The only potentially bad thing about Edwards' style is that many of the tracks on the later half of the record tend to all bleed together.... That said, 'Back To Me' demonstrates Edwards' prowess as a top lyricist.

Whilst back then they bounced along with cheekiness and zeal, now they seem to be trying to continue the reggae-meets-Brit-suburbia Nutty blueprint but end up falling flat in too many places.

Music doesn't always need to be about preaching, grand-slam bombastic leanings or pushing the envelope forward – that's a fallacy. Sometimes it can just be sonically gorgeous, layered and pleasing to your hearing and thought - just as Marissa Nadler ends up being.

Familiarity breeds contempt, and Spinnerette makes its strongest statements when flobbing a big loogie onto the grave of past endeavours, not when laying out fresh blooms at the side.

If they cut out about half of the songs and focused more on the parts that sounded less like Sigur Ros, Riceboy Sleeps would be a much stronger record.

At times the levels of raciness reach Spinal Tap levels of hilarity, as on 'Ooh Ooh Baby's' slinky Glitter Band stomp.

Although Success is a very solid album, from a band that have already proved themselves consistently capable of churning out suitably bad-tempered and obtrusively loud material, it’s hard to feel it’s anything we haven’t heard before, which makes it far more underwhelming than its generally high quality content suggests it should be.

An album which starts feeling a bit dense and chewy halfway through.

On the opening ‘Distant Dream’, where a nagging, urgent keyboard line recalls classic Halloween-era Carpenter, until the creepy effect is undermined by some big, thumping power-drums that come off as more dated than retro. Its an ongoing problem across a record that is often enjoyable, but just as often frustrating.

Somewhere around track eight, the formula starts to wear thin, and the mood lightens a little to a sort of murky, sleepless pre-dawn--it’s not quite sunshine, or it’s supposed to be, but Blank Dogs can’t really make sense of the big glowing thing in the sky.

Tunes-wise there’s some strength in depth here but it’s telling that, in spite of the lip service being paid to various left-of-centre influences, Santogold feels a strangely conservative listen, in danger of satisfying neither fans of M.I.A.’s wild stylistic forays nor the bubblegum masses thirsting after their latest dose of content-free self-assertion.

While most would expect nothing less from a Mark Lanegan Band LP, the end result is a record for ardent fans and not casual admirers.

Most of the tracks here would sound great in that context, but put together here and it leaves you wanted something a little more ragged.

Despite a magnetically bitter prescription, this album's strong dosage of darkness is tough to swallow in one sitting and even more difficult to actively enjoy.

As odd of a notion it is, as a setlist for a show, Weirdo Shrine is a miraculous endeavour to behold, but as an album, it suffers because of its untamed splendour.

It's far from perfect, but Smoke Fairies can be viewed as a record that speak of future potential, rather than wasted potential.

It’s a clever and often highly entertaining album with inbuilt limitations, but if you buy one record this year whose title is possibly a reference to Bumblebee Man from The Simpsons, it should probably be this one.

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.

There's much to admire here, but when you’ve stared into the sun for too long, it’s hard to see the dimmer lights.

Wounded Rhymes is an album that has not escaped unscathed from its wounds.

Overall, D is a measured if occasionally overcooked beast that proves difficult to digest as a whole.

For a band so obsessed with invoking their past, you do wish the Manics weren't so reluctant to throw in a bit of the old grit and ardour. It's a very nicely put together record, but there are moments so far away from the music that drew you to this band in the first place that you wonder if it's wrong to question what you're actually doing here.

The blokes have always goofed too much to fluke sensuality, but there’s some spark of intimacy, which ties off Marble Skies with an unexpected bow.

Little Comets have some energetic hooks and straight-to-the-point post-punk choruses that would make many of the resident bands in their native North East proud. There just isn't quite enough to get carried away about.

You expect there to be an abundance of vibrancy and passion on European, the band’s third release; though tempered by doubt and restraint, emotion lies beneath the layers of onion peel in the grey gutter of sadness.

While moments of greatness emerge, there's a unfortunate limpness to proceedings that undermines otherwise outstanding songwriting.

If we look to the previous literature, we find that no components of >>> are particularly novel.

Our advice, then: pick and choose via online outlets to get the best out of this album, as in this instance Dizzee’s mathematical skills have failed to calculate a formula for another must-buy release.