Overall, Black Radio surpasses the excellence of Double Booked, which is a brilliant album in its own right.

This is at heart a fun, dirty, insincere, cheap-thrill-laden pop record, with the raunch-riffery of Band of Skulls and lyrics which could be drawled from the mouth of a Bret Easton Ellis character.

Musically, it's both moody and approachable.

Spalding is too able a musician to botch this template, so the obvious enquiry is: does she bring sufficient personality to the table to avoid being derivative? For the most part, yes.

Original it isn’t, but it trades innovation for let-loose fun, and wears its influences proudly.

Her most vivid and enveloping achievement to date.

The subject matter may be familiar territory, but this is no comfort zone.

Clocking in at 36 minutes, this long-awaited solo debut is an impressive exercise in the integration of an expectedly wide range of aesthetics, revealing first and foremost a thoughtful composer with a skilled producer's ear.

Elling's individualist vocal reinterpretations are well worth hearing.

Things remain pared back, but an ambition nurtured by classical training keeps things interesting.

A little of this niggling frustration sticks, but for the most part Exister subsequently reveals itself as a more positive, uplifting record than its predecessors, adding something new to the band's eight-strong studio album canon.

What remains is an adequate compilation of nostalgic sounds, largely void of Clark’s unique voice. Greater consistency would have worked wonders.

Childs and Blake have created a record of outstanding songcraft, which salutes rock's past with a carefree spirit and its head in the clouds. Go Jonny, go, go go.

Veirs' offering has a lustre and sleepy delightfulness that owes much to her lilting charm of her voice and her ear for a sublime melody.

Simple, slightly silly but splendidly affecting, it's a telling suggestion that Arnalds will retain her endearingly obtuse edge, whatever language she favours in future.

Ultimately, there are only two stars [Doom and Jneiro Jarel] that matter on this terrific album.

Repeated listens to Let's Go Eat the Factory reveal a paucity of the pithy lyric and classic riff on which he's [Pollard] built a deserved reputation.

Past Lives are prog incarnate; yet dissection of their work here reveals a far simpler formula than what initially presents itself. The four are restricted to some degree by their make-up, with Henderson handling much of the multi-instrumentalist demands, but the ideas are solid.

In creating a work which pretty much unfailingly sounds like it could have been made 25 years ago, Future Islands have rejected a lot of current sonic trends--only for their sound to land fashionable-side-up anyway. The tunes are the thing, of course, and the tunes are good.

The dizzying craftsmanship evident on this debut LP is never an obstacle.

Over-familiarity with Barnes' recent oeuvre aside, the material on False Priest just isn't as strong as the songs that comprise those other records.

This see-saw, between exquisite gloom and bruised hope, is part of what makes Piramida so powerful.

Super Furry Animals frontman's third solo LP captures his creative wanderlust.

Although fourth album Mines, released three years after its predecessor, retains Menomena's trademark virtuosity in production, here the band's complex, monolithic sonic structures are supported by a consistent emotional foundation that elevates the songs to new heights.

Despite the genre signifiers there's more than enough personality of their own here for Cults to transcend both their blog hit wonder and the timeworn sound they lovingly homage.

If this T-Bone Burnett-produced album isn't a standout, it still has plenty going for it.

They seem to have stopped trying to subvert their pop nous and accept what they do best, and for the most part it works a treat.

These flashes of stylistic innovation are rare. For the most part, it's all supremely controlled, sweetly inoffensive and velvety smooth.