Just knowing Shakira is still in the world and capable of making albums as inspired and assured as "Fijacion Oral Vol 1" is like finding out ABBA are reforming or that the real Michael Jackson was kidnapped and replaced with an evil imposter shortly after making "Thriller".

Sweet, vibrant and sunny songs with just as much invention and passion as 2000's buzz-building early EPs.

Disappointingly, there's little here to startle the natives.

An intelligent step forward from a unique and prolific troubadour.

As musically competent and beautifully-produced as this record undeniably is, strip the vocals and you'd be hard-pushed to identify it as being an Oasis album or enjoy it accordingly.

"Everything Ecstatic" pulses with imagination and subtle talent, choosing to follow a sweet technicolour road rather than take a harder, and far well trodden path.

Ultimately fails to capture or update the magickal mysticism of the music it seeks to draw from.

Utterly unique and frequently wonderful.

Lazily accomplished without ever truly igniting, a classy update on a slightly dated hip-hop sound.

If anything, this 25-song double set sees Belle & Sebastian at their finest.

As with previous LPs, “The Secret Migration” works as a set-piece but, with the strings kept on a tighter leash and the production less fulsome, it’s easier to notice the details.

Even if "Hypnotize" is simply more of the same, with SOAD operating at such astonishing creative and emotional heights, it'll still leave every other metal band on the planet scrabbling in the dust.

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

It is only when he tries to really rock-out that goldilocks falters a little.

Free from the trappings of hype this is simply a great album. Rock 'n' roll: just like they used to make.

"Make Believe" is classic Weezer, further refining the template of unthreatening heavy metal riffs... welded to smart lyrics, largely of satirical nature, and infectious melody.

Naïve, twee, lacking imagination and pointlessly derivative on one hand but - with summer on the horizon and given a forgiving mood – this is also sunny, carefree and great background music to waft over your BBQ.

With this majestic and multifarious new album, he has surely struck sonic gold once again.

The quintessential much-loved cult band, they’ve yet to make an album their fans didn’t adore, but the good news is that “Oceans Apart” is one of their finest.

While great songs is something “Waiting For The Sirens’ Call” obviously lacks, it’s still a cracking New Order album - albeit one performed by a group all pushing 50 and mostly written about Bernard Sumner’s yacht.

A 93 minute-long nervous breakdown that offers few concessions to the needs of the listener to be entertained.

A curiously unsatisfying odds'n'sods album.

It’s Manuva’s startling honesty which first impresses.

For the most part, "In Case We Die" tries so hard to be fun it is almost no fun at all.

Charmingly forgettable.

They’ve returned to the clamorous, powerchord-packed rock of their debut, with the inevitable result that it sounds fixed firmly by the formaldehyde of fashion in mid-90s post-grunge.

A confident and accomplished debut, and a pleasant, agreeable diversion.

Febrile, idiosyncratic, epic yet fun: "Open Season" may not raise eyebrows but it has – thank God - raised the hitherto pitifully low bar for British guitar rock.