The fact of the matter is that Bryan Ferry has produced another album of inessential middle-of-the-road cosmopolitan adult-pop. The only difference is that this time they are his own songs.

A rather average document, already a relic on arrival, with about three standout songs among a soporific wash of over-polished Flying Nun imitations.

The biggest problem with You Cross My Path isn’t so much the music though; sure it’s not an invigorating brew, but the blend of swirling Hammond and ponderous bass and drums stays on the right side of tepid most of the time.

Despite the immense joy of the final five songs, the prospect of a repeat play is a discouraging one when the first five brought forth a cynicism entirely unwelcome among a collection designed to elicit wonder.

While it certainly shows Blink to have the potential for much more than their past reputation may convey, Neighborhoods is reminiscent of that first awkward conversation after a heated argument, as no-one's quite sure where to go next.

Lynn Teeter Flower isn’t bad by any means. It’s just too safe, too predictable.

Again penned almost entirely by Campbell before tweaked to fit Lanegan’s whisky-guzzled grumbling, there’s a distinct element of ‘seen it, done it, milking it’ to every rootsy, airsome shanty and, although executed with exemplary grace, it seems there’s not quite enough fuel left to stoke the fires of desire once more.

FOW just seem go through the motions. No sweat. No tongue in cheek either.

Zeitgeist sounds like a watered-down version of the best bits from Mellon Collie…, meaning it just ends up being too similar to Machina… for its own good.

Play Music is a good idea poorly executed.

For the most part, it feels like either overweening confidence or desire to snare rudderless Oasis fans has led to Kasabian attempting the sort of conventional guitar pop record that they've always so successfully avoided making.

In subduing and possibly internalising his animalistic anger and youthful vigour, the introspective search for his new identity is yet to bear any real musical fruit.

For Wilderness Heart remains, ultimately, a collection of ten tracks of roughly equal length, each taking roughly one classic idea and pickling it in (admittedly, impeccably realised) production gloss and traditionalist technique.

For every full colour oil on canvas there are two doodles that fail to engage this sympathetic listener even after five or six plays.

The album just about manages to avoid the trappings of both quirky and medieval, which is no mean feat for a flute based album.

The majority of the album is the future of all dinnerparties, the dinnerparty that never ends, a spooling aeon of trite politeness, as your dry android host projects his Facebook photos into your retina for eternity.

Some of the weakest, most un-affecting songs that Kurt Wagner has ever written. [combined review of both discs]

To the casual ear, this could be any of their other albums. But with such a consistent sound, it becomes harder for individual songs to stand out.

What’s clear is how badly Marr needs a foil, a counterpart, a collaborator, because on his own his ideas only seem to stretch so far, and so, sadly, does our good will.

While occasionally striking like a brilliant, blinding lightning bolt, they all too often seem to ride a wave of bleating mediocrity to multi-platinum heights.

Happiness promises the rough edges and absurdity of one era's pop, but for the most part gives the mum-friendliness of the next. Hurts would surely be better if they committed to one or the other.

This is a limping, bloodless version of The Civil Wars, and if the band is to have a future they need to fix their issues, or else learn to channel the damage better.

There are those that will love this record, for whom it will be the gateway into earlier, richer work. But for those of us who have already been spellbound by what Ben Bridwell can create, this is simply not enough.

We have an album that displays a band with considerable potential, but which is disappointingly lacking in imagination: compositionally and lyrically.

Get Hurt is the most brooding, ashen release yet, and not quite with their usual sombre charm.

Blending careful harmonies with insidious melodies and woeful lyrics with clever vocals, AAF stick a couple of Hispanic influences and some string quartets in as well.

It’s an album certain of what it wants to be, but lacking in the naturalness needed to truly convince, let alone amaze.

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.

The reality is that it's more complicated than simply saying I preferred their early stuff, because all bands have to change. The fact is though, it's impossible to forget that Jimmy Eat World can, and have, done so much better.

Black Moth Super Rainbow is unable to even meld the far out periphery around a dreamy passive sound.

Goldfrapp make another proficient genre hop, it simply feels like they’re failing to consolidate their last bout of proficiency. They've moved on, changed their sound, and it's just okay... again.

Ultimately Spaces Everywhere is a record that sparkles with little hints of wit, unconventional beauty and musical verve, but they shine so brightly because of the mediocrity that surrounds them.

‘Bows And Arrows’ isn’t a bad album, merely average, struggling to match the level of excitement generated by the brilliant single ‘The Rat’.

Centred on trippy improvisations, this is a record which moves whilst going nowhere.

Everything's The Rush isn't an awful record. Delays don't do awful; they just do okay, and okay might as well be called forgettable, because that's what the first part of this album is.

