This album is a knowing genre-piece and incessantly listenable effort from one who some were beginning to suspect had become lost in a desert of his own vision.

Portishead seem to be playing against intuition at every corner.

In many ways, Kensington Heights is what maturity sounds like, done right: too young to relinquish their punk energy and too experienced to let it limit their songwriting, the band has combined their twin urges into a single path.

Ultimately, this is nothing more than workaday feel good bar music, technically well executed with the peaks and troughs in all the right places.

Rising Down is pretty much same old same old.

The inherent awesomeness of Boris is essentially intact.

After the Balls Drop is less than fans-only material; it’s a mostly unlistenable document appealing only to the people who were fortunate enough to be there.

If only you didn’t spoil these tender moments that seem to make my heart want to burst out my chest by goofing around all the time.

Flight of the Conchords ultimately succeeds apart from its parent television show because it’s a modest comedy album.

The result is a series of boring romances and half-assed torch songs that drag their feet in a way that’s exhausting to listen to.

But the real appeal remains Zedek’s humbled insights, a worldview informed by an affirmation of our common suspicion that “there are some things you can’t see / with a roof over your head,” and, having lived as such, her solitary cold comfort: “if you don’t like the answer / maybe you shouldn’t ask.”

Worldwide‘s participatory highs are intense, if fleeting, and that cover would look amazing on a t-shirt.

Ultimately, Vantage Point will not shock or surprise you with the same exhibitionistic ferocity as their debut but it will engage you with its emotional range and scope.

Even the fun disco of 'I’m That Chick' is too little, too late for E=MC²--an album that proves just how easy it is for a well-funded virtuoso and the world’s best hitmakers to create a steaming pile of shit.

Of course it’s cheeseball, as we all were at that age. But that’s ultimately what makes this accessible, highly-listenable album a reinvigoration of both catalogue and genre.

So, while Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a pretty good album and as characteristically lip-smacking as Cave is capable, it’s only engaging in the details which, unfortunately, are hard to hear because Cave’s screaming something about vulvas over top.

It is true that many may balk at the lack of outright pop or that some of the songs are too sparse or that Steve Albini’s production is bottom-heavy, muddy, and lo-fi but there’s just too much to love on this album for any of that to get in the way.

Foals are a tight band with hook-laden grooves. Not worth the hype, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Do It! is about as radical as Clinic seem capable of, which is to say that they finally seem smothered by the borders they’ve set for themselves.

If straightforward pop songs are what they seek, tightening up the rhythm section is absolutely essential, though here they’ve overstepped the line between “tightening” and “dumbing down completely.”

Sings Live! is clearly an offering from Colin Meloy to his devoted fans who have either especially enjoyed his shows or have never had the opportunity to attend them. In that respect, this live collection achieves its (hardly lofty) goals, and for that Meloy should be applauded, perhaps not as raucously as at his shows, but, y’know, a golf clap would be appropriate.

It is Noir’s skills for arrangement and sequencing that allow the narrative to successfully play out.

The way In Ghost Colours exploits my affection for synth pop and empty, detached vocals, I should be knocking down Dan Whitford’s door trying to get a strand of hair, but the album unfortunately loses its resonance on subsequent listens, its sheen lessening to a duller shade with each closer inspection.

In a nutshell, Neptune is a bit like Grace Slick fronting the Bad Seeds but not as good as it sounds.

It’s not [her] strongest performance so far, and that comes basically down to song choice and production.

The title Attack & Release implies the best aspects of the Black Keys’ music, all sweat and hurt and sweat and ecstasy, but the album neither gives nor takes, neither emotional nor sweaty but still clammy-handed.

It’s simply R.E.M. finally making a concerted effort to sound like themselves, and realizing that’s not such a horrible idea.

There’s not much to be said about an album that exists exactly as it should, satisfied by its own completion and purpose and really looking to nothing else for motivation or worth or whatever.