In their quest for paper, The Roots have lost their way.

A patchy, flawed effort.

KW's album can only be thought of as even remotely good while we don't have a young, hungry KRS One, RZA, Rakim Allah, Gift of Gab or Ol Dirty Bastard to challenge him.

Despite its many wondrous moments, 'Feels' is not a record for everyone.

It is undeniable that they can produce beautiful sounds with their equipment, it's just that they do not seem to be able to orchestrate it to any purpose afterwards.

It's painstakingly layered and often lush, but sometimes scrubby and miserably sparse.

They actually sound like they've elected to live in a cocoon full of aromatic candles, a huge collection of musty records, some drugs, some books, and a collection of mid eighties Peel sessions alphabetically labelled on TDK C90s.

'Love' is trying to be all things to all people and suffers for its lack of ruthlessness and direction.

The trouble is, the much-lauded braggadocio of 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' is hollow.

About as disappointing a follow-up as you could ever imagine.

Whether this is an album that actually suits them is another matter, but it actually makes them feel entirely relevant and, for as prolific a decade-old band, that’s high praise indeed.

'Panda Park' is a strange record, though whether you think it's any good or not depends on your tolerance levels.

Most of the time 'Lowedges' is so laid-back in Hawley's well-bedded-in, Fifties crooner way, it almost buries itself.

Not, perhaps, the hugest of leaps from 'The Noise Made By People', granted, but that album, fine though it was, was very much parking on specific continental territory; 'Ha Ha Sound', by contrast, feels like it wants to explore somewhere more bearingless.

Interpol prove themselves to be men on a mission to take us back to a time when long faces and even longer overcoats were de rigeur for alpha males the musical world over.

Whereas previously his songs felt carefully and beautifully crafted, here he seems content to merely plunder a whole host of archaic musical styles and immerse himself in self-congratulatory jams, and a result you end up with a less than satisfying hotchpotch of songs.

This is a rather stronger record than [Daft Punk's] on the whole, even if it likewise suffers from flaws in execution.

This is no whimsical, fey take on folk music, rather a bold, buoyant frug with the skeletons of The Doors, Teardrop Explodes and other likeminded explorers of the stoned side.

The sonic palette here is just so relentlessly perfect that, for me, it becomes constricting and cloying.

This has little future funk, but lots of Swizz beats-styled Casio Rap and contemporary chart dancehall. Which is lame.

I usually find Shins albums grow on me slowly but surely yet after a good dozen plays I feel my faith isn't being repaid this time, and as a fan that's frustrating.

Despite occasional thrills, for all The Twilight Sad's epic ambition and admittedly accomplished sound, this is a hollow record that struggles to fully transcend its influences.

There is much to get teeth-grindingly irritated about with this album.

There's definitely something horrid, hairy and horrendously hippyish hobbling these lovely boys.

Too often tracks drag us down below the high standard an artist like Beck Hanson has set himself. Red Hot Chili Peppers outtakes with some harmonica and vocoder balanced incongruously on top are frankly not good enough.

'Cassadaga' is much less of a draining emotional journey for both chief player and listener alike than Bright Eyes previous work.

They've got better stuff in them, we believe, but, meanwhile, 'The Power Out''s strictly a forty watt affair.

There are moments of brilliance here, sure... but there are a few too many weak skits and a few too many weak tracks here to make this anything other than a mildly cool summer thang, and summer is, like totally over now.

The whole experience becomes rather draining after a few listens.

The question is: do you actually need another disc like this, given that it doesn't quite have that sense of otherness that Boards of Canada have in spades, or that sound-as-texture that Aphex Twin utilised so sumptiously on 'Richard D James', or Amon Tobin's truly forward looking drum programming.

Lyrically, things are mainly annoying, although there are a few bits of amusing storytelling, and some interesting couplets.

The lyrics, insincere as they are, grate somewhat, but the spastic grove cannot be denied they're a bit like a pervy, conservative Devo, with more earwax.

'Happiness In Magazines' is likely to make you smile, and may even have you remembering a bygone era when Blur provided the soundtrack.

Only problem is, though, Ladytron still sound too self-consciously detached and robotic for us to view this as a great leap forward.

Much of 'Trust' dallies down the dark end of the street, where graceful Velvet Undergroundisms lounge around sharing tabs with gentle folk implosions.

