Despite the clunky moments, there’s ample proof that Team Bieber know exactly what they’re doing and who they’re talking to. As you’d expect, it’s the ballads that hit the hardest.

Not one for the casual fans, but more than enough to remember the good times.

While a talented producer in his own right, here we find Chilly collaborating with Berlin dance producer Boys Noize, re-rendering the elaborate, minimalist-flavoured piano debuted on Solo Piano as louche, polished Euro-disco with one beady eye on the chill-out dollar. It is often much better than this sounds.

Improving prospects aside, though, the basic deal is the same, and Cloud Nothings rattles along at a fair old clip, boasting an embarrassment of hooks delivered with unassuming, 'it's-probably-nothing-but' panache.

Hull is a fine lyricist, able to make everyday ruminations on relationships utterly riveting. But he's not consistently complemented by music that really matters, a couple of relatively perfunctory arrangements ensuring that Simple Math is no High Violet-matching masterpiece.

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

On the whole, this is an interesting experiment in the creative process, as well as the values of musicianship and friendship.

The so-called purity of the sweet-voiced piano and violin are continually subverted by carefully applied extraneous sounds.

Overall, The R.E.D. Album stands as a solid return for its maker, as long-time listeners will connect with his no-frills lyrics and unsettling artistic demeanour.

Be Brave is not quite the barnstormer that its lead single suggests, but there is enough gumption to see The Strange Boys through any scrutiny of their credentials.

As a whole, Revelation Road is the closest Lynne has got to where she should always have been, even if she mightn't stay here long.

His darkest and most oppressive work to date.

Although this statement sounds very much from the heart, and many of these songs make you smile while other make you sour, it’s a shame that this album’s playfulness very often comes across as pretentiousness.

The Bloom and the Blight builds on the band's strengths and successfully maintains their idiosyncrasies, offering persuasive evidence that they are more than ready to step up a level themselves.

[The Midsummer Station is] a brave and bold addition to what is increasingly looking like a catalogue to relish.

Not everyone is going to want a 12-song cycle about the relationship of an extremely violent fictional farmer (no – come back!), of course, but within Heartland’s grand sweep are some riveting and quite glorious ideas.

Not only does it offer a bejewelled porthole into the flair of Alice Gold, but it's an album that transcends any accepted conventions of 'female singer-songwriter', and lays the foundations for a rock star.

There isn't a bad pop song here, and the balance between whimsy, sensitivity and boisterous fun is expertly weighted.

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.

The album's better songs – of which a towering Black and the inventive if not precisely brilliantly titled Capsize the Sea are just two – even hark back to the time when their creators sounded fresh and exciting.

Glossing over realisations that the second half begins to drag, Hologram Jams won’t appease anybody who rates music to decimal points or regularly orders their record collection alphabetically. Instead, it’s fun in the same manner as a night out necking Lambrini and cheap cocktails.

A zingy fusion of disparate styles.

Three albums in, Tunstall appears undamaged, an ordinary girl you'd want to spend time with and an honest performer it's hard to dislike.

On the evidence of this impressive debut album, [Howard] is a gifted and immediately involving singer-songwriter.

There are enough moments of deft, delicate brilliance here to remind us of what a gifted songwriter he is.

So, while he fails to reward those fans who are everything to him with a great collection of pop-RnB, Brown at least gives them reason to believe.

Better Living, Flats' 34-minute debut album, is a commendably cacophonous outpouring which contains not the slightest germ of future commercial gold.

Heaven is Whenever is good for the exact reasons Hold Steady records always tend to be good. Such dogged consistency suggests it's doubtful Finn and company will ever come out with a startling masterpiece that frees them from Springsteen's shadow, but it also implies they're extremely unlikely to make a bad record.