Ukulele Songs is an album brimming with integrity and enthusiasm and, most importantly, it boasts great tunes.

Nina Persson may have dropped the guise of A Camp, but Animal Heart is too emotionally unengaging to leave you feeling like you know her any better for it and compared to Colonia’s more colourful palette it feels, if not quite beige, then at best a dull taupe.

They do little to advance on the template, but at their best they produce some thrilling pop music, and while failing to create a consistently brilliant album

Sometimes there's a feeling of business as usual--both 'Heathens' and 'Avalanche Of Light' fall into that category--but then when your legacy is as distinguished as The Cult's, such a trait should not be scoffed at.

By no means an awful record, but certainly a disappointing one.

It’s a little too smooth in places, and also a little lacking in assurance, but just like my friend, it’s worth making the effort to get into this party.

On Rapture he’s traded atmospherics for dominating vocals, making the stylistic leap towards ‘tell don’t show’ music. It’s a move that will undoubtedly bring Tropics to a wider audience, but robs the listener of emotional nuance and understatement; everything that made him interesting, back when he was still making music in his bedroom.

Perhaps with a little more nuance they can exploit the potential of their partnership to be one of the most intriguing electro-pop duos around--but on Ice on the Dune that potential remains unrealised.

Free The Universe reeks of chasing the success of Baauer’s 'Harlem Shake'--shich, incidentally, came out on Diplo’s Mad Decent label--like a rabid dog. As such, it’s just another notch on macho rave’s bedpost.

Conduit is short, vicious, angry and their most singular album to date but this lean and stripped down approach isn't a total success.

After five albums, and after seven years of silence, it’s obvious now that Art Brut work best when they’re back to basics, reminding us what it might have been like to be fresh out of university in pre-recession times, and ensuring that we can dance along with them while they’re at it.

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

Emotional ambiguity never sounded so good. Business as usual then.

As it is Weathervanes remains a catchy album that will satiate those with an indie-pop sweet tooth, (the type who can bear glockenspiel on every track) and maybe even offer the odd moment of genuine inspiration. Many of us will find it all a little too familiar and unengaging to get that far.

Unfortunately, the hour-long main section of Jojo Burger Tempest is too hollow to be of much merit. The great variety of timbres on the album creates a psychedelic vibe, but the songs themselves are simply lacking in focus.

Patricia Hall and Ian Hicks have found the perfect balance between the moody and the danceable, making the whole home clubbing experience all the more realistic.

As long as her music remains as bold, inventive and occasionally thrilling as it is here, long may that continue.

The co-writes--not as many as you might’ve expected--generally boom from the speakers. The self-penned efforts are bare-boned, erratically excellent but frustratingly blighted by Adele’s penchant for going beyond her capabilities as a vocalist.

For the most part, though, debut album Between Places cuts and pastes a series of well meaning but unengaging pop vignettes.

It’s undoubtedly Avey’s best solo work to date, and another welcome reminder of Animal Collective’s ability to rejuvenate, surprise and delight.

Ultimately, it seems that the likes of Springsteen, Dylan, and the rest of the well-worn idols, call many more of the shots than Blitzen Trapper as an independent entity.

With greater vision Sea of Bees may one day become a more substantial proposition, but for now Julie Ann Baenziger's solo project barely papers over the cracks.

Catchy, bratty and phenomenally uninspiring, America Give Up is not so much shouting from the rooftops as howling at the moon.

One suspects the end product here may have had more to do with the record's producer than its creators, and as a result, this album is as unconvincing as the band's hollow assurances that they're open to embracing new horizons.

The immediacy of ...Night Fall's melodies and the satisfaction derived from its buttressing rhythms will generate just about enough pleasure for most.

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.

Wavvves does tend to tail off down repetition high street towards the end, but all in all, even where the experimental interlude segments of 'Goth Girls' and 'Killr Punx, Scary Demons' knit the record together like butterfly clips around a gaping wound, there's enough here to suggest Nathan Williams has the potential to become a very special talent indeed in the none too distant future.

Face Control, the new record by Handsome Furs (Alexei Perry and Dan-from-Wolf-Parade), sounds like "Born in the USA," if the Boss had allowed a little more evil in the mix, and tried replicating Alan Vega’s demented yelps. Yeah, it’s THAT good...