The downer is that nothing here can touch the early pop gems that can still see even the more stringently alternative spill their JD and cokes, and without that it's all too easy to start thinking this record is a lot worse than it actually is.

White Wilderness feels like a record that could have become a compelling collection of wonky strum-along pop songs with imaginative and colourful instrumentation, but ultimately it's indebted to an over-complication of ideas in a collaboration that struggles to flourish the way it should do on paper.

It’s a real shame Witness has come out as a bit of a disjointed mess, as there’s a decent record somewhere in there, but it gets lost in the fog of endless guest productions and co-writes that miss the point entirely.

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.

The album only features nine tracks, but somehow still contrives to feel over-long and lack cohesion.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Elson's debut is a flight of fancy, but it just doesn't engage the listener in any meaningful manner. An engaging artist should be inviting you to step inside their bubble, they shouldn't really need you to stand outside and wait for the pop.

There is no such contrast on this album, nor much of a sense for a distinctive or special musical moment.

Lyrically, Later... veers between juvenile and baffling.

This debut--while not a technically poor album, boasting as it does pop hooks aplenty if you truly focus in, beyond the sometimes irritating vocal tennis--sags where it should soar, dips where it should peak.

They’re still an incredibly likeable band, unashamed of being rabble-rousing without ever resorting to lowest common denominator tactics, but The Cribs have toned down the things that made them great.

Some of these songs would spring to life if they were less restrained, and adding a tactful but solid rhythm could be one way to achieve this. As it stands, there is enough here only to convince listeners of Selway's emerging talent as a songwriter if he sticks at it.

Bainbridge’s intentions are of course only known to himself and perhaps his collaborators, but there are enough moments here to make the listener believe that staying the course with Kindness, regardless of his seemingly wilful obtuseness and contrastingly puzzling adherence to cliché, might be worth it in the long term.

There are no bad songs on Inner Classics,, no painful moments, no dodgy production or misjudged directions. But there's not much else either.

A few highlights aside, it’s hard to understand why at least a half-dozen of these over-glossed R&B-lite numbers ever made it out of their maker’s mind.

With Monochrome, Hamilton seems to have realised that stepping away from the majors and their requisite studio production sludge can only be a good thing. Now, if he can find a new direction to blaze in rather than re-tread thrice-covered ground, he may be on to something.

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.

To put into context, it’s a damn sight less disappointing than the new Duran Duran folly, and over time even many of the lesser tracks begin to sink in to the psyche.

These old balladeer's tales are fleshed out with metaphors and all the tricks of a great writer. The burble of guitar lines complement it all artfully. That doesn't mean the criticisms go away--there is a lack of invention within any genre, and too often the lustre dulls.

On the whole City Club is full of the type of synth funk nonsense that should have been left alone in the late Noughties.

The formula established in track one is repeated in the combined half hour of the other two tracks here to less devastating effect.

On the one hand, it seems that she wants to stick to her roots and make a country record, yet on the other hand, she wants to put on her engineer hat and make an album that is sonically interesting.

Babyshambles once promised to keep the Arcadian dream alive. Instead, they’ve fizzled out in a fit of mediocrity.

It’s an oddball groove-rock album, played very well, imprinted with Homme's undeniably interesting personality. Yet when all’s said and done, it's not particularly memorable and entirely lacks the type of yee-haw exuberance that might have made it a sloppy treat.

There is certainly something interesting about it, but it’s also a bit hard to embrace wholeheartedly.

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

A number of plays through and it’s still not clear who, exactly, the band are taking the proverbial out of: themselves, playfully and absolutely intentionally, or us, fans who’ve become conditioned to not expecting the best from a band who, personally, have been a shadow of themselves since that first ‘sequel’ release.

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

Until Coco can hit upon this kind of refinement of her influences in a more general sense, she seems destined to be known firstly for who her father is and only secondly for her own artistic achievements.