Mojo sees Petty steep himself in Americana again, adopt a live-in-the-studio feel, and generally rock out. The results are initially quite perky, as the band crash and charge through songs, but after a couple of plays everything becomes rather dull.

It's an inverted-commas proper long-player, which manifests a relaxed mood and maintains it marvellously.

There's the occasional meander and they'd surely revel in a bigger production budget, but there's nobody remotely like them and few who seem to actually enjoy being in a band more.

EE are wilfully eccentric, and endlessly entertaining, but they know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an album.

They sound like they don't just have a warmth for the genres they plunder here: they know them inside out.

As a tastefully populist exercise this set represents a job well done.

While sentimental on occasion, and certainly possessed by a lovelorn spirit that should connect with all but the hardest of hearts, The Law of Large Numbers never comes across cloyingly, its content ably handled and expressed with the same cliché-free purity The Delgados mastered.

So while an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognize it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.

Ultimately it's The Avett Brothers' innate ability to deliver killer tunes and present them in an engaging fashion that connects them to a vintage pedigree of classic Americana artists, from Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young onwards, that seduces you from track one.

Ultimately it's so much less than it could have been, given the talent involved.

A slightly sinister brand of enigma is a key component of his shtick, but it's hard not to wonder what this leftfield pop talent might come up with if he were asked to produce something a bit more crisp and definite.

The Sword have stepped up a gear with this release, and ought to crumble the defences of more than a few cynics.

Nineteen years later the band are in robust health, and Skins makes for an impressive, graceful addition to their catalogue.

She sings prettily enough, but lacks the punch that the very best artists in this very crowded market possess.

It's frequently beautiful, but perhaps too ephemeral an experience to establish a hold on anyone with more than music on their mind.

Perhaps finding mass appeal has given Tim Smith and his band-mates the confidence to take their ideas into darker, brooding waters, and further harness the influence of classic British prog-folk. But whatever the motivation, it's a mood that suits.

Coconut’s acid-fried eclecticism occasionally strains for effect and lacks the brutish vigour of its predecessor. A commendably outré listen on any other terms, it’s still a sideways-shuffle that never fully convinces.

Yet despite the melancholy mood, We’re On Your Side is far from depressing. Slaraffenland possess a wistfully melodic knack akin to The Beach Boys if they’d never managed to get off the Sloop John B, and there is much to admire in the multi-faceted arrangements.

Oh No I Love You is a warm affair and a slightly more together reflection of Tim than I Believe was, and the accompanying remix album with cosmic re-works by the likes of Seahawks is a bonus too. This deserves to find itself in as many homes as possible.

Straddling the line between art and commerce, between arena rock and cult devotion, for the first time in quite a while Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins sound energised and alive.

Lacks the otherworldly impact of their 1990s releases, but well worth listening to.

This debut album deserves to take them to a new height of recognition: it's a superbly mainstream-accessible set, and distinctive of design too.

This is an airy (but not aerated) blend of ambience, indie pop and 80s synth music, delivered with a grace that ensures they're miles from lo-fi territory.

This is a vivid selection of songs underscored by a bittersweet poetry.

Trans-Love Energies is a fine return and a worthy addition to the catalogue of a band whose path has become more of a fantastic voyage than a standard career.

The ideal album to soundtrack wistful contemplation on balmy summer days.

Small Craft... isn't an album that's going to change the world forever, but listened to in the right environment it sometimes does just that for a few minutes at a time.

It will surprise no one but the most uptight and partisan fans of either group to learn that Gilmour's honeyed, chiming and unchallenging guitar work is a sensual fit for The Orb's expansive, uplifting and soporific electronica.