Briskly performed, smartly assembled and largely unmemorable, Diamond Hoo Ha is a lot like half-asleep sex; you’re vaguely aware this is supposed to be fun, but you keep drifting off, and you might have to ask the person sitting next to you if it actually took place come the morning.

It may not be a great, or even particularly good album, but it does at least tide us over until Weezy become a free man, and the much talked about Tha Carter IV finally sees the light of day.

No alarms and no real surprises, yet the execution carries Crystal Castles 2.0 through.

Riot sounds like a crunching, flashlight-white amalgamation of Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson, save for token ballad "We Are Broken" that echoes the enchanting eighties sounds of Belinda Carlisle.

There's nothing that really stands out as a hit on here, nothing to get the crowds in Whitesnake t-shirts (ironic or otherwise) moshing in the manner of Permission to Land's hits.

It grows, fades and breathes like an album should, it provides enough singles to make it the envy of many a record, and it also demonstrates what a perfect stem the original TKOL was.

All Hail Bright Futures withers under the glare of its own garish spotlight, and no amount of zest, pep or joviality can save it.

Despite the one or two stabs at youthful exuberance evident here, this is an AOR album through and through.

It might not quite pay off as an album in the traditional sense, but in the era of iTunes playlists and vanishingly brief attention spans, Mugiboogie comes packed full of valuable ammunition.

Mixing classic rampant riffs and exploring newer matured sounds, Moss and Co. have crafted another hearty album that should satisfy even the hungriest of followers.

Son Lux veers away from the straight forward and chooses to make records as wonderfully complex as Bones.

The all-over-the-place sounds don’t remotely go together, and not even in a good way.

It is sprawling, messy, and bursting at the seams--but certainly when listening to it, you see how it could have worked with a bit of quality assurance.

They're a strong band musically, and The Slideshow Effect is a good, well put together piece of work which creeps up on you slowly.

The tracks themselves work if you can get past the contrast. That might even be what makes you love it rather than hate it. The problem is that if you’re going to have a deep concept behind your pop tracks then it really needs to be stronger or more current than something that has gone before.

Certainly no misnomered record, Extra Playful sounds more fun, excited and full of joie de vivre than anything else in Cale's extensive discography.

What the record lacks in the main part is a sense of urgency and excitement. Too often the songs wash over you, making no serious appeal for your heart or mind.

As a whole the EP doesn’t hit the mark. Not only is the only link between the tracks that they are vaguely related to Animal Collective, but within the tracks themselves there are often many ideas out of context with one another.

Though Taiga ends on something of a high, in all it comes across as a wholly wasted opportunity that, with a few lessons in moderation and restraint, could have been something altogether more impressive.

Images Rolling is a definite step up in consistency compared to his debut, and will be well-suited as a soundtrack to the famous Manchester sunshine, whenever it remembers to make an appearance.

With everything from the classic symphonic sounds of brass and strings to the creative dimensions of electronic sampling, synths and the violinophone, Mum certainly are experimental. The ambitious nature of which could be too much for some people though.

In less capable hands the results could be unsophisticated and cringeworthy - as it is, they team the neon luminosity of Duran Duran with the camp, boyish charm of Dexys Midnight Runners - and are as likeable as either of them.

It’s a swaggering, pyschedelic road album, which we’ve generously been allowed to ride shotgun on. Buy the record, take the ride.

This is music that you dive into wholeheartedly when there's time to examine its mutilated layers.

While it’s tempting to disregard ‘Never, Never, Land’ as a frantic attempt to usurp its predecessor in the celebrity stakes, the big-name guests this time around are infinitely more suited to the mood.

All in all, the album is unremarkable, showing only rare flashes of lyrical prowess, and melodically unadventurous. Bugg fails to push boundaries and flounders outside his recent comfort zone, resulting in a record that fails to impress, delivered without vigour.

This is an album that can (and I think will) transcend musical taste and age range... 'Lifeblood' may well live forever as one of the best commercial albums of the bands career.

Although by no means a bad record, Driving Excitement And The Pleasure Of Ownership would probably work better whittled down into a pair of EPs rather than a whole album.

If the refusal to play to old strengths has a slightly scattergun effect, it’s hard to begrudge this slightly mad record. There will be those Everything Now alienates, but Arcade Fire are not your corporate product.

There are moments where the album shines, absolutely, but it doesn’t match up to the same level as Okereke’s previous work, both with Bloc Party and solo. However, it’s still a worthy piece in its own right, and a testament to the idea that a musician changing their sound is a gamble that can pay dividends.

One day the mainstream is going to claim him and he'll lose a little something, but for now he's still the prince of the misfits and the martyrs, the waifs and the strays, Sundark and Riverlight is him at his distilled best, tears in his eyes, glitter on his cheeks, tragic, magnificent, ours.

