While World Wide Rebel Songs exudes confidence, its execution is like attempting to cross too many "T"s with your eyes closed: odds are that you'll get one or two right, but it's impossible to consistently hit the mark.

Birthmarks is probably the most impressive Born Ruffians record to date, but it’s a shame they travelled so far without straying from the middle of the road.

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

With Dynamics, Holy Ghost! have struck a careful balance between revisiting their mid-Noughties origins and playing with new ideas within a similar arena.

That Keith is capable of better records is a point proven by his past, but so far as 2006-born hip-hop goes, this is head and shoulders above much of the loudmouthed, uncouth and generic rabble.

Somewhere under all this reverb and murk, Gauntlet Hair may yet have the makings of a fine band, but the album burns out long before they have an opportunity to reveal wether this is true.

Distinctive in style and sound, particularly Hecksher's drawling vocal and JC Rees expedient guitar surges, it's a record that pulls no punches in execution or delivery while conveying some of the most heartfelt lyrics Hecksher has ever penned.

My problem is that AIH don't really give much away. There isn't any real personality on show. It could be any musicians.

A.M. buzzes and drones, floats and wafts. It’s cloudy skies and open roads. It’s hypnotic and swirly, it’s warm and cosy. It’s static eyeballs and minimal movement. It’s spellbindingly gorgeous.

Despite some fine moments, on the whole there's not enough that's memorable or above average. No one would give Keane a second glance if Tom Chaplin did not possess such a gift of a voice.

Every song is predictable, workman-like, lacking invention.

2 of 2, then, is an incredibly frustrating experience.

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.

He’s Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands is by no stretch of the imagination the most disagreeable Joan of Arc record to date, or the most impenetrable, either; some of the soundscapes here are pleasingly smooth given how scattershot Kinsella’s approach so often is.

All songs are played relatively straight--nary a jingle bell in earshot--which is a good choice, as it offsets the devotional aspects of more traditional carols like ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’.

What Shobaleader One does is strike a finer balance between the accessible and the surreal than pretty much all of Jenkinson's previous releases. It retains all the elements that are recognisably Squarepusher but manages to filter them through this newly polished lens and thrusts it into a new, invigorating stream of light.

Nothing, not even their own past as a middling indie-pop crossover act, is sacred, and it’s sad to see The Kooks attempt to conjure past glories and fall flat.

It's a bold, brash, varied, slightly confused dance record with flashes of hip-hop.

It’ll no doubt be lapped up by impressionable 14 year old girls the world over, but for a show that has so much more to offer this just smacks of studio exec. cash-in.

It’s not a complete lack of experimental ventures, but a limited volume. Regardless, this latest version of the band has clearly found a style that works, and the album definitely exhibits a bold direction, even if the average STP fan would naturally like to see a higher volume of daring moments.

It requires TLC, and some listeners–-and I count myself among them–-are just too heavy-handed to stay in its company long.

Sixes & Sevens might be a drawn-out mess, but break it down to its constituent parts and you suddenly have rich pickings for the perfect mix-tape.

There's nothing on 'Folklore' that comes anywhere near the catchiness of anything off her debut.

Pink Friday: Roman's Revenge isn't bad because of Minaj's cross-dressing it is bad because she often tries on some very banal, characterless outfits.

There are no bad songs on Inner Classics,, no painful moments, no dodgy production or misjudged directions. But there's not much else either.

There’s a huge range of styles on display, but Innocents remains a remarkably cohesive and creative record, thanks both to Moby’s instrumentation and to the album’s conceptual feel.

As the sound of a band still in development mode and not quite sure of their identity, Future This offers a lucid insight into where their next sonic adventure may take them.

The main problem with No Hope, No Future, though, is that very little here stands out above the accepted and expected norm. At times, there's a feeling Good Shoes have almost resigned themselves to a destined state of mediocrity.

Too much nothing, too much that sort of fits… let’s go with it; not enough time spent on making the musical corners as sharp and interesting as they could be.

Let's not pretend that an excellent lead track and a handful of perfectly agreeable additional songs is bad going for an odds'n'sonds EP. Still, in both its strengths and weaknesses, thecontrollorsphere is suggestive of a band in need of some renewal.

There’s just very so little of merit here--glazed pop-rock staggers into itself as the whole album washes past without you realising.

A Joyful Noise is a femme-power event album too shallow to achieve the import its creators intended.

