It is, all at once, accessible as a song, but interesting as a piece of music. But the problem with Let Me Come Home overall is that, as before, there is a bit too much of the former and nowhere near enough of the latter.

While Joyce Manor's fourth record is still a very enjoyable romp through ten expertly written pop-punk songs, the album's plain-view influences, cleaner production and vocal delivery feels like it just slightly misses the mark on being the something truly special the band have threatened their entire careers.

Rap paradise is paved with bad intentions and Key to the Kuffs disappoints by shying away from greatness where we've come to expect nothing less.

After eleven songs, the band’s inability to stretch their sound starts to take its toll.

A record that leaves no seam un-burst in its insatiable quest for mainstream adoration and success.

Ultimately where Jamie Lidell falls down is its lack of originality or sense of emotional honesty.

Fink still seems to be finding the confidence in his voice that when it’s pushed is truly wonderful, but most of time a little dreary and unconscious. That aside, this is a lovely little record for folk fans who like a Seventies scuff.

As a rule the lackadaisical New Order and the greatest hits-centric set they tour with aren’t the stuff of live album legend, and matters aren’t really helped by the fact large chunks of the set have been lopped out in order to make it into a single CD, with the likes of ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Crystal’ receiving the heave.

Newcomers to the band would do just as well to track down The Ugly People vs. The Beautiful People, which gives a more cohesive impression of the version of The Czars that Best of... tries to convey.

Familiars, then, is unsurprisingly, immensely moving.... But Familiars lacks any real musical inventiveness.

With Little Dragon, you get it all under the one roof: a groove-powered producer's band with a little edge, an indie sensibility and a soul singer at its helm, able to turn out a pretty melody on the right side of cloyingly doe-eyed.

In its totality, Back on the Planet works as a decent upgrade from Spacebase, despite its weird results.

Brash and trashy.

Galapagos will definitely keep the party going, though it might not do much more than that.

Taken as a three quarters of an hour lump, the narrowness of her vision is brought into sharp relief, as Keeler-Schaffeler struggles to salvage a bona fide record from admirably restless blogging.

The comparative simplicity of these songs makes this a more of a compelling curiosity piece, rather than the explosively satisfying--potentially classic--albums that both of these bands have in them as separate artists.

Ultimately, Lex Hives sadly conforms to the patchy-at-best trajectory of the band's major label releases, but at least does so while taking a decisive step back in the direction of being the ferocious rock band which The Hives unvaryingly claim to still be, and indeed unquestionably once were.

A band's influences should whisper in your ear, not smack you round the face. That's not to say that there isn't anything new or really of themselves in there, it just takes a little while to figure out what it is.

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.

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.

Vek has channelled these emotions into an album that sporadically bristles and intoxicates with thrilling rhythms and fierce yet monotonously-delivered lyrics.

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

PVT still frequently show flashes of promise and brilliance, but soon undercut themselves through the poor balance between vocal and musicianship.

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

On its own terms, Ear Pwr is a record that, while occasionally poorly structured and a little draggy, offers a rapturous sundown forestfull of perfectly nice pop nuggets, and perhaps the most unexpectedly 'normal' album of the year; a breakneck jolt and a right-turn for the conventional.

There are delights to be discovered here for fans of Mac DeMarco’s grinning sleaze, the reedy pop of Best Coast and the straight up tunefulness of the UK’s largely overlooked Weird Dreams and it is clear that The Growlers, when not obsessing over gimmicks and borrowed tropes, are perfectly capable of graduating to become a great, insightful pop band.

Not all of the tracks hit their mark, and this is a far cry from the standard of much of E's earlier material. But it is nonetheless a good record.

A Snowflake Fell could have worked as a series of effective B-sides or bonus tracks on the aforementioned album package.