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

The songs here are less oikish, more nimble and nuanced, than a lot of Oasis' ponderous later music.

The three new songs tacked on at the end are indicative of their latter day torpor: hardly awful, but hardly memorable either; just three middle-aged millionaires going through the motions. But remember them as they were during the majority of this fine collection.

There are some beautiful moments in amongst the manic electronic experimentation, but Stevens' strength as a songwriter lies primarily in his sincerity, his ability to express intimacy without appearing cloying or saccharin.

When this 12-song set does hit its groove it is a punishing and relentless pleasure.

A little bit of cheese is a small price to pay for an album this likeable, accomplished and charmingly unfussed about being cool.

White Rabbits concoct something both contemporary, cultish and catchy as a cod net.

King of the Beach offers a fascinating insight into the slightly skew-whiff mind of this talented young artist, now well on the way to mastering what could turn out to be an incredibly inventive career.

Keepers of country's tragi-comic flame will clasp Lindi firmly to their bosoms.

Sundark and Riverlight is thankfully more chamber pop than chamber pot. It's an elegant collection, but an acquired taste.

Some of the straighter songs can seem a little underwhelming – for example, A Prelude to Pilgrim Street is a decidedly flat glam blowout. But such lacklustre moments are few.

The less they do big dumb bravado, it seems, the more there is to love about this London bunch.

The first four tracks of new album The Big To-Do are a solid continuation of the Truckers’ recent winning streak....But just as it seems clear we’ve got another rough-edged diamond on our hands, the album begins to wander at its mid-point.

While this is a confident and at times sharply written debut, there's little to suggest that Dog Is Dead bring anything new to the table.

Those glimpses on Perfect Symmetry of something flashier and sexier make this retreat to familiarity a somewhat saddening step backwards.

For the most part, though, the fuzz has been pulled back enough to reveal an enjoyable but hardly revolutionary set that tends to recall a more ponderous Darklands-era JAMC.

They sound like a pub soul covers band allowed to let rip on a few originals.

Ultimately Strange Mercy sounds like her best record still lies ahead, once she feels a little more at ease with balancing her obviously multiple talents.

For a record that could've gone in one of two directions, it manages the neat trick of going in both.

Whereas the finest music of this ilk goes full pelt with either ideas or loins, sometimes concurrently, Business Casual is, as its title suggests, the ultimate middle ground.

Beside Putrifiers II's guitar-fuelled thrills are a number of moments that find Thee Oh See's catching their winklepinkers on the pavement as they attempt to side step into more experimental, psychedelic territory.

If only there was more drama of this sort here, and a little less schmaltz, to bolster Ring's talent as an arranger and a producer.

What Good Charlotte don't seem to have picked up along the way are any startlingly new ways of delivering their honeyed ramalama pop-punk. Which could prove troublesome for them in the long run, now that the punk bubble has once again popped.

What scuppers Halcyon, though, is the sense that Ellie's still not nailed down her own identity. There's just too much bombast, and the magpie-like-production and big, booming arrangements swaddle rather than swathe her vocals.

If you've heard one track, you've heard them all. But there are a few standouts.

The good news is that one of the most consistently entertaining pop-rock bands of the 1990s is back together. The bad news is that the album they've released to mark their comeback isn't quite a classic.

They didn't want whatever their next album was to be predictable, and while A Thousand Suns might have emerged by accident compared to previous LPs, it's certainly a far from plays-to-perceived-type affair.

Style and gravitas are all very well--if Hurts could also have been consistent with the substance, Happiness would have trounced its 80s counterparts and many of its contemporaries, too.