moment an experience is stored in the brain.

It feels like he's taking a step back; his covers album is livelier and more creative than this, perhaps because it didn't feel the need to live up to anything.

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