Large parts of this album sound as if designed specifically to be played to fields full of semi-comatose revellers.

A savvy, shiny, slyly sophisticated set of thoroughly modern dance floor exercises, it's the record we hoped Girls Aloud might make.

Amongst the glam rockers and the tender janglers, it seems that Beady Eye have simply written a Supergrass album. Let's see if Noel has an answer for that.

He still sounds temperamentally incapable of making a bad album, but he's made his first boring one.

The fact that experimental, abstract beats have become so popular is partly down to him, but now that everybody's doing it, he has to do it more, or better, or different.

She is at the top of her game, and hits it out of the park both concept-wise and musically.

The trio can't sustain this energy and inventiveness over the entire album.

We live in a Madonna world. And as long as she keeps releasing albums as vivid, relevant, distinctive and modern as this, we will for a some time yet.

It's good clean fun, entertaining and inoffensive.

At times here, The Kooks are far too easily confused with their peers--the Fratellis' riff on 'Stormy Weather' and Arctic Monkeys' intro to 'Down To The Market'--the band struggle to stamp their own identity on proceedings.

Problem is, much of this record is just Game keeping up with the Joneses: everything you'd expect from a 2008 rap album is here (Lil' Wayne guest spot; boring, '80s-styled Kanye track), and the stuff that makes him unique seems harder than ever to get at.

So smooth nothing sticks, there's no guts, no depth and no matter how much he protests to the contrary, nothing to believe.

As sleek and assured as anything the trio have done.

Perhaps the less successful tracks here might have been novel and fresh 15 years ago, but interest in library music and analogue synths was piqued long ago and some of Love 2 sounds like one example of many these days.

When he's left to his own devices, he appears to be on firing form, creating music that sits happily between the frenzied aggro mantras of his darkest days and the beautifully evocative wonder of his debut.

Fans of Aerosmith, and fans of good old Rock Music will love it.

It’s not Razorlight’s reflected experience that’s the problem, though, nor their clichéd rock‘n’roll romanticism - it’s the bewildering narrowness of their sonic vision.

"9" picks up where the ubiquitous and two-million selling "O" left off. Hoarse howling to acoustic guitar strumming; folksy plucking to bleeding heart mutterings; Radiohead-a-like moments pull of portentous, look-at-me pauses and full band crescendos.

The problem is not that The Rakes haven't sought to evolve; it's that they've done so too self-consciously and slipped out of their depth.

A bitterly disappointing, lacklustre album that is sadly short of distinct memories of any kind.

If you didnt get 'U.F.Orb' or 'Orblivion', this ain't going to change your mind. If youve never heard The Orb before, though, this is as good an introduction as any.

A knack for woozy melodies is one weapon at Nicholls' disposal; but here they're fatally undermined both by his petulant vocal style and by the rickety, paper-thin production.

Meandering atmospheric intros and outros, with lyrics that often just repeat the same verse ad nauseum, overshadow what could be, at times, shorter, snappier songs.

There are a couple of moments where Hourglass works perfectly.

An average effort with hints of greatness.

It's by no means a bad album, just not his best by a long way, or the triumphant return it should have been.

Much of this album fails to engage.... There are lengthy attempts at covering too many bases, when fewer distractions would have allowed Cook to create music with direction, not just location and motion.

Oblivion With Bells is a competent record and, it must be said, far stronger than the most recent releases by '90s contemporaries The Prodigy or The Chemical Brothers.