There’s enough evidence on Ropewalk that The View’s songwriting senses remain sharp, but the turgid manner in which they’ve served up this group that renders it a disappointment.

This record is a set of huge songs that’ll cement their place at the top of rock’s ranks and so much more.

It’s the same bloatedness that often permeates through a Beirut record, and despite a short recording time Condon hasn’t quite been able to shake it, leaving us with a familiar and easy-going album that might step in a different direction, but ultimately remains distinctively Beirut.

This album is one of empowerment and regained vitality.

It’s a mostly successful and far more mature record; it just has to be seen as a more grown-up Anthems for Doomed Youth rather than the anthems from doomed youth that they previously brought.

Despite the missteps it’s What the World Needs Now’s ability to sound energised and fresh which makes it an album that you can’t dismiss.

Too is a big, dumb-smart, happy-sad, universally-specific beast of a record, then.

For the most it is a spaced-out, blissed-out trip that makes it hard to comprehend that it came from the mind behind Bangerz.

In Highest Point In Cliff Town, Hooton Tennis Club have produced a debut that’s utterly irresistible: a summer soundtrack that makes staring out of the train window significantly less mundane; an album that restores positivity in the type of Mondays that Courtney Barnett knows oh so well.

It is fair to say that the album is missing hooks; it is a difficult listen and the tracks’ sparseness renders them similar. But, when the sound is so spine-tinglingly moving, that’s not too much of a problem.

They’ve taken the strengths of ‘Teen Dream’ and ‘Bloom’--reaching pop highs with ease--before being deceptive like it’s some kind of game. It’s not unfamiliar in the good sense, and it’s an odd outlier in an otherwise brilliant back-catalogue.

There’s a constant feeling that instead of edging towards going one bigger, this band have embraced their calling. And if Foals didn’t already have enough songs in their arsenal to top festival bills, they’ve just added ten more.

It’s novelistic. It’s smart. Of course it is, it’s a Destroyer album.

This is a collection of tracks that see the potent, unafraid icon that is Carter return to the forefront of British punk and he’s using it as an opportunity to really say something.

Perfectly pop yet delicately dark, Spector really have redefined themselves.

Less scrappy punk and more slick guitars, there’s an air of the Queens of the Stone Age about their debut, and it’s a sound they wear well.

M3LL155X is sometimes more show than substance, but it’s ultimately a sign of twigs getting more confident by the second.

Their newest full-length feels both quintessential and refreshing, a modern classic which sees the band growing into more confident versions of themselves.

For the most part, this is a record about chasing a specific kind of pop aesthetic instead, which largely comes at the detriment of any kind of real connection.

Flashes of the airtight songwriting that ran through ‘Scream Aim Fire’ and ‘Fever’ remain--closer ‘Pariah’ does controlled fury very well--but otherwise, it has to be case of back to the drawing board, because Bullet sound as if they’re beginning to run on fumes.

Where things ought to be reduced and given more purpose, they instead stampede into goodness-knows-where. Ambition doesn’t always equal perfection. Rock operas have their place, but this isn’t the pick of the bunch.

They have created another cohesive body of work that’s unhurried, considered and produces all the classic components of a timeless record that embodies the very moment.

There’s a sense of comfort running throughout that does result in repeated motifs, fancy tricks that have either appeared on previous LPs or within the same eight songs.

How the listener takes Death Magic defines everything, but once again, even at their most open and exposed HEALTH completely defy definition.

Perhaps it’s even a more accessible album for smoothing off the edges and toning down the vitriol, but it’s also largely forgettable in a way that Frank Turner’s best could never be accused of.

This is not a perfectly crafted album; instead, it’s an incredibly human one.

There’s two sides to Blood, that much is certain, and it’s the juxtaposition of these cradling tracks with the gut punchers that really leaves you breathless for more.

St. Catherine is a quasi-nostalgic LP that’s sonically soothing, while exhibiting finely-woven musical textures. It’s clever, without being intimidating or pretentious.