Collections is enjoyable, in the way that ready meals can be enjoyable, with their sugar hit and empty calories, their disposability and easy consumption.

It is chocked full of majestic pop hooks, but these are offset by ad-hoc rhythms and synths. Trágame Tierra is a remarkable album, but you’ve got to give it a chance.

All in all, the overriding impression left by The Lateness Of The Hour is that Alex Clare is a fairly gifted gentleman. But here his talents have been squandered on a collection of songs that fail to establish him as either a dance-pop titan or an emotive warbler.

Perversely given the record’s comprehensive musical overhaul it’s perhaps a surfeit of respect for the source material that proves Anywhere's undoing; for all its undoubted accomplishments there’s a lingering suspicion that this is too safe, too respectable a record to do justice to an artist who remains forever mid-topple from the bar stool in the popular consciousness.

EUPHORIC HEARTBREAK should at very least cement Glasvegas' status as one of our most intriguing mainstream indie/rock groups and given a chance by those of a more cynical standpoint they might just find themselves enjoying the titular sensations the record promises and, for the most part, successfully delivers.

What was promised to be Twain's 'very, very pure' album is anything but. ... A terrible album.

In all of this, it's not that any one song is outright horrific (okay, 'Pink Lemonade' is pretty unbearable), more that the entire experience is a chore.

If the album looks back more than it looks forward, well, its makers have earned the right to a reprise. But then again, it wouldn’t work so well if they hadn’t managed to evoke something timeless all along.

While there are fleeting moments of inspiration, Solo Electric Bass is a cavernous black hole that is mostly devoid of anything truly affecting.

Love Frequency might not be enough on its own to lift us from the doldrums of EDM--but it’s always refreshing to hear dance music with a human heart at its core.

While it's hard to critique The Vision for its scattershot successes, as a whole the album is just too erratic to have any sort of lasting impact on formerly ardent fans or casual admirers.

As a collective effort, The Bundles offer a different kind of intimacy; the closeness of a tight-knit group of friends rather than emotive fervour of the individual confessional.

In sticking two fingers up at both their detractors and Dalston, they've crafted one of the most viscerally engaging British rock albums in years.

This is a thumpingly disappointing and consistently milquetoast set of songs riddled with lyrical banality, done-to-death melodies and wispily thin production.

Sadly, for all the passion and insight of his lyrical aspersions here, a lot of the messages are left a tad subdued by the conveyor belt plod orchestration.

Sometimes you are left wishing that the songs could be left to breathe a little more for themselves.

As one dimensional and unadventurous as it may be, In Between Dreams is stronger than 2003's patchy On And On, instantly accessible and just really quite pleasant.

For the most part it’s a successful approach, etching out real depth from twisting jaunts like the excellent ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Jamaica’. But as soon as they tread away from the angular indie pop paradigm, Theme Park begin to lose their edge.

It is missing IT - that something that makes a good album into a great, standout album.

While nothing on the album quite reaches those lofty heights [of Pumped Up Kicks], Supermodel far outshines Torches as a whole.

Ultimately Snow Patrol fare best when they play to their strengths.

This is The Fall, live, in a variety of undisclosed European locations (who knows where? Only MES, probably, if even him), one of this land’s (which land’s?) greatest ever groups, still hurtling forward, still thrillingly, still bafflingly, with their full-bore wonky-wheeled tenebrous, anomalous, glorious grooves-aah.

Young the Giant are aiming for big things and they come close.

Enough signs are pointing in the right direction, but Romance At Short Notice isn’t brave enough to follow each road to its end.

There are occasional lapses (‘I Run’ is textbook Embrace, and thus completely forgettable), and probably too few ideas to really sustain a record, plus of course Editors have made pretty much this exact album at least twice in the last ten years, but still--it’s a hell of a rug-pull from a band long written-off, and a reminder to some of us that everything should be approached with an open mind.

Mills is simply better (if still at times clumsy) when writing about more personal, spiritual or quasi-philosophical matters. K 2.0 begins very promisingly with the loose psych-rock stomp of ‘Infinite Sun’.... Not everything works that well, especially in the LP’s second half.

I like it a lot. Much better than their first.

