‘Blood, Hair and Eyeballs’ is a level, if somewhat uninteresting, addition to the Alkaline Trio lexicon. Fans will find pockets of the band they fell in love with, while less seasoned followers may be better served diving deeper into the back catalogue instead.

For those to whom Courtney’s songwriting is a soothing balm, there is plenty to like here - but there’s a sense of creative inertia that means it’s a difficult record to truly love.

Fans will hear echoes of his best work, but for most this is a stale, uninspired outing for the legendary figure.

For the most part, it’s instead a case of either too much, or not enough. By stripping the layers back and presenting the songs in a wholly straightforward manner - slick, with Julie’s voice centered as if she’s embarking on a perfect three-minute pop song - flaws appear where they shouldn’t exist.

Their formula is tastefully broken up by frantic drums on ‘CRACK METAL’, unsettling synths on ‘HATEFUL’ and the twisted pop of ‘ASHAMED’ that soars with the most memorable chorus on the record. Unfortunately, that chorus is an outlier on an album that can wash past with as much staying power as candyfloss in a puddle.

Weak and boring are never words we’d have ever thought apply to Poppy’s music, but alas here we are – hoping for the ‘Zag’ to come.

‘Defeat’ alone clocks up a gargantuan 22 minutes runtime. Similarly, ‘Magicians From Baltimore’ could have been a wonderfully tight piece but overstays its welcome at almost 10 minutes. Still, the blissed-out, spage age ‘Genie’s Open’ and the funky prog of ‘Gem & I’ provide at least a partial argument in favour.

‘End of the Day’ feels like a long, slow goodbye to her old life; elegant and, given the context, elegaic.

Yes, ‘Club Romantech’ is fun, albeit superficially - supercharged by pulsating house that would perhaps be irresistible only under very specific, very inebriated conditions in 2012.

There’s a solid background of obviously skilled musicianship on fifth LP ‘One Man Band’, but even on the snarl of ‘Never Taking Me Alive’, it all feels very safe.

A record which clearly finds contentment in its sonic solitude.

For a record titled ‘Messy’ it could ironically do with being a little less neat and tidy.

Where the distinctly Strokes-y melancholy of ‘Dead Air’, or the darker stalk of the Matt Helders-featuring ‘Thoughtful Distress’ succeed, others (‘Home Again’, ‘Old Man’) are throwaway jangles that feel like AHJ-by-numbers.

Homely and familiar in its sound for the most part, ‘My Mind Wanders…’ is a smooth ride of buttery emotional grandiosity and infectious London pop that sits somewhere between Paloma, Adele and Jess Glynne, with enough attitude and bravery to modernise these prevailing and reliable British tropes within soul-pop.

There’s a perfectly fine indie-rock record here, if only it were a little less obfuscated by an aim it doesn’t quite achieve.

‘Drop Cherries’ may be a soothing depiction of a relationship’s simple moments, but this simplicity does leave the listener wanting more, and its poignancy often lacks any punch.

The electronic beat of ‘METALIZM’, with its winding guitars and chanting vocals echoing their melody verbatim, comes over a little too recent-era Muse than anyone needs. But what, on the surface, is mostly a fun, noisy collection does also offer an infinite rabbit hole to dive down.

Like many other soundtracks, ‘Fantasy’ creates a mood - nostalgic; euphoric - and there’s a clear thread throughout that ties these thirteen tracks together. But soundtracks are also often intended to feature in the background, and ultimately ‘Fantasy’ too easily fades into it.

Expectations [are] built by her collaborators - who aided artists like Dua and Kylie in carving revered pop niches - weigh detrimentally on the record: it doesn’t push itself nearly as far. Yet, undeniably, it’s a dependable, invigorating debut.

A mish-mash of sounds, picked up magpie-style to create something which consistently skirts the line between warm and distant, familiar and disconcerting, hypnotic and, well, irritating.

It’s all washed over with a layer of fuzz, the distorted sound making it impossible to discern precisely what’s going on - which is, one would imagine, precisely the point.

At times, their ambition really clicks into place (the euphoric bounce of ‘Smoking Weed Alone’, for example), but at others, it feels a bit muddled. Their ambition is undoubtedly to be applauded, but this one’s a bit of a mixed bag.

There are plenty of good ideas across ‘Suckerpunch’. It just could’ve done with fewer bad ones.

The LA quintet’s third album doesn’t quite explode as much as it hopes to, though a few songs threaten to, largely the acid-tongued, grinding ‘Roadkill’ and the vintage-sounding title track.

‘(self-titled)’ is Vegemite: the same, but different. When he strips it right back - ‘Prior Warning’, with its bleak reminiscing reflected by a sonic hark back to the London scene in which he made his early name, and the stark ‘Dangerous Game’, where Marcus’ voice allowed to linger for just the right amount of time - there’s a warm quality to his songwriting that seeps through.

‘Spark’ presents a jarring change: not one from that familiar warmth to icy cold, but only halfway, a sort of uncomfortable mild chill.

Its wares pick up where its predecessor left off but without adding too much extra to the mix.

The last third of the record is more streamlined, with the sweeping, subtly metallic ‘Kill Or Be Killed’ offering a welcome throwback to the days when Muse were at their best, but it’s not enough to redeem this all-too-OTT offering.