The four Von Bondies remain terrific players, and Stollsteimer's sustained indignation is always good for a laugh. But at times, the calculated nature of it all is distracting, and you long for the harebrained rawness which made "Lack Of Communication" the best record (besides those by The White Stripes) that the Detroit revival has produced.

It won't usher in a bold new era where boys are boys and bands play guitars, but there is more than enough here to chew over and enjoy.

It's almost all too familiar, so much so that it's hard to hear the tender songs and mesmerising instrumentals in their own right.

A single-disc equal of "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below".... Even if it only sold 14 copies, it would still be the best record of the year.

He preens, poses and struts like a self-proclaimed and extremely delusional love god.

Everything suggests they have a great album within them, but this isn't it.

Tapping in to our fearful collective unconscious, Liars have conjured a darkly mesmeric, thrillingly full-blooded, paranoid drama of ritual and occultism built from twitchy electronica, shrieking vintage synths, punk noise and unsettlingly twisted hip hop.

Show[s] that the early chapters of the Staton story may not match the later commercial success, but trump the four-to-the-floor stuff with grit-in-the-grooves southern soul.

Mainstream, bleeding-heart balladry, tempered by slightly outre arrangements.

Ultimately it makes you feel the loss of Pavement all the more.

Out of these two good albums, a great single album is fighting to break out. [combined review of both discs]

Perfectly lovely to listen to, undoubtedly, but curiously difficult to digest. [combined review of both discs]

The lack of creativity on display here is palpable.

Eventually you’re left longing for a dash of spontaneity or that the band would break into something adventurous.

The Coral have refined their influences, dropping some of the more incongruous blasts and revelations for a more concise, controlled dervish of Northern guitar colour and shade, West Coast psychedelic fever and Spaghetti Western landscapes and atmospherics.

A full-blooded, affectionate and occasionally very funny album.

There is, however, nothing that remotely touches the pop genius of 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' and, by the halfway mark, the album's sagging badly.

"America's Sweetheart" is a thrilling record. Held together by that extraordinary voice, which sounds even more shredded than it did in the days of "Dick Nail" and "Pretty On The Inside", she can still deliver.

There will be few better albums released this year.

There’s conceivably a great record still lurking inside this band but you’re going to have to wait just a bit longer to hear it.

It's tumultuous. It's breathtaking. It's expressive without the barest hint of Radiomuse indulgence.

He can't seem to decide whether he wants to make a straightforward hip-hop remix of Jay-Z's tunes, quirky sampladelia like DJ Steinski or Coldcut, or an avant-garde project in the vein of plunderphonic composers John Oswald and Negativland. A lot of the time, he falls awkwardly between the three camps.

Like their debut, 'Start Something' is ultimately too long but where it occasionally flags the pace is soon picked up again.

Towards the end, Herren's love of the glitch tentatively tries to reassert itself, but poetry and seductiveness manage to pacify it for the duration.

With 'Talkie Walkie', Air are headed back where they came from. That they do this without actually retracing their own footprints and have produced an album with its own delicate but distinct hallmarks is a measure of their talent.

As a celebration of the b-side, this is such a charming set, despite its inconsistency.

By rights, Elbow should be pretty annoying, the same kind of lardy, overblown and overrated band as their compatriots Doves.... Yet there's something rather haunting and affecting about 'Cast Of Thousands', just as there was about 2001's 'Asleep At The Back', which raises Elbow far above most of their peers.

It's overlong, like almost every rap album today, and it's not the sort of place to come expecting erudition or insight. But for one singular rapper unwilling and unafraid to stick to his guns, it's a deeply satisfying record.