As well as they’ve delivered The Teal Album, they don’t quite hit the mark with every one of its takes, with their version ‘No Scrubs’ feeling more than a little bit uncomfortable.

Difficult second album? In a way. In that it's difficult to listen to it without smashing your CD player to make it stop.

On the whole, To Lose My Life is a solid debut that will certainly divide opinion, but approach with an open mind and dividends will be reaped en masse.

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.

Quite simply, this record is the devil's spawn incarnate.

A French Kiss In The Chaos is neither artistically interesting nor indeed very good.

All in all, Crooked Shadows is where new and old Dashboard meet amicably. It is the most revitalising DC album to date.

Not everything on By Default is misogynistic, mind, it’s just that when the lyrics aren’t threatening or creepy, they make [any] sense.

On The Real Feel it seems that he’s buckled slightly under the pressure of having his own full length, with his own space to breathe and experiment, and has instead decided to play it straight down the line.

Stereophonics have in effect 'done a U2', packing in the arena-filling songs but with added AOR. Elements of rock dinosaurs such as ELO, Chicago and Fleetwood Mac all crop up over the course of 11 songs.

In between there are definite moments, but the preponderance of very long songs makes it a slog to this day.

This is nourishing pop music at its most immediate best.

With the best of the bunch already out there, the rest simply feels disposable by comparison. You can't help feeling Is Tropical may have made a mistake by playing their aces too early. Lucky they've got that video then.

Even if it doesn’t quite represent the grand tour Nightmares On Wax originally envisaged, the album at least provides an enjoyable detour or two.

The tracks' durations are, to these ears, not wisely distributed and this is possibly the album's biggest drawback.

There are no alarms and no surprises here, but it's a record produced by Jeff Lynne (who is a genius and anyone who says otherwise is a joyless idiot) so it sounds as bright, clear and appealing as anything this year.

Fans of The Music will love 'Welcome To The North' but it is unlikely that detractors will be converted.

The result is intricately experimental in style and form but while there are some glorious successes, as a whole Climb Up feels blunted.

It will do for the festivals but not without considerable help from their back catalogue.

On many levels it's immediately obvious that Nobody's Daughter is neither an awful record, nor a great one.

There are certainly some succulent dishes on the album ('Xerses' and 'Eats Darkness' for me) but all together I do wonder if someone ordered a bit too much?

Whilst a complete reinvention of rock this may not be, a beautiful soaring record for messy nights and hungover Sundays, it most certainly is.

Tides [is] a somewhat unbalanced listen, with both genuine highs and a few frustrating lows.

It's not a massive progression from their debut, and it appears that as the rest of the world has finally caught up with them, the duo from space appear to be having problems going forward.

Rules may not be the shape of what’s to come, but there’s also little offence to be found in its unobtrusive ways.

For a band with such a legacy, and a pre-millennium back catalogue to die for, this record feels hollow and uninspiring.

No Pier Pressure shows just what too many cooks can do to a Beach Boy's broth.

Gone is the rawness of his debut and the innovation of its two follow ups. More worryingly, he’s missing the emotion that made those records so potent.

So far, Sov’s done well for playing to her strengths, but it’s too short an album for filler, and a song about being unable to play the guitar is pointless, however melodic and Northern Soul the cello-part happens to be.

Live on I-5 is still a good, if slightly misjudged and mistimed, effort and, regardless of criticism, Soundgarden finally have a live album to their name, even if it doesn't capture the band at their peak.

On Splitting The Atom, though, the duo simply sound like they’ve run out of ideas, unsurprising given the opening half’s attempts to re-visit an album over 18 years old.

The bulk of the problems lies with the performance itself, and the material chosen.

In general, the choruses are forgettable, the guitars are woefully exaggerated, and the quirkiness that made Weezer a band to be cherished now seems forced and stale.

This album is just that – an album in the truest sense, a collection of songs that work together as a whole and one that doesn’t rely on a strong single or two to make it work.

Electra Heart is a reasonably fun listen, and even if it falls short of its stratospheric ambition, still has more to say than many of Marina's contemporaries.

No doubt delightful for existing Rundgren fans, you deserve a medal if, as an uninitiated listener, you make it out of Global feeling inspired like never before.

The descriptive we’re looking for here is ‘shallow pastiche.’

