A comeback shouldn't sound this much like treading water.

It’s stuffed with generic accounts of relationships, life on the road, times with the band.

A few decent songs may be lurking behind all the sonic detritus; but perhaps they ought to ditch the multitracks and get themselves a ukulele.

The results are smoothly pallid even by their standards, the usual modes of exultant melancholy and epic sympathy exacerbated by the earnest thrumming of acoustic guitars that punctuates the familiar piano vamps.

They just sound like desperate grasps for something--anything--before the latter stages of the album slump into terminal dullness.

The results are spiritually exhausting.

When she sticks to the disco-pop staples of celebrating youth and dancing and fun, in tracks like "Young", "Live It Up" and "Live Your Life", once the energy dissipates, so do the songs, evaporating as if they never existed.

It comes across as unimaginative and rather needy when applied to the singer Johnny Lloyd;s wistful inbetweeen reminiscences of fumbled romance and aimlessly anthemic pleas for decisive direction.

Solar Power finds Lorde swapping her trademark directness for tuneless detachment.

A fond indulgence, perhaps, but there’s nothing on Déjà Vu that will take your breath away like “I Feel Love.”

Eugene Hutz’s gypsy-punk combo--a sort of Balkan-American Pogues--functions best here on galloping grooves of fiddle and accordion like the opening “Did It All” and “Break Into Your Higher Self”. But the latter, in which discontent prompts the search for a more transcendent purpose, hints at the cod-philosophising which damages Seekers And Finders.

The Courteeners are still pretty much mired in Mancunian mores on this latest album.

Too much of the album is drably formulaic, a series of gambits shuffled into passable shapes rather than memorable songs.

Track after track follows the same formula, with Newman’s subdued introductory verse swallowed by a huge, anthemic refrain that never lets up, his voice drowned in a tide of orchestra and chorus, all dialled up to 11. It’s quite frustrating.

Mostly this standard boyband fare, reheated, and topped with modern pop sprinkles. It just feels so unnecessary.

In song after song, she offers variants on the same theme, in infatuated erotic reveries of submission to bad-boy or sugar-daddy lovers with fast cars and lots of money.

"Irish" and "Jetplane" bring a late flicker of focus to the proceedings, but the band's resolute primitivism works to their detriment.

While the music has the spindly, junkie-skeletal manner of earlier releases. But the way that songs relentlessly mythologise their past is frankly wearisome at this late stage.

Arthur grossly overdoes the emotional groaning that passes for vocal expression in the album's more overwrought corners.

Felice fails to animate them in the manner of comparable storytellers like Johnny Dowd and Richmond Fontaine's Willy Vlautin, and thus leaves one's interest unignited.

The unambitious nature of Given to the Wild is all the more disappointing for the intriguing glimmers of inspiration furnished by their collaboration with Roots Manuva.

Steinman’s sonic fingerprints are all over the album--the furiously arpeggiating piano riffs (one “borrowed” from Randy Newman), the brusque guitars, the Wagnerian pomp--though it is Loaf’s stagey delivery, with that juddering vibrato, which dominates songs.

Rather than imitating 2011, Inflorescent instead brings to mind the summer of 2013, overwhelmed as it is by a neutered disco-funk sound reminiscent of Daft Punk’s inescapable “Get Lucky”. Only rarely as catchy.

The occasional cut slices through the general blandness--the lilting “Shades Of Blue” is a winsome folk-pop lollop, and the Neu! motorik groove gives “For You Too” a rare drive--but overall this seems more escapist than reactive, not much help at all.

There are moments on Degeneration Street that suggest Dears' creative mainspring Murray Lightburn is hoping to effect an Arcade Fire-style vault from indie saltmines to popularity; but it's all too little, and at five albums into their career, too late for that.

F.A.M.E. is equal parts bubblebath boudoir soul and more bullish beat-driven floor-fillers, tricked out with familiar guests like Timbaland and Justin Bieber, the most lively of which is Busta Rhymes's babble-rap over the Clangers-style bleeps of "Look at Me Now".

[Lead singer] Justin Young assert[s] that he's "too self-absorbed" to be the voice of a generation. This wouldn't be so bad if the music didn't follow suit, with lumpen punk-rock grinds and spartan guitar-rock trudges.