When Grossi nails the sweet spot between these two poles the result is nigh-on perfection (Curtis Lane’s 'I'm In Your Church at Night' and 'Hanging On' from 2011’s gorgeous You’re All I See to seize on the most obvious). The disappointment with Mercy is that he never quite finds that spot to the same extent.

With S+@dium Rock, Titus Andronicus have managed to create a live record that says everything and nothing at the same time.

Whilst Glass Animals excel at sustaining mood all that effort never really builds to any kind of release, just ultimately fading away beneath a queasy drape of melody and a frustrating sense of unfulfilment.

Apart from the new wave prom dance of 'Candles', The Far Field plays out like a treadmill--same tempos, same whining siren wails from the synths, same bass undulation.

It’s not enough to make an album that blends inoffensively into the background. Psychedelia is supposed to be mind-bending, not just some minor flavouring to add to your very average indie-pop songs.

You know what you're getting with Good Charlotte, and while it's all very well and respectable to make shapes on the dance floor to one of their tunes after several pints, buying this album is both pointless and foolish. It's a pop album; just burn the singles if you must.

Pop lives or dies primarily on the quality of the songs, and in comparison to the commercial pop he's emulating, these songs come up short.

While The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness is not a complete disaster, even the most loyal of fans will find it difficult to love. The end result sounds quickly thrown together and unusually bereft of ideas.

Over and over again What About Now pitches itself at the same commercially anthemic middle ground as U2, ideal for talent show montages and inspiring moments at award shows but ultimately anemic, soulless and forgettable.

Musically, this is a pleasant record, one that’ll soundtrack many a packed yet ultimately sensible party.

Bibio’s tendency, across the album, to either smooth the edges of his creations into non-threatening abstraction or fail to zone in on his best ideas is frustrating.

Big and bold when it hits, underwhelming and otherwise transient elsewhere, it’s a debut that manages to occasionally impress while leaving a lot to be desired.

The only real ‘surprise’ about Rihanna’s eighth album is just how challenging it is, not to listen to but to enjoy. Sonically, Anti is defiantly low key with very little to quicken the pulse.

It's not that bad an album--it's executed with all the gumption you'd expect from the SOAD mainman--but if you've heard any of the band's previous output you just don't need this in your collection.

Nearly every track is catchy enough but for an act in the business of cheap, good time thrills, most fall too far from the bountiful tree of old.

Technically it's well crafted pop music, that is undeniable--and on individual songs it's a success--but as an album it fails, it's a distancing record, it doesn't engage you and, if anything, it alienates you with its lack of evolution and variation.

For diehard fans Gravity The Seducer is replete with pleasing moments. For fans of novel musical statements, not so much. Listen, feel your mind wander, forget.

Trouble is, B-sides have never exactly been Albarn’s strong suit, thanks mainly to his incurable dilettantism and aforementioned onanistic tendencies.

What we get is Britain's best proper rock band doing what they do until we're numb to what makes them special.

As a warm up exercise for Barât’s musical muscles and an honouring of a debt to The Jackals, Let It Reign is absolutely fine. But Libertines album number three will need to deliver a lot more than this.

NBA's sole but major problem is that so many of these songs - 'Unsatisfied', 'Shot Down', 'Ironside', the list goes on - lack anything like major soul.

The Smashing Pumpkins in 2018 are an anachronism. Whether that’s an anachronism to relish, or render them irrelevant is up for debate, but Shiny and Oh So Bright sadly offers little to further their considerable legend.

Though it has its moments Blue Record is by no means a success, but it offers enough to suggest that with a bit of fine tuning Unknown Mortal Orchestra might eventually get a bit good at the old acoustic guitar game.

File under "Music for Somnambulists".

With such an unbending focus on intellectual ideals, Asiatisch is as erudite and wildly impenetrable as its maker.

Lil Wayne’s status and influence is now clearly working against him, the choice to release a rock record has backfired, yet obviously no-one has had the guts or inclination to tell him that the overblown choruses and riffs of Rebirth drag him away from the in-your-face lyricism and unorthadox flows that he is best at.

Not a bad album, just a boring one.

Mysteries is by no means terrible, but Tigercats are a long way from earning their stripes.

There's no doubt that Skee-Dat-De-Dat...Spirit of Satch is a project of love, but by the closing stages there's no getting away from it; the album is a bit of a... drag.

They have yet again created a record of consistent dependability, but sadly it fails to excite and veers too close to the middle of the road.

Away from the lyrics, there’s a nagging feeling that, like The Only Place, California Nights isn’t going to blow too many people away with its mostly familiar-feeling content.

That’s the half of Relaxer that I can live with, the half that strives actively to dispel alt-J’s pretentious front and swing for the top of the charts. But then, my friends, we return to the 'House of the Rising Sun'--because here, on this wikkle precious cover version with the cyclical Leonard Cohen guitar, we’re reminded of every reason to hate the three blokes.