Ready to Die isn't the missing sequel to Raw Power, but it is a masterclass in writing a big, dumb punk album with occasional touches of emotional depth.

American Goldwing isn't bad, but it's not particularly exciting when you consider the band's usual standards.

It’s also not a record where you’re instantly gripped round the neck, it’s more a gradual clamping before nails start to dig deep into the skin.

This is one of the greatest rock epics to drop through our door in a long while.

One hopes Raven In The Grave doesn't signify the last post for The Raveonettes as they are a joy to behold in this mood, and more than capable of producing a belter of an album when least expected.

All too often, I'm From Barcelona are either forgettable or just beyond cloying.

At times the sheer weirdness and creepiness of the record can be a bit much, but that’s also what makes CocoRosie so great.

It is churlish to dismiss a band after one record, however: there is potential here for so much more. This record, however, is the most irritating one you will have heard in a while.

The general malaise that characterises Outside manifests itself in many forms: 'Mighty Long's overwhelming dearth of meaning, the sluggish pacing of 'People You Know' or the shortlived kick-back against mediocrity that is 'Freak Out'.

Despite the harvest festival charm that carries the record, its heart is here, at its starkest, most honest moments.

What's striking from the outset about Hymns is that little has changed in Davies and Matthews' elegant world of classically-inspired chamber pop.

Falkner manages to set up a sort of production halfway house, which raises everything out of the bedroom, but still burrows deep to the tender core at the heart of Daniel’s songs.

As debut albums go--and while compiling the record the band disposed of nearly thirty songs--this is a fine, upstanding introduction to the tormented world of The Airborne Toxic Event and one that vivaciously whets the appetite in anticipation of what might come next.

This album is full of emotive and nuanced performances, the aches of her heart resonating powerfully. However, the sheen and the bombast of much of the production reeks not just of a kind of entitlement, but of desperation.

Violens have achieved their sound and successfully executed their technique, but are still wanting for purpose.

'Rock N Roll' is the worst record Ryan Adams has ever put his name to; a mess of identikit garage buffoonery and amateurish production, filled with rushed lyrics and written-in-a-weekend tunes.

Although 'Winchester Cathedral' is quite obviously Clinic doing what they do best, it also represents the sound of a band who've clearly broadened their horizons.

Beast Moans suffers from one weakness: the three members apparently forgot to stop and listen to each other before forging ahead with their own ideas.

Featuring the ever-glorious Solange on vocals, it’s a moment of gracefulness that showcases Chromeo’s evident knowledge of when and how to take things down a notch. As a result, it largely accounts for the mostly-pleasant ride that the duo take us on with White Women.

They’re not inventing any new wheels at this stage of their career, but dEUS are delivering the goods at a level where established fans will immediately click their subtle steps forward and newcomers can get a grasp of what to expect from prior long-players should they decide to delve into the catalogue.

Just before World of Joy threatens to peter out entirely, Howler’s first ever attempt at a ballad strides in to offer some welcome variation.

On a cursory listen to Dig Out Your Soul, it's hard not to think 'yeah, it's Oasis' and then unwittingly switch off - not through boredom or distraction, but because it's all so comfortable and, well, familiar.

All we're presented with here is a collection of half-baked, badly-produced versions of sounds we heard a couple of years ago.

But most of all, these songs really blow, man. Way to top-load it with three half-decent tracks at the start.

Both as an album opener after a ten year absence and a spiritual partner to Public Image, This is PiL is pretty much perfect.

Thank f*** that they have delivered what we have come to expect from The Vaccines.

Year in the Kingdom may not be a feast of eclecticism, but it is a lesson in the construction of compelling, stripped-down folk.

It's the sound of a group ably treading water while its scars are glossed over with a Golden State tan.

Ultimately, and refreshingly, this is not commercial, but hauntingly lush electronic music for all to enjoy.

The album is called I Want You To Destroy Me and all it wants to do is live.

Esben and the Witch seem stuck on an autopilot where any levity is out of bounds and an abyss beckons for all the wrong reasons.

Following a good few listens, Up From Below's ebb and flow is replaced with definite peaks and troughs, leaving such highlights dulled down.

The raw elements are present, but Rossi is only 22, and has much time. Nevertheless this EP is a consistent 20 minutes of raw beauty, and holds as much worth in itself as it does in the anticipation of what could follow.

There are moments when the album loses its focus and blurs into extended jamming that doesn’t go anywhere particularly exciting, although Malone mostly manages to keep those tendencies in check.

Somewhere in Never Trust A Happy Song are the fragments of a great band, but sadly they aren't enough to make a great album.

All in all it’s another assured effort from a band who manage to stay relevant without compromising their creativity.

