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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.