As 'Syncn' lilts to a close, it’s hard not to feel that White Denim would be better if they channelled a little of their chaotic diversity towards consistency, and focused upon being the very biggest, dumbest and craziest bunch of garage revivalists, rather than striking towards a uniqueness that is momentarily out of reach.

Most of these are just too damn long, and don’t develop too far past theme-and-variation rounds. Plus, Sarp taps along at the same stately tempo for nearly all his parts, so every song merges unwillingly into the next.

ARTPOP is a decidedly patchy ‘Just Dance’-less disappointment.

While the instrumental augmentation in most of the songs is impressive, the setlist feels less immediate than the band's past work.

It’s a decent snapshot of that nebulous minimal-not-minimal sound at present.

Okay, so it’s a bold change in direction, and while that’s laudable, there’s very little differentiation, which makes for a frustrating, often banal long-player.

The rest of the record is a confused meander through some of the lesser known backstreets of this over-familiar band.

This is a missed opportunity to stand up and move forward with popular music, and comes off as a backbench cry for how good things used to be before we all started caring about progression.

The Little Ones however have produced a record that naively ignores all the elements that make reality real, and therefore it doesn’t make much sense. It’s happy and lively to the point of vulgarity.

The album is recognisable in name only. Only a few songs register in their entirety as actual conceivable moments that the artist would have presumably been comfortable releasing.

It’s just that on Don’t Forget Who You Are he and his new collaborators have turned everything up to 11 in a transparently concerted effort to throw him into the spotlight, but in setting him apart from his previous work he’s lost many of the idiosyncrasies which made him interesting.

On record Yes, It's True feels insubstantial, which is disappointing because when they don't go overboard they can still craft interesting music.

Ultimately Life On the Road can only work as a comedy project, and musical comedy needs to be richer than this to be worth visiting more than once. You need to be Flight of the Conchords to pull that off, and David Brent just isn’t likeable or interesting enough.

The moments of unity sound accidental and haphazard, ambient music with the occasional breakcore eruption, as if a child was operating two stereos playing each artist and alternating turning the volume up and down on each one.

Whether Colors will be a success within the pop world it is clearly aimed at remains to be seen, but one suspects even pop fans will see through this for it appears to be: an album documenting a mid-life crisis.

It’s perfectly pleasant background listening, but it yields diminishing returns from close listening.

At this point Rival Schools sound like Nada Surf without the pop nous or OK Go without the videos. Perfectly listenable, perfectly agreeable, absolutely forgettable.

It goes without saying that they still possess a die-hard dedication for that certain herb, and if you don’t smoke the reefer you shouldn’t go anywhere near this record; it will leave you colder than Cheech and Chong’s Arctic Adventure

Sadly, moments of well executed originality are thin on the ground, as indeed are examples of the band effectively channeling the transcendental shoegaze of their established contemporaries.

Too many cheesy keyboard presets, no engagement with contemporary 'urban' forms, no distinct personality, one half-decent song, a facsimile of a thing as opposed to the thing itself.

These towering moments stretch thin across a record lost in a comatose state of traditional, if beach-bumming, rock-pop tedium.

It’s Bob Dylan’s Christmas gift to you, delivered with warmth from his heart, even if his tongue is in his cheek. Like eggnog, it’s something that will always go down well once a year, even if it is probably just the once.

Kazuashita, then, is the barely audible sigh that follows when you crack open the vacuum-sealed bag that preserved GGD in that hiatus--everything’s there, but crisply folded and flat.

Ultimately Perch Patchwork has some good pieces that just don't combine to make a great album. It's hard to call a band that is just releasing its debut full length "overcooked," but that's exactly what some of these tracks sound like.

In truth, it feels rather lightweight, as do much of Ryan James and Tomas Greenhalf's more adventurous flourishes, seldom though they are. As the narrative unfolds, nothing arrives at the punch of promising earlier efforts.

A good album is essentially buried here; at least eight songs could comfortably be axed.

The production is sublime, every beat and note fully realised in glorious colour. The songs, however, sound tired, and despite determined efforts to sound upbeat and jaunty, they end in a slump of indie-pop lethargy.

It’s a good record, it honestly is. But good grief, it’s a hard one to be excited by.

It’s neither poor enough to warrant a panning, nor progressive enough to deserve praising to a degree where recommendation to absolute beginners is necessary.

The sense of worship for the genre [dance pop] is laid on a bit thick sometimes too, even in the titles (see ‘Face 2 Face’, ‘Going Thru the Motions’ and ‘(Don’t) Wannabe’). So maybe the thing Kristin needs most is a sense of uniqueness.

Sistrionix could be a foundation for something much better or something infinitely worse, but for now Deap Vally don’t particularly deserve your hate or your love.