'Love Is Here' - expansively, expensively produced, lavish yet aspiring to understatement (if such a contradiction can be accepted) and containing some affecting songs - is a pretty good record.

This time it's the cover of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' that grabs the headlines. The surprisingly credible version limbers into life with Britney chatting away to her pals on the phone.

Well, reports of the death of the old Coldplay have been much exaggerated.

How does such a rich soup of chromosomes and hired help come together? In a tinkly, whispery trinket that deserves a place on the stereo of every right-thinking beatnik.

While never as life-changing as these memories clearly were, Hurricane succeeds in its sheer force of conviction.

The fear was always that Dirty Pretty Things would resemble The Libertines with a vital ingredient missing, and that's surely what's transpired.

So, a grown-up EODM album, hardly serious, but certainly more complete than the half-cooked sketches that used to pass for their songs.

Overall, 'Don't Be Afraid...' is a tad frustrating. Everything ticks along funkily and proficiently, but nothing really wants to stick out.

Admittedly, this is bedroom indie, but it's bedroom indie with strong production and songs that are always self-deprecating enough to not be self-pitying.

Girls And Weather is so cloyingly cheerful and eager to please that it might as well be "Big Brother" audition tape.

The overriding impression is that “The Documentary” could be the biggest fanboy album of all time... and that The Game, as much as he thinks he’s a player, is being played by others far more powerful than himself.

Despite the overarching feel of having a bit of the early MGMT's about them (which, to be fair, is hardly a bad thing), there's enough variety within the New Zealanders' debut to prove they're more than just a one-trick, party-starting pony.

The quality is unmistakable and confirmation enough that she deserves to be remembered as more than just Biggie’s widow.

The Heavy's biggest selling point is that they exist almost completely outside of what is currently fashionable, meaning they sound fresh despite having quite classic roots.

'Baby I'm Bored' is the album Dando's fans hoped he would return with.

Its ambitions far exceed its ideas, and the record is sunk by the kind of sonic bloat normally reserved for self-regarding sophomore releases.

If it were anyone else, this record would be fine. Solid. Entertaining. But it's not anyone else--Julian Casablancas, lead singer of The Strokes. As such, you look for more and expect to tune in to find Julian doing the same.

And so it goes for a tidy ten tracks, all topped by a voice of gently boiling caramel--a style that channels the best aural qualities of Terence Trent D'Arby and Ray LaMontagne while side-stepping their cloying overearnestness.

None of the songs on "Yours to Keep" lack a naggingly memorable chorus; none is remotely inaccessible; and none is less than excellently crafted.

With personnel changes and a series of guest artists the names of which ever-increasingly overshadow whatever actual sounds they're making, Massive Attack have fought a continual struggle to surpass 1994's 'Protection'.

Any decent covers album should reveal its songs, not dress them up - but by Marshall's standards, Jukebox is an overly polite and frustratingly removed listening experience.

Minor gripes aside, however, Jose Gonzalez has crafted a fine album of rare beauty that seamlessly blends righteous indignation with delicate musical panache; a tough balancing act, to be sure, but one that negates the need of a safety net.

Either they've been taking too much heroin or not enough, but 'Black Rebel Motorcycle Club' is as limp as a soggy spliff the ragged morning after.

This is a great album, choc-a-bloc with great hooks, melodies and harmonies that evoke the great songwriting of the 70s.

Where 'Holy Wood' does come together and threaten to transcend its at times cliched parts is in its clarity of vision. This is a lean, visceral album that is as tripwire lithe as its maker. Manson's also remembered to write some great pop-goth tunes this time out, nowhere more so than with first single 'Disposable Teens'.

Furthermore, the way that 'Rulers Of Ruling Things', 'The Horn' and 'The Courage Of Others' arch effortlessly into trippier psych-rock inflected territory suggest a more expansive, weirder Midlake to come.

It’s a phenomenal album. And best of all, it’s unmistakably Prince.

"X & Y" is easily Coldplay's most consistent album, albeit one that operates within restrictive boundaries of creativity.