There is a tendency, due to the slow, quiet nature of these songs and the occasionally syrupy harmonies, for them to blend together. But look beneath the surface, to the fragile emotions that inspired these songs, and The Runaway remains a moving exercise in good old fashioned catharsis, one that exposes the sad hearts of this band more than ever before.

If you can manage to put such quibbles aside--and it will be a struggle--Light After Dark has some redeeming features.

Resurrect[s] the 1970s white ska world of The Specials, The Jam et al with varying degrees of success.

If they've kept the good stuff back in the hope of better times, the decision was misguided; but if this is the best they can manage, the portents are, in the original sense of the word, ill.

It is one thing to not take yourself to seriously but it is quite another to go to the other extreme. For all his knowing winks, Green walks the fine line between decadency and distaste.

The lack of creativity on display here is palpable.

All fine in principle, except we've heard it all a million times before.

There's nothing raunchy or attitudinal here, just blustering dance-pop numbers and mushy ballads that owe a debt to Lady Gaga, minus all the flesh, spunk and bonkers stilettos.

The album's sinewy rhythms and monochrome production sheen start to fade into the background after a while, but as far as capturing a certain political and musical zeitgeist, "Stealing Of A Nation" does so accurately, and with more honesty and integrity than most.

So safe and sanitised it makes The Fugees sound like NWA.

Sincere of intent and, as ever by Weller, stylishly and deftly delivered, "Studio 150" is a pleasant enough listen, which nevertheless will leave die-hard fans hankering for new Weller material.

The self-produced Beyond The Neighbourhood balances its meat and veg indie with enough electronic textures and hip hop beats to (sort of) catch the ear.

Unforgivably bad.

For people awaiting that second Jet album, this should prove a welcome distraction from their crayons. For the rest of us it's a look of bemusement and a scratched head.

Because beneath the clownishly self-effacing exterior, there's an artless ambition at work here that's terrible to behold.

A very dull record.

Unfortunately "Tourist" is derivative in only a one-dimensional sense: its imagination stopping where Wayne Coyne’s begins.

An average album over produced, Love? has Lopez throwing everything she's got at relaunching her pop career and coming up shorter than anyone could ever have thought possible.

Wham, bam, rock and glam, it's Marshall stacks turned up to 11 and Kelly riffing away in the steps of a heap of bands who do it better.

Earth To The Dandy Warhols is just vacuous mid-tempo babble and clatter.

The rest of the tracks bop along with various degrees of offensiveness or inoffensiveness, troubling and achieving nothing.

There's no gentle way of saying this, so let's cut to the chase. This record is, quite simply, useless.

On the evidence of 'Democrazy', the wrong self-indulgent flake got fired from Blur.

Unfortunately for the oh-so-cleverly named Mongrel are nothing more than a patronising exercise in telling the poor listener what they already know: that governments can be corrupt, war on the whole is not pleasant and we all have a right to freedom.

The problem lies in the fact that The Stooges have nothing left to say.

What's that sound? That's the sound of a barrel scraping and a career being flushed down a toilet.

A plodding collection of ballads carefully designed to show-off her jaw-dropping vocal range to the fullest.