In combination it’s not adding much--except that little something in the twang of Bell’s voice which is completely unique and compelling--a little something almost completely drowned out by obvious platitudes maintained for a bit too long and with a few too many strings in the background.

The happy-go-lucky, Casio-plated sheen surrounding their elegantly crafted pop songs disguises what are, by and large, tales of bitterness, regret and longing for things that are impossibly out of reach.

Blink-182 aficionados will find plenty to enjoy here, but for those who grew wearisome of the stale pop-punk formula years ago, +44’s debut album is an unnecessary purchase.

Disappointingly, this is a shaky collection for such a groundbreaking producer, though unlikely to impact his designs on commercial ascendancy.

The sledgehammer approach makes sense, in a way, but only if the satire is sharp and coherent. Too often on Sheezus, it’s not.

Ephemeral, blissful, ambient.... It’s also a mess. But it chooses to be a mess. It tries to be a mess that’s smoothed over and therein genius should reside. But it hasn’t done that. Instead all that is presented is two overlong tracks of snippets of stuff.

A majority of IMD is destined to end up splattered across car adverts and in film soundtracks where the scene is of a pulsing, throbbing, energetic nature. Sadly, that won't lend it any more substance.

For all its comparative brave departures and originality, The Third Hand just isn’t particularly engaging.

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.

Does this mean Inherit is one for the better-luck-next-time pile? No, because while we’re right to expect more from these three women, their middle of the road still stands heads above much produced by the younger generation of noiseniks.

Red’s a grandiose statement of intent, crammed with aspirational symphonies that run the gambit of popular culture over the past 40 years without ever succumbing to grating pastiche.

Strangeland feels just a bit by the numbers.

An unexpected treat.

What really let’s this collection down is not the quality of the songs – everything about their tunes is well considered and slickly executed – but the production.

The record doesn’t successfully break new ground as much as it reassuringly treads familiar paths

In truth, Animal Collective didn’t really need to depend on the visual accompaniment to Tangerine Reef as the record does extremely well to capture the essence of the life aquatic on its own.

Essential only for Alexis Taylor's fanbase? Yes, but an intriguing and easily loveable record for many more.

This is CocoRosie's best long-player yet, and a sure contender for album of the year.

They’ve merely decided to exchange one set of quite transparent influences for another, less-effective set.

It's far from a poor record - the sole problem is that a number of songs do blur together, forming more of an aural whitewash than the technicolour trip some had predicted.

Along with the deliciously slick 'My Enemy' and recent single 'We Can't Fly' they serve as an exasperating reminder of just how good this album might have been. Instead these tracks merely serve as Aeroplane's black-box, sole survivors pulled from the flaming wreckage.

So after the outré highs and lows of Grey Oceans have played their last syllable, it's hard to know what to think of it, apart from being slightly underwhelmed for the most part.

Ultimately it is telling that the best song present here is a re-imagining of a previous smash. But leveling criticisms of unoriginality or lack of innovation and evolution at bands like BMFV is almost redundant. They're judged on the size of their hooks and in that department Temper Temper largely delivers.

While the songs aren't exactly good per se, they're certainly not hateful. You'd dance to them. Maybe you'd have to be drunk. Maybe you'd have to be in Reflex. But you'd dance to them.

Magna Carta... Holy Grail isn't a total bust, but neither is it anywhere close to Jay-Z's finest moments. Instead it's a strange and anodyne record, that speaks of a king, nay a god, who may not have lost his crown, but would benefit from leaving his lofty boardroom once in a while.

From the outset, No Mundane Options drifts by without asserting itself.

The good far outweighs the bad here, and with Generation Freakshow Feeder have created another strong addition to their mostly impressive back catalogue.

Without wanting to sound too critical, there is some naive music on Wish Hotel; it feels a tad bloated in places, and there's the occasional miss in terms of instrumental choices to go along with a plethora of hits.

Each song tells its own story so intensely and so completely, like 11 musical horror novellas, that listening to any of them individually produces an experience more like that of listening to a shortish, intense, masterpiece-like album, especially as the songs often have a few different musical sections and ideas.

The head feels weighed down with unresolved torment, the smile forced and awkward, the colours garish and messily-applied.

The real problem with Limits of Desire is that it’s a decent album that’s difficult to sell.

While the album concept may be flawed in execution this daring approach to composing and recording has resulted in an record which, regardless of its indulgences, is at least an intriguing listen and one which rewards patience with some moments of sublime ear candy.

The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.

