Each song tells its own story so intensely and so completely, like 11 musical horror novellas, that listening to any of them individually produces an experience more like that of listening to a shortish, intense, masterpiece-like album, especially as the songs often have a few different musical sections and ideas.

The head feels weighed down with unresolved torment, the smile forced and awkward, the colours garish and messily-applied.

The real problem with Limits of Desire is that it’s a decent album that’s difficult to sell.

While the album concept may be flawed in execution this daring approach to composing and recording has resulted in an record which, regardless of its indulgences, is at least an intriguing listen and one which rewards patience with some moments of sublime ear candy.

The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.

The ten tracks here convey no pleasure, and lack any form of belief in their own urgency or desire to be adored.

The feeling [is] that nothing here belongs to Robbie Williams, that he’s officially completely interchangeable, that he’s become trapped in a maze of his own making, and all of the noise seems so very quiet now.

Twee without being cloying, Bishop Allen have dropped any signifiers that might make us think Tilly & the Wall (the clattering percussion, and urgent male/female vocals), and manage to present their light-hearted lyrics as sincere.

While not a failure, Uncanney Valley isn’t the glorious comeback many were expecting.

Unfortunately these familiar sounding highlight aren't enough to raise Bad Lieutenant above the level of any other New Order side-project and they in fact fall some way short of Sumner Electronic.

Amplifier sound confident and in control of their own future, while remaining aware and appreciative of their past--and that’s by no means a bad place to be.

The LP is repeatedly let down by its own exhibitionism.

It is, when it comes down to it, a sloppy gimmick. One, admittedly, that has a few choice moments, but which would have been much better served if Mercer had streamlined all his ideas down in the first place instead of treating these songs as malleable, never-finished opuses.

'America's Sweetheart' is still more 'Celebrity Skin' than anything.

This record has been hailed by some as a return to form, but it's every inch as pointless as his last couple of records and a contender for dullest album of the year.

Silesia is still a relaxing listen: and all of its intense sound swells still leave you with a feeling of peace.

Young Adults Against Suicide is fun but two-dimensional.

Bugg has always had one foot in the past and that’s fine, but On My One might as well be an official challenge to The Strypes in the ‘parents record collection’ department--though a mercifully more bearable one.

For all Method’s moments of individual brilliance--“Rappers don’t really ride they piggy back/I’ll trade them all to have 2Pac and Biggy back”--clarity is lost in the sheer number of guest appearances.

A substandard, second-tier album with some strings thrown in for good measure.

The Airborne Toxic Event can hold their heads high safe in the knowledge their supposedly difficult second album is a resolute triumph in the face of adversity.

Though no longer flavour of the month in 'cool' circles, as far as The Warlocks are concerned it's business as usual, and The Mirror Explodes is up there with their finest works to date.

This isn’t a particularly awful record--it’s simply a album full of typical sounding Stereophonics songs

This is an album that maintains the joyless musical brand Hutchcraft and Anderson crystallised with their two million selling debut.

The question remains unanswered, because while it was, undeniably, dull without him, Relapse is less 12 steps than a stumbling one backwards.

Amidst the overstuffed yet predictable arrangements, the middle-of-the-road sentimentalism and lack of killer tunes, these brief moments can't prevent Ways To Forget itself proving to be largely forgettable.

It sounds like Corgan wanted to make a classic eighties 4AD-style shoegazing record, but instead of offering us something swirling and beautiful, we end up with an experience that is simply flat and grey.

Editors have crafted a bold statement of intent, one that hopefully suggests a continuingly bold future.