Whereas 2001's 'Confield' often felt like a thankless task 'Draft 7.30' is often, by Autechre standards at any rate, a much more welcoming beast.

Almost everything about 'Kicking The National Habit' is righteously unfashionable.

This album is bollocks. Not the bollocks, mind, just plain old fashioned middle-American bollocks, the sort of 70s, vaguely psychedelic-tinted, vaguely funkdefied bollocks that Lenny Kravitz and old school MTV made their own.

'Apropa't' sounds as organic as a dump and as lush as a drizzly sunset.

Sandoval has a voice quite unlike almost any other and perfectly suited to stark, narcoleptic laments, which is what this, with a couple of curious-if-brief instrumental diversions, delivers on a regular basis.

Repeated listens draw out its infinite flaws, its awful smugness, and remind you that were this not A Radiohead Album it would have been consigned to the pile marked 'Not A Patch On Aphex Twin' last week.

A decent album, then. But one containing an EP that would've had us going "!!!!!".

A decidedly schizophrenic experience, if a frequently beautiful and, at the very least, relentlessly promising one.

For those who looked forward to the new genre-leading direction in downbeat dance that would come with the next Massive Attack album... well, let's just say the major challenge you'll face with '100th Window' is deciding whether there is a hidden track or that 'Antistar' is really a 22-minute song with an excessively long silent bit in the middle.

In isolation you can imagine any of these songs may have appeared over the last 10 years giving a warm comforting feel, but listened in its entirety the effect is strangely soporific, a steady morphine drip running from start to end.

The Sea And Cake are ultimately an infuriatingly inoffensive band.

It sounds like a dog howling over a Sepultura record. No, worse. It sounds like Fred Durst.

Nearly every line contains a shock, a sharp intake of breath. To say this album is worth more as a social document than a musical one is no insult.

On a first listen it sounds very long. On a second listen it sounds just like the eponymous debut, with the odd anthem missing. On a third listen we have to concede there are some fine moments.

These songs are full to the brim with ideas and a charming naivety - but there's a major hurdle that ultimately compromises the enjoyment: the vocals.

You'd probably want Missy to wash her hands before she got anywhere near a real kitchen if this album is anything to go by. The perv.

And so it goes on sonic cliche after awful lyrics after terrible synth settings after lazy drum beats after... well, you get the picture.

Musically there's nothing on 'Stars of CCTV' that stands out as particularly innovative or imaginative[;] it's above average modern indie fare made with gusto by people who want to make records that sound like the records they like: The Clash, The Specials, The Verve and a bunch of other bygone Britpoppers.

They still sound as spunky and powerful as they were nearly two decades ago when they kicked off this long-term assault on American culture.

Whereas their debut album 'Good Health' saw the unlikely and frankly scary collision of Fuzazi and Rocket From The Crypt, 'The New Romance' leans resolutely on the emo-punk side.

'Crazy Itch Radio' bumbles along with mid-paced beats and, it seems, too many disparate influences to really hold together.

So as sturdy and rocking as 'The Indian Tower' is, it never quite lets you into its world, though if you manage to break on through they're likely to bore you to death by reading Guitarist Monthly aloud and swapping Gary Moore tablature like Pokemon cards.

Disappointing, frustrating and exhausting, 'Astronomy For Dogs' finds a band trying too hard to cram too much into one sitting.

There are some fillers on 'Shootenanny!' like 'Rock Hard Times', which means it's never going to be an absolute classic, but it's good to hear E is suffering a little less despair than he's been forced to tolerate in the past.

The Information is as creative, tuneful and interesting as you could wish from an established artist.

Obie is, underneath all Eminem's bullshit, a nice emcee, old school, so when Em gives him a beat with some soul, he comes through.

If 2004's 'A Ghost Is Born' was an experimental step too far then 'Sky Blue Sky' finds a band regressing tamely in to Dad-rock. Wilco need to rediscover that middle ground that suits them so well.

A lap or two behind many of the albums it seemingly aspires to be (Cat Power, Radiohead, Fiona Apple and Elliott Smith comparisons have been made before and seem almost invited) 'Knives...' still has enough personality and original thought to shield it from accusations of simple derivation.