There's an awful lot of music crammed into Plumb's 35 minutes, but it's rarely organized into the most attractive shapes - and on the few occasions it is, they alter course within seconds and head off in some less appealing direction.

The spiky guitars and stiff, jerky rhythms signal a dedication to his old band’s sound that is commendably faithful, if ultimately tiresome.

Watch the Throne is more notable for its general lack of impact. Neither as compulsively neurotic as Eminem, as languidly characterful as Snoop Dogg, nor as furiously articulate as Nas, the raps here represent a pretty mediocre, cardboard kind of throne, truth be told.

Overall: must try harder. Or appear to.

Kelly Jones seems particularly bereft of inspiration on Keep the Village Alive, with insipid lyric clichés harnessed to settings that resemble a swift rummage through an arena-rock record collection.

Rothrock does a decent job of pumping life into Blunt's material, building a song such as "Bonfire Heart" from fingerstyle guitar opening to big, exultant conclusion by way of subtle accretions. Not that he has much to play with.

There's something about the combination of their shoegazey, distorted drones and James Allan's cracked, sulky Scots brogue that leaves these tales of emotional turmoil oddly ineffectual: even at its most fancifully Spectorian, it sounds strangely insubstantial. And as with bad acting, it's not persuasive enough to make one care.

The blandness of the R&B pop-soul arrangements simply throws attention on to the repetitive narrowness of Bieber's delivery.

Dan Croll’s follow-up to Sweet Disarray suffers from a kind of creeping anonymity: immediately after hearing it, it’s virtually impossible to recollect the salient features of any track.

The sad fact about supergroups is that they are rarely the result of any musical imperative. This is painfully confirmed on the debut offering from the alliance of Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and A R Rahman, on which the assembled talents cast around for a style of their own without ever unearthing the natural chemistry on which great bands rely.

Evolve involves mostly devolving back into the hoariest of tired rock cliches (including what sounds like roto-toms), and plodding grimly towards the summer’s festivals.

It’s all a bit stiff: the methodical chording of “All This Way” lacks swing or swagger, as if too tightly corsetted, and “Take Care” displays similar restrictions applied to their keyboard-led material: the plonking piano and falsetto refrain suggest someone’s trying for Brian Wilson magic, but falling well short.

It’s fine to be influenced by one particular band, but they need to find their own voice or risk being known as little more than The 1975’s pale imitators.

The free rein afforded by this latest solo effort renders most of these 15 tracks unrecognisable as songs.

Now it's here, and it's a bit of a letdown.

It’s safely on-brand. It’s just smoother, and slower, and sloppier than before.

Despite the album’s slick production and radio-ready melodies, one wishes Pale Waves could find a more sophisticated language to express youthful enlightenment.

One hardly looks to Mary J Blige for restraint, but here the combination with David Foster’s orchestrations adds an extra layer of icing to an already sickly cake

Wildness is an attempt to return to form, but it’s an unsuccessful one.

There’s a dispiriting aridity about The Mountain Will Fall, which lacks the joyous eclecticism of DJ Shadow’s earlier albums.

The result is a series of half-formed, indifferently performed tracks on which even gifted guitarist Hugh Harris struggles to locate the inspired touches that made Konk so impressive.

The riffs throughout this album are catchy enough to keep the beanie heads nodding along. But producer Travis Barker (Blink 182) repeatedly fills out the sound to the extent that the exposing angularity required to express true anxiety is lost.

Depeche Mode's weakest album in some while.

He doesn't care whether you want it or not, he's going to do it anyway. And How to Compose... confirms that he undoubtedly still loves music. The problem is, it's usually somebody else's music,

One step forward, two steps backward: having produced perhaps his best album with 2014’s Carry On The Grudge, Jamie T is at best stationary, and often retrograde, on Trick.

Eminem belittles the trauma of a then 26-year-old Ariana Grande for kicks on “Unaccommodating” by comparing himself to the Manchester Arena bomber. The sour taste of this track lingers well beyond the album’s centrepiece, “Darkness”, which is intended as a searing critique of America’s toxic gun culture. Instead, his use of gunfire and explosion samples feels grossly exploitative.

Here, any trace of feedback or distortion has been eradicated to leave just a Fratelli-esque singalong punk-pop sheen to songs.