Lyrically lightweight though it may be, Icky Blossoms can be impassioned and angry, primarily when Pressnall takes on the vocals.

By focusing inwards, Born Ruffians have done that whole 'maturing' thing that us reviewers like to talk about, and created a much improved piece of art.

In spite of In Dream’s polite frills, big crowdpleasers, and abstract ideals, Editors still hold fast to a sense of self that throbs harder than ever.

Parts of this record sound more like final clasps of desperation rather than any forward progression.

Anthems is a confident, solid and ultimately hugely likable debut; Carter and Carroll have succeeded in producing something that on occasion genuinely lives up to its ambitious title.

It’s an album which is not sure whether it wants to be happy or sad; to accept the inevitable nothingness of existence or keep searching for answers.

It all adds to the feeling that there's no particular point or guiding aesthetic here.

There's no sonic arsenal, nothing to make you sit and check your ears, just gentle, simple songs that sound like the laments of a sad generation.

So whilst the fire might need more kindling before it can truly become a beacon, the potential and ambition cannot be faulted.

Junk is purely for Anthony Gonzalez. In that regard, it is indeed his most personal work. It is indeed a statement, though a cheap and hollow one, worthy of its title. Frankly, you expect better.

Individual tracks will wax and wane in popularity, and the genitalia humour of 'Sugar Lumps' et al might attract a wider audience who don’t understand the deadpan atmosphere of the rest of the show, but it’s hard to grow tired of this peculiar couple and their music.

For the most part, this is the heaviest record that they’ve recorded and the most far-out as well.

Interpol is quite possibly the record that the more rabid end of the band's fanbase would have wanted Antics to be; a consistently flowing album, the whole of which is exceedingly better than the sum of its parts.

This album has its dancing shoes straddling very different musical camps and somehow manages to bind them together with skill and personality.

‘Timebomb Zone’s ugly rave onslaught strikes first – you feel the stretch of a wince appear. ‘Champions of London’ and ‘Boom Boom Tap’ follow up with a one-two punch; you never saw it coming. Maybe ‘Give Me A Signal’ would be a late highlight, and it is, unless you’ve heard ‘Higher State Of Consciousness’ more than once, or ‘Poison’, for that matter. You never stood a chance. The only reasons to recommend this record over its predecessor is that it’s shorter and doesn’t have Sleaford Mods on it.

There's still too much here which feels (and sounds) like filler, but when Jenkinson pulls it off it's as incomparably awesome as ever.

They may have failed in capturing the spirit of the Dadaists, but then it’s unlikely anyone would really have enjoyed that much anyway. What we get instead is two bands playing, not in opposition, but in perfect, complementing disharmony.

Angel Guts: Red Classroom is the typical blend of passion, pain and awkwardness which makes Xiu Xiu what they are. Fearless, demanding, relentlessly subversive.

With such a sprawling array of instruments on offer, Places Like This is surprisingly one dimensional.

‘Warnings / Promises’ is the work of a band pushing itself to the limits of its generous, but ultimately not boundless musical ability.

Octahedron lacks sparkle enough to raise it above previous creative highs--it’s a recommended affair, at times truly scintillating, but it doesn’t quite deliver to the extent where all caution can be tossed to the breeze.

Overall, Alive As You Are's sea change is perhaps just a little too severe to fully engage with in one sitting, and despite the band's insistence this record represents a significant step forward, its retrogressive veneer casts something of a bewildering shadow.

Although Stage Whisper comprises very much atypical pieces of music from Gainsbourg, it's still equally as lovable and interesting as her other works.

It’s an album that provides a taste of something familiar, yet somehow flavourless.

The Sunshine Underground suffers from muddled ideas and rampant over-ambition.

Siberia is... essentially a re-make of the Grey Album.

The music is exquisitely played, impeccably arranged and the lyrics are thoughtful and esoteric. The only problem is that it's a bit of a grower.

Galore is an odd proposition for a debut album. It feels more transitional than a definitive statement of who Thumpers are, and that’s a hugely exciting thing.

Bands normally falter in their attempts to create an album full of 'hits' instead of remaining true to whatever their mission statement is or artistic roots are, but this is clearly the field where PB&J excel--creating bittersweet musical moments that we will be compelled to revisit again and again.

So safe they remain for Slow Air--with the same airbrushed slick of 2016’s Dead Blue, Greg Hughes and Tessa Murray pare back the fog machines and phone in a mostly forgettable series of pleasant enough new wave, as distant and vague as the storybook rainforest on the cover.

This may be a more suitable album for a man of Iggy’s age to put out than his last, but that doesn’t make it a better one. Indeed the idea of an inoffensive Iggy Pop album seems itself almost offensive.