Everything has been stripped to the core, with the focus on creating a tight album from beginning to end.

The result is slightly overlong and occasionally repetitive, but it’s also a determined sounding reappraisal of the abilities of the three musicians and also an album that could slide unnoticed into the myriad of Indie releases of the last decade, raising only one or two significant ripples as it does so.

Two years later, the five-piece returns with Simple Math – a concept album which, according to Hull himself, examines perennial hot button topics like marriage, love, religion, and sex. Again, not exactly revelatory material, but Hull has a gift with prose that turns even the most banal observations into striking reflections.

Whatever the circumstances have been in Lana's rise to fame, all that doesn't detract from the captivating quality of the songs on Born To Die.

The proceedings, though, are not without occasionally lesser moments and that’s something that fans of Save Everything and Very Soon may be surprised to hear.

The songs themselves feel loose, a bit non-cohesive, making How to Get to Heaven... a good, though not great, album.

While Daisy does have its share of issues, it is by no means a bad album. The fact is that it falls beneath Brand New’s lofty standards.

Volta is her most accessible album in years, even if it is sometimes at the expense of its own best interest.

Obits revels in the sort of music that's at the other end of the spectrum from brooding introspection and critical listening; these songs don't ask for a response so much as they demand a reaction.

They have evolved their sound in this release with a host of much stronger tracks than ever before. While the immaturity remains in these tracks, the instrumentals are much more polished and infectious.

It's definitely worth checking out if you're into noisy, low-key rock and inventive guitar work.

I'm sure that O'Hagan realizes that his band has made a name for itself in being able to almost take the listener away for an entire album of music. The experience is definitely a good one and a huge reason why Talahomi Way is a success because of it.

This is an album for the patient, who are willing, as the title of the album suggests, to sit through a slide show made by someone you don't really know that well.

Orcas, stays in the same zone [gauzy ambient folk], but edges closer to the sublime and harrowing atmospheres more associated with Irisarri.

The band's latest release is a substantial departure from previous efforts, employing a strong post-punk vibe to its production, with repetitive, pronounced bass line and drum rhythms (courtesy of Ailidh Lennon and David Gow, respectively), wiry guitar agitation, and the feel of being recorded in an empty room.

Though generally a triumph, the album has a couple cuts that feel unsubstantiated.

Mary Star of the Sea doesn't come close to SP's best work, but it absolutely obliterates everything Corgan has done since Mellon Collie.

The results are far better than you'd imagine.

Essentially one long postcard from the very edge of loneliness and sorrow.

Get Guilty is unlikely to bust Carl Newman out beyond his inherited fan-base but neither is it likely to disappoint those listening out for more-of-the-same, albeit with obvious but not crippling disadvantages.

Thankfully aside from a few superficial blemishes, Here’s The Tender Coming’s world is dense enough, and interesting enough to merit a visit.

Zoo Psychology is gritty, and crazy, and at times, almost maddening.

The net result is a strong suite of compositions that canter and curl with commanding calmness.

A good, albeit soft, Brit-pop CD, from a band that continues to mature.

Pyramid, while not being a step back, isn’t a step forward.

The Moonlight Butterfly won't allow The Sea And Cake to set the world on fire but with its reviving studio craftsmanship and exploratory attitude, it should happily smoulder in the ears of those who needed the band to deliver something just a little to the left of a self-defined centre.

The songs hold up well live, and the recording quality is terrific.

The second half of the album wallows in the shadow of the first, unable to conjure the absolute majesty of the first four tracks.