It's a mastery of creating fantastic dirges, then manipulating them into slithering beasts backed by tight drums, precise guitar scratches, and Dunis' quavering vocals that rescues 'We're Animals'.

Where they used to be more wild and interesting they seem to have mellowed with age.

‘Up At The Lake’ lifts the best bits from pop’s past and melds them into a largely agreeable, but ultimately underwhelming, classic rock album.

As a whole, the album feels less definite, less driven, than the 'Want…' albums, which is both a strength and a weakness.

The lack of a linear structure results in the individual songs banging against each other logjam-style, with the unfortunate effect that 'Fab Four Suture' begins to grate.

There's way too much power balladry, rawk guitar, Steven Tyler and MTV-by-numbers to make a genuinely stand-out record.

It's slinky, suave chill-out music, gently exotic, best listened to lounging on throws amongst cushions.

It's a clever, chic and defiantly underground record, alright, but it's guilty of trying too hard when clearly it doesn't need to.

The choice, folks, is all yours. Would you like The Thrills? Or would you prefer some excitement instead?

There is no doubt [Martin] has talent, but there are just too many retreads, too many regurgitated ideas, and no fire, no raw anger, no big hairy bollocks.

The 'Idlewild' experience is mostly regrettable and one that will leave you feeling cheated.

There is no New here.

Many tunes possess an open, spacious quality, as if waiting for the jigsaw’s last piece.

There is, undoubtedly, something impressive in the craft and detail of Plaid’s labours, but the whole lacks an intangible something to lodge their 'Spokes' securely in our hearts.

The production is simplicity itself, and by the end you won't remember 'Remember Today' from 'Every Stitch', and you won't know whether 'End To Begin' is at the beginning or the end, or even in the middle.

Despite their reputation for distinctiveness parts of 'The Tipping Point' feel distinctly under par by the Roots own high standards suggesting that the departures of MC Malik B (Slacks) and human beatboxers Scratch and Rahzel have, in some ways, led to a successive narrowing down of the range of the Roots' previously loose and eclectic sound.

If 2002's 'High Society' found them honing their nascent pop sense then this effort finds the New York trio sounding almost too cool for their own good.

The album suffers from serious momentum problems. You get something that hammers in a good and interesting way and then a few minutes later it's like the tap of a blue tit's beak on a milk bottle top.

Even on repeated listens, the search for the showy dazzle of The Killers, the lyrical tomfoolery of the Kaiser Chiefs or the sheer stadium smartness of Franz Ferdinand proves fruitless, and it becomes apparent that, in an age where indie's proving to be the stronghold of overachievers, 'Cuts Across The Land' may have missed its moment.

It's a joy to listen to but tough to recommend.

Great album though this is in it's own right, the failing of 'The Endless Not' is that it just sounds like it's happy to play safe. No shocks, no surprises... and , sadly, none of what made TG arguably, together with the Sex Pistols, THEE most important force in the evolution of modern popular music.

Offers the sound of Stereolab doing what they do best. Love it or hate it, it won't alter the world, it just is.

See, there're a good few cracking singles on here, but there are also occasions when her wistful classicism leads her down blind alleys.

As an exercise in hubris and chutzpah it's a rather fascinating affair.

A collection of rehashed moments from his brilliant though patchy career, a sowed together patchwork of pastiche.

It's all hugely ridiculous, of course, but executed with a surprising amount of passion.

'Baby 81' sees a band lose focus from what made them tick in the first place.

'Trading...' may be better than we had any right to expect, but the fact remains that there's nothing here that would've catapulted him to public consciousness were it not for his astuteness and the Donnie Darko connection.

It's like a thicker, dirtier Good Charlotte.

This is a record that brattily demands total attention, and as such, will either be lauded as a bold journey, or derided as pretentious indulgence.

There are too few ideas here to really make 'Keep On Your Mean Side' worth our devotion.

Think Pavement with a shake of Grandaddy and a little dash of something else low-key and lackadaisical and that's Quasi.

More often than not displays a penchant for melody and tension which would shame many of the new millennium's pop pups.

The problem is, whilst the debut had more hooks than a fishing rod sandwich, this just doo-wop-yawn, the sort of nursery rhymes kids never remember.

When 'A Drug Problem That Never Existed' is at its best, briefest and most brutish, it's a cracking piece of work indeed; daft, dirty and, in many ways, devilish.