The problem is, there's simply too much record here.

If not a beginning to end classic album, it's full of potential classic tracks.

One of the most downcast albums of 2007.

Panda Bear has created one of the most unusual and beautifully strange statements of the avant-garde.

Depending on your temperament, this translates to either the Feelgood Band Of 2006 or a horrific saccharine overdose.

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.

There isn't a second's worth of music here that doesn't come mink-swathed in note-perfect retro sound, or a song that isn't worthy of it.

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

Your record collection still only really needs a couple of Chk Chk Chk 12"s and that Out Hud album, but don't pass on the chance to see them live.

It is beautiful, uplifting stuff.

If "Neon Bible" doesn't quite dazzle as "Funeral" did, that's more a measure of the latter album's benchmark brilliance, rather than the inferiority of the former.

Indisputably one of the best projects Gruff Rhys has ever been involved with.

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

Intense, grown-up and pretty it may be, but this record does nothing to move the whole cathartic/cinematic genre a millimetre further than where it was a decade ago.

There's barely a dull moment on this album.

While "Dressed Up For The Letdown" is a classy, clever record, it is not one you can imagine yourself revisiting that often.

Anyone expecting "Revolver" or "Hunky Dory" will soon find their patience sorely tested, though those hoping for a modest collection of whimsical indie melodies, some Beatlesy orchestral flourishes and some cleverly off-kilter rhythms may find much to enjoy in these brief 11 songs.

The psychic bruising Okereke has sustained playing the East London fame game during the past 12 months has produced self-pitying lyrics that frequently state the bleeding obvious.

For now, it's way more than a stop-gap but sadly not the second coming you might have been hoping for.

An entirely satisfying sophomore effort.

Norah's most personal collection of songs to date.

Is it possible to have too many ideas? Quite possibly. Deerhoof is the sound of imagination overdrive.

While unlikely to ignite the zeitgeist as "Parklife" once did, "The Good, The Bad & The Queen" probably says just as much about Britain 13 years on.

"Wincing The Night Away" shows The Shins as fleet-footed and supremely confident, their slightly off-beat sensibility happily uncompromised by its (newly) gleaming production and overall panoramic bigness.

A great lost album in the making.

Nas's insight, erudition and poetic intensity override all other concerns.

If March's "Fishscale" was his "Highway '61 Revisited" or "Innervisions", "More Fish" is "John Wesley Harding" or "Fulfillingness' First Finale". It may lack something of the lustre, but it's still a gem from a master operating very much at the peak of his powers.

Track after track in an aimless blur of humming amps, pointless mucking about with effects, dreary jams propelled by meandering guitar interplay, and bleak, endless droning.