It has fire in its belly and an admirable abandon and as a whirlwind tour of rock'n'roll decadence it makes, say, Jet look like the fey, foppish tourists they are.

Essentially, it's "Lovers" part two.

It is modest, lucid and tender.

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

Crucially, CSS skilfully weave references not only to our OK magazine neurosis but the last few decades of music too, with a sophisticated mash of indie, '80s pop, disco and electro.

This is the first Muse album to sound - brace yourself, outrageous melodrama fans - ordinary.

Another riotously entertaining record.

You simply have to marvel at the talents of a man who is surely amongst the most gifted and fascinating musicians of modern times, even if "The Avalanche" does feel like a vaguer retread of the absolute bravura seen on its big brother.

You must surely marvel at Thom Yorke's insistence to challenge his audience and his enemies.

With their grand orchestrations, love of idiosyncratic detail and self-consciously old-school dynamics, Guillemots sound refreshingly out of temper with the times.

This is not a 'commercial' release, at least not in the commonly construed meaning of the word. If you had to be picky, you could say that nothing has the impact of that cover of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" or Nick Lowe's "The Beast In Me". But that's beside the point.

"Fundamental" is the sound of the Pet Shop Boys reborn, and mindful of the important role they fill in the pop family.

This is a valuable record from a troubling and potentially vital new voice.

The most relevant reference points for "Loose" are Gwen Stefani's "Love Angel Music Baby" and Justin Timberlake's "Justified" - producer-defined albums that reinvented their performers as stand-alone solo artists with a wide, hip remit.

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

Neither wholly satisfying nor wholly great.

As exhilarating as it all may seem on the surface, there's little here that we haven't heard before.

So carefully paced is this record, weighed and measured for the correct balance of what's put in and what's taken away, that it never offers emotional triggers which bypass cerebral process.

In terms of wide-ranging savvy, fizzing enthusiasm and the sheer brilliance of its dance-pop tunes, "The Warning" is shaping-up to be the "Demon Days" of 2006.

Busta seems to be treading water too often.

All in, this is a terrific, life-affirming and, at times, deeply romantic album - one that proves the potentials in both rock'n'roll and the electric guitar.

It's an easier listen than its wildly imaginative predecessor.

"Puzzles Like You" may not stay the distance but there's certainly enough here to gain Mojave 3 the wider audience they deserve.

A quirky lo-fi wonder or the best album the '70s never had, "The Garden" feels like a lost gem, discovered in a box in the attic; a forgotten masterpiece full of tantalising sounds, odd voices and tingling ideas.

Relentlessly bland and bourgeois, "Twelve Stops And Home" sounds like the product of focus-group analysis.

Quite simply, "The Drift" is unlike any other record on Earth.

Its charms sink their teeth in fast and deep.

As a result of [Leithauser's] strangulated mewls and caterwauls, "A Hundred Miles Off" is at times very difficult to listen to indeed.