The overall impression is of an album that you’d never be ashamed to own but wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to play all that often, either.

"Late Registration" feels more comfortable in its own skin than its predecessor.

It’s all rather marvellous.

"Howl" burns with just as much commitment and fervour [as the previous two albums]; it simply burns slower.

Woomble’s lyrics, while literate, are never quite as clever as his supporters would like to believe.

For some, the absence of human warmth may prove the album's ultimate flaw. Still, until there are humans out there making music like this robot, we'll settle for it.

Think Giorgio Moroder, The Art of Noise and Michael Nyman with - if you like your reference points with less padded shoulders - a touch of New Order and Boards of Canada.

They've got one song, basically. It's a fairly good song, comprising driving, rama-lama rhythms and pitch-dark lyrical content; but repeated 10 times in fairly mild variations, it inevitably loses its appeal.

Song after song, this is hardly an album that boasts of its riches but, in a determinedly low-key fashion, the music asserts itself in honest textures captured in naked performance.

Stripped of the rough guitars and eclectic production of the original, two things are exposed - those words and that voice. Neither fare well.

Deceptively hard to resist.

This debut sets the newcomers head and shoulders above the neo-Britpop pack.

For the most part, "The Understanding" saunters along without a trace of urgency, which is unfortunate as Royksopp were always at their best when electronic ingenuity rather than pastel-shaded synth washes were holding things up.

While other albums may have been more groundbreaking, none have been as excitable or infectious.

Unsurprisingly, "TP3.com" is overblown and overlong with appearances from the usual suspects - The Game, Twista and the ubiquitous Snoop - and production qualities as impressive as his libido.

Once you've taken in how wonderful it sounds, it'll be time to thrill at how much of it there is, then how dense it all is.

The melodies are mostly jaunty and the stoner harmonies solar-powered enough to lull around your brain but there’s no disguising the fact it’s a disappointingly one-dimensional record stuffed with half-baked ideas (“The Start”) and devoid of a single original thought.

This is a very, very good record.

Establishes him not only as a master of the fast and fluid flow, but an insightful, frequently humorous - if somewhat socio- politically naïve - lyricist.

Corgan is slowly swamped by the style he's adopted.

Engineers here prove capable both of emotive songwriting and of virtuoso studio craft.... Yet it falls shorts of true brilliance, for the simple reason that the band steadfastly refuse to rock-out.

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

It is not the Foo's finest moment, but for all its flaws and flab, this meandering record may just become one we all learn to love.

[Their] apathy really detracts from the heartfelt nature of the music, which, produced by the anthemic hand of Youth, is mostly of the passionate, chest-thumping variety.

There's little in The Departure to justify the trip.

“Anniemal” is a textbook pop album – with all the passion that entails (i.e. none).

"X & Y" is easily Coldplay's most consistent album, albeit one that operates within restrictive boundaries of creativity.

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