As with so many albums in the contemporary indie-electronica world, there is a decent one simmering somewhere inside of EVINSPACEY (this sentence makes me curse the existence of cease-and-desist orders).

Will this please die hard fans? It surely will, being filled with the signature Don Broco charm and sound, but shows elements of growth and diversity--as a third album should. The year is off to a good start for them.

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.

Musically, the song structures are as bog-standard as Britpop, the lyrics constantly teeter on the edge of nonsense, while the lack of any real change in style save for rotating the guy on vocals means the tracks continue to merge into one another even after a few listens.

Sadly, the quality of song writing and accompanying musicianship--i.e., everyone except 'arry--is mediocre at best.

An attempt to relive the RATM era that falls far, far short of the bar. Save your money and go and listen to the real deal instead.

It sounds like The Zutons trying to record one of their more out-there b-sides having just lost the ability to play music.

Subtract the saccharine throwback 'Static Space Lover', the utterly somnambulant closer 'III', and the ancient prom scrap 'Time To Get Closer', and you’re left with some solid pop bangers that can sync in time with yr racing heart.

Where the two remaining musicians in the band appear to have gone astray, Michael Stipe sounds positively lost, never to be found again.

This isn't a character assassination (honest), more an explanation why an album that's actually pretty accomplished, musically, should, in the end, prove so forgettable. Even though guitarist Robbie Stern's classical training has been put to good use with some of these arrangements, all too rarely are other band members allowed to shine.

It's a shame The New Classic can sound so heavily manufactured, if anything because interesting things happen from time to time.

These Are The Good Times People is a mere shadow of its ‘90s counterpart that struggles to retain any of the President’s early charm.

A remarkable turnaround then, and although not quite a 360 degree shift, this is a damn fine record that Feeder should be proud of.

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

This insistence on maxing out on subplot, comes at the expense of an initially intriguing premise and, ultimately, your attention span.

If this is peroxide, it’s a heavily diluted solution; there’s certainly nothing caustic here, and scant evidence to suggest, as she protests to be the case on the title track, that there’s anything burning in her heart.

There's barely a narrative other than posturing. It's not really an album, more a relentless ad campaign.

A record that's provided Bear's Den a new lease of life, allowing them to build on the solid foundations laid as a trio and create something that not only feels like a natural progression, but is also staggeringly pretty in the process.

All told, the lovely but tedious collage work of 1948 isn’t crucial to hear.

What is disappointing about Slash, however, is the fact that it seems getting the names into the studio was where the creative process began and ended. So many of the songs here would simply not make it onto new albums from anyone involved.

It's worth a listen for its high points--but it needs more unity.

Quite the mess all told.

Whatever the case, for Christina Aguilera, the x-factor has gone. The daring single minded focus has apparently been lost.

There's no doubt Rivers is capable of astonishing creative output, supposedly at one time writing 384 songs in the space of three years. But, just because you can write a song every other day it doesn't mean that each one is worthy of being unleashed on the public.

The truth is Tranquillisers has no teeth; being neither truly reprehensible nor in the slightest bit memorable.

There very well may be a human heart beating at the centre of 'Bleed Like Me', but thanks to the walls of effects and static, it's sometimes impossible to hear it.

Tellingly, Mark Ronson loves this album. Truth is, it's fine, and perfectly adequate, but nothing more.

Little is embellished, musically or lyrically, and the no-frills approach can sometimes work in a band's favour. But this workmanlike trawl through suburban life won’t set your world on fire.

There is plenty of decent stuff going on in the duo's third record, but it still never really takes off into any rarified territory.

The album, while inevitably stuffed with humour as per the MO of any good rap set, is as dark as coffee, especially as it comes to its close.

Man of the Woods is not an outright disaster but it is a significant disappointment--a record too preoccupied with image, volte face and forced “REAL” to fully engage as a coherent piece of craftsmanship.

It's difficult to know where to stand with The Brink. It's vanilla, it's milk in tea, it's lager, it's a morning bowel movement. It just is.

Many demons are slain at the altar of the Reverend in the course this album--wit, eloquence, incisiveness and originality to name but a few.

With the genre oversaturated beyond belief, bands need to produce something special and original to stand out from the crowd. Radio 4 fail to do that.