The ten tracks here convey no pleasure, and lack any form of belief in their own urgency or desire to be adored.

The feeling [is] that nothing here belongs to Robbie Williams, that he’s officially completely interchangeable, that he’s become trapped in a maze of his own making, and all of the noise seems so very quiet now.

Twee without being cloying, Bishop Allen have dropped any signifiers that might make us think Tilly & the Wall (the clattering percussion, and urgent male/female vocals), and manage to present their light-hearted lyrics as sincere.

While not a failure, Uncanney Valley isn’t the glorious comeback many were expecting.

Unfortunately these familiar sounding highlight aren't enough to raise Bad Lieutenant above the level of any other New Order side-project and they in fact fall some way short of Sumner Electronic.

Amplifier sound confident and in control of their own future, while remaining aware and appreciative of their past--and that’s by no means a bad place to be.

The LP is repeatedly let down by its own exhibitionism.

It is, when it comes down to it, a sloppy gimmick. One, admittedly, that has a few choice moments, but which would have been much better served if Mercer had streamlined all his ideas down in the first place instead of treating these songs as malleable, never-finished opuses.

'America's Sweetheart' is still more 'Celebrity Skin' than anything.

This record has been hailed by some as a return to form, but it's every inch as pointless as his last couple of records and a contender for dullest album of the year.

Silesia is still a relaxing listen: and all of its intense sound swells still leave you with a feeling of peace.

Young Adults Against Suicide is fun but two-dimensional.

Bugg has always had one foot in the past and that’s fine, but On My One might as well be an official challenge to The Strypes in the ‘parents record collection’ department--though a mercifully more bearable one.

For all Method’s moments of individual brilliance--“Rappers don’t really ride they piggy back/I’ll trade them all to have 2Pac and Biggy back”--clarity is lost in the sheer number of guest appearances.

A substandard, second-tier album with some strings thrown in for good measure.

The Airborne Toxic Event can hold their heads high safe in the knowledge their supposedly difficult second album is a resolute triumph in the face of adversity.

Though no longer flavour of the month in 'cool' circles, as far as The Warlocks are concerned it's business as usual, and The Mirror Explodes is up there with their finest works to date.

This isn’t a particularly awful record--it’s simply a album full of typical sounding Stereophonics songs

This is an album that maintains the joyless musical brand Hutchcraft and Anderson crystallised with their two million selling debut.

The question remains unanswered, because while it was, undeniably, dull without him, Relapse is less 12 steps than a stumbling one backwards.

Amidst the overstuffed yet predictable arrangements, the middle-of-the-road sentimentalism and lack of killer tunes, these brief moments can't prevent Ways To Forget itself proving to be largely forgettable.

It sounds like Corgan wanted to make a classic eighties 4AD-style shoegazing record, but instead of offering us something swirling and beautiful, we end up with an experience that is simply flat and grey.

Editors have crafted a bold statement of intent, one that hopefully suggests a continuingly bold future.

What’s not so easy however is appraising something so overwhelmingly awful and so lacking in merit as BE without sounding like one of the smug, condescending middle class intelligentsia.

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.

The arena-filling sound that runs through modern music owes something to Bon Jovi, but This House… comes across more like their third-tier spiritual successors, comprised of forgettable dance-rock and schmaltzy slow-burners loaded with endless platitudes and those echoey, staccato guitar lines that bands do when they want to sound big.

If the other Killers allow it, Brandon Flowers has brought a few decent additions to their greatest hits set, but cull those three or four tracks and what remains is an occasionally interesting, sometimes unintentionally hilarious mess of a concept album that's about as tasteful as the city that inspired it.

Leave this to collect dust in the bargain bin. Or, better still, the bins out the back of HMV.

Form & Control's only real highlight is its title track... But when it's surrounded by so much dross, it's hardly redeeming, and getting loaded may well be the only way to endure the rest of this tripe.

Babyshambles once promised to keep the Arcadian dream alive. Instead, they’ve fizzled out in a fit of mediocrity.

Mondo is that rare case of judge by cover, or what you see is exactly what you get.

A shame, really, since there are couple of songs here displaying a melodic facility far in excess of the record’s dumbed-down intent.

M A N I A won’t suddenly ignite a revisionist outlook of Fall Out Boy’s career, but it does leave you pining for the earnest giddiness of their pre-hiatus material. This is a feeble gesture of benign, stadium-sized pop that’s been cynically constructed, artificially beefed-up and saturated beyond the point of listenability.