It is beautiful, uplifting stuff.

Musically it is by far and away his most complete offering but some cracks do show.

Before descending without hope of return into the treacle swamp of R&B ballad hell that beckons at the halfway point, 'Dangerously In Love' offers a few passable moments.

Importantly, while The Stands’ obvious musical loves cannot be faulted, it’s their own inimitable style that makes them more than just another retro outfit.

So despite the new outlook and lofty declarations, why does 'Falcon' fail to take off? The fault lies partly in Fray's parochial outlook.

Despite the rousing music and the earnestness of Tom Chaplin's voice, Keane still sing passionately about not very much in particular.

Like a new friend who turns out to be a bit of a bore when you let them dominate the conversation, repeat listenings reveal an album bravely attempting to be a monumental statement on the state of life and love but falls short.

Britney Spears, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce and Leanne Rimes are all artists Sparks' music evokes, but very little of it could be said to be distinctly hers.

An intoxicating record from a re-energised Moby, for the first time in years he isn't struggling to work out how to follow "Play" and "Last Night" is all the more convincing for it.

What we are given this time round is a rather boring queue of unmemorable songs.

As is so often the case though all it takes is a fall to flush away fanciful tendencies and with All The Plans they revisit wholesale what it was that made them a draw in the first place (other than sounding a bit like Coldplay).

Over 11 tracks she fails to pull in a single noteworthy vocal, that's if you can even locate it beneath the waves of effects designed to disguise how very little is actually there.

Everything about Complete Me suggests a pop star of rare originality, charm and talent, and one who will win the world over person by person if he has to.

Contrary to the way he's been perceived, Shadow has never been anything other than passionate about hip hop, and "The Outsider" is his love letter to the genre, revelling in all its myriad excesses.

A rather more satisfying record than their second.

An energetic, intelligent and fairly modern rock album - not exactly cutting-edge, but not entirely anachronistic either.

Ultimately it makes you feel the loss of Pavement all the more.

Sometimes it works - notably with Gorecki's and Ravel's work - but it frequently misses the mark, with his reinterpretation of Handel's 'Xerxes' sounding something like incidental muzak from a low-budget US soap.

By third song, "Faded Beauty Queens", the recipe is already stalling, and the harmonies begin to sound flimsy.

"The Looks" throws up more sure-fire dance starters than anything [we've] heard in a while.

Our suggestion: embrace the bizarreness of it all. It's all good fun, and let's face it, even though Christmas In The Heart is unlikely to invoke a last minute panic in Best Of The Decade list makers, it's way better than Slade.

A supreme return to form.

A cold and unengaging collection.

It's not, in the final reckoning, a terribly important and wildly impressive record.

She's got an album which for all its sing-along moments is neither catchy nor extreme enough to be exceptional.

There are a couple of songs so overfamiliar that Boyle can do little to revitalise them, including a predictable trudge through 'Auld Lang Syne' and the saccharine overdose of 'Away In A Manger', but Boyle herself once again emerges from trashy circumstances with class intact.

A short, sharp blast of snotty fun that suggests the party is not over yet.

Miraculously, given the similarity of the design, 'Meteora' avoids being a stagnant retread of 'Hybrid Theory'.