Sadly, following the great strides made on the grief-stricken The Sea, with The Heart Speaks In Whispers, Corinne Bailey Rae reverts to the blandly serviceable beige soul of her 2006 debut.

It’s relentlessly dull, the sort of feyly English, unfunctional dance music Hot Chip pioneered to declining effect. Okumu’s airy voice barely brushes the listener’s sleeve, never mind mending their soul.

It lacks both unity and quality.

Olly Murs might have a lovely on-screen personality, but only the merest glimmers of character are allowed to shine through the swaddling retro-pop arrangements of In Case You Didn't Know.

The group have been around for well over a year without arousing much of a stir, and the monumentally tedious poesie-rock of Violet Cries offers few hints that this should change.

the only real flashes of character come from the reworked riffs of Old Neneh Cherry and Ann Peebles hits used on a couple of tracks.

DUMMY BOY is an insufferable 13-track farrago of anything from rock riffs to calypso drums, all pinned by 6ix9ine’s obsessive use of the “n” word, along with every other negative trope found in the gangsta rap of the early Noughties. ... Avoid.

An overstuffed pillow of an EP that seeks to calm all of the world's aches but just ends up sounding schmaltzy and smothering.

With the toothless Volcano, they’ve abandoned that path [hinting at deep immersion in psych-rock] in favour of a wheedling, keyboard-heavy electropop sound with much less bite, pock-marked with dubious stylistic potholes.

A smug farrago in which each track grates against the next like rusted gears. In between the nonsense – meaningless orchestral interludes and indistinguishable dance tracks inspired by Jon Hopkins and Bonobo – there are flashes of promise, mostly in the instrumentation. Even this is lost to inconsistent mixing.

Now, it appears to have been reduced to simply a checklist of familiar sounds and effects, harnessed to the dullest beats imaginable, and dependent on outside collaborators for interest.

Richard Ashcroft’s first album in six years is a dismal affair.

London with the Lights On is pretty thin fare, with too many tracks collapsing under the weight of excess sass.

The only new aspect of this follow-up to 2011’s On a Mission is her transatlantic phrasing; otherwise, it’s pretty much the same old thing, with pulsing dubstep synths relentlessly driving things to the lowest common denominator.

Some of the dullest music released all year.

Innovation, clearly, is not the highest of their priorities. In truth, everything comes a distant second to style.

Walker drizzles bluesy, Hozier-like soul bombast and nebulous folk tunes with Bond strings and EDM sizzles; tracks so thin and flavourless they go down without chewing.

This solo album is stuffed with aloof, adolescent apocalyptism and self-regard set to lumpy, mechanistic beats and cluttered arrangements.

Unleash The Love is steeped in this kind of smugness, aptly embodied in the rolled-up-jacket-sleeves ersatz ‘80s funk-pop of tracks like “I Don’t Wanna Know”. The “bonus” album of reheated Beach Boys hits, meanwhile, simply stains one’s precious memories.

What's blindingly clear is that, without the sparking creativity of a Syd or Roger, all that's left is ghastly faux-psychedelic dinner-party muzak.

Achingly dull, and self-regardingly solipsistic.

An unmitigated disaster.

If he tried to find something he liked, he might actually make something worth listening to.

Strident guitars and harmonies tug one's sleeve, eager for attention they don't merit, while the lyrics seem to be about nothing.

Despite the references to Nietzsche and Einstein, which suggest a cachet Stronger doesn't deserve, this is simply an overlong string of standard putdown R&B and bogus emotional turmoil, the songs blitzed with generic power-ballad overkill.

there's ultimately nothing distinctive here to grab the imagination. The singer has obviously modelled his every inflection on Bono, and the guitarist likewise over-employs Edge-style arpeggiated riffs; but they lack U2's broader ambition and sense of purpose.

This is a 12-track cringefest on which Stewart celebrates carnal love in between songs about his late father.

It’s a typical contacts-book R&B exercise, with an impressive cast of guests (including Frank, Pharrell, Snoop, Nicki, Katy, Ariana and others) on a fairly underwhelming series of grooves.

The songs are mostly just nondescript airwave fodder, clogging up the aether for months to come.

These songs are as limp as long-lost lettuce, several of them barely meriting the appellation “song” at all.