When you heard Cape Dory, you probably didn’t expect Tennis to be growing into soulful artistry six years and three albums later, and they deserve an incredible amount of credit for that. But you definitely wouldn’t ever have expected them to sound dreary either, and that’s something of which Tennis are slightly guilty on Yours Conditionally.

Akerfeldt should be praised for breaking free of an often repetitive genre--there's nothing wrong with radical reinvention. But this departure didn't need to be quite so lacklustre.

While The Enemy Chorus may not launch itself into the night sky and explode like the great big sonic firework it wants be, there are enough bangs on display here to warrant taking it out for the occasional stroll.

Like Within and Without, it's no overhaul, but Young Hunger has a much more immediate presence, more direct in both a melodic and emotional sense and generally with a lot more 'oomph'.

LNZNDRF lacks the deft, enchanting musical nuance of The National or Beirut but it does make for enjoyable, if not startling, interim listening.

In all, it’s an album with an admirable sense of ambition and innovation, a band pushing themselves sonically and lyrically in new directions; that they at times come up short is therefore a shame.

You can't take it too seriously--if you did you'd find an album riddled with clichés and vulgarities. Just take it as it was intended: 30 minutes of fun from one of the world's most entertaining rock stars.

If you like Mogwai for the sounds they make, for their instrumental dynamic and ebbing/flowing moodiness, you'll probably like Mr Beast - there's certainly little to object to. But if you love Mogwai... perhaps Mr Beast isn't for you.

As the album ends with disco floor fillers by The Ramones and Blondie by way of Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Franz Ferdinand respectively, you know you have had a fun if not entirely unforgettable experience.

For all the sonic acrobatics though, it’s a record that feels like it’s missing something vital.

They try hard, Coldplay, but it just isn't enough; their fourth album might just be their best yet, but it's still a long way from being the epochal classic that Chris Martin is desperate to create.

It’s possible it just too hard to produce a record of straight classic songwriting in an era that has heard it all, but Blind Pilot make a good stab at it.

A couple of tracks at once would probably be the best prescription to suggest, rather than ingesting as a whole.

Sadly, the album at large is plagued by many of the things which have seeped into Folds' sound over the last ten years: the seriousness, the restraint, and the descent into middle age.

If there’s a problem with the album it’s possibly in the even-ness of the tone throughout. The vocals are soft, tuneful and pretty, the tunes are melodic and often hooky but it’s not until the second last track--‘Snaps’--arrives with a bit more attitude and grit that you realise that this is what has been missing up until this point. That said, almost every track here would work as a single, or heard by itself on the radio – they’re all decidedly easy on the ear.

[There are no] outstandingly bad offerings, just several more forgettable ones than can be briskly ignored.

Sequitur feels very much like a whistle stop tour of the history of ambient/electronic music.

It's frustrating, because if you took Our Ill Wills' best moments and condensed them into an EP we'd easily be talking an eight or nine, but as it is, the second Shout Out Louds LP is a Jekyll and Hyde record that ultimately flatters to deceive.

While sometimes left wanting for redeeming bells and whistles, where Big Bells & Dime Songs sporadically strikes gold is its distillation of tumbleweed folk Americana.

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.

Jurado's strengths--ability to tug at the heartstrings without seeming mawkish or sentimental--are intact, but bolstered by what you might assume is Richard Swift's input. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. The rest of Saint Bartlett isn't bad, it just reverts to type to such an extent that it pales in comparison to the earlier moments.

Every Open Eye seems neutered, the rough edges sanded back on an album that fits a mould more than it breaks it--which given the band’s confrontational media stance seems something of a waste.

Well, there is a lack of faults, sure, but there’s not a lot that grabs hard.

The best moments are those which eschew any attempt to write proper 'songs' and instead simply try to convince the listener that he or she is travelling on an epic, wobbly, thrilling and frightening, mind-expanding journey through outer space.

It's a well recorded, well played effort, and it nestles into genre expectation very nicely. But weirdly, with one extremely notable exception, the songs are predictable and average.

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.

Although Liima’s first offering is somewhat of a mixed affair, it is worth sticking with, for both them and us.

As an album, Poetry Of The Deed is a listenable, more than competent collection. The difficulty lies in it's lack of character.