In spite of Rihanna's best efforts, Unapologetic is more depressing than offensive.

If you’ve got the savvy to work out how some of Reality Check is actually occasionally brilliant, then you should also be able to figure out it’s also absolute shit.

Welcome, Stranger!, unfortunately, leaves the listener largely nonplussed. And while a lot of these tracks are perfectly nice-sounding, it feels a bit tragic to consign a record by the Blue Aeroplanes to the background.

Essentially, Made Of Bricks is comprised of a lot of below-par b-sides, three pretty special tracks and then bunch of 'nice tries'...but don't expect anyone to be whistling them in three months' time.

Limp and uninspiring, this is a disappointing effort considering the potential the band initially showed back in 2009.

As a full album, this wafts innocuously past like a gentle Hawaiian breeze--too meek for any real surf, but just strong enough to be mildly of note to those wishing to hit the waves. That’s about the best that can be said of it.

The four Californians smother their country-fried rock with more southern tropes than a gravy-sodden biscuit, from the bits of blues and gospel and old timey R&B.

With at least half of these songs, there is almost nothing to say, nothing to be baffled by, nothing to argue about, and for that sad, whimpering reason, Pacific Daydream can probably be called Weezer’s worst album.

On the whole Mr Love & Justice is an album that sounds like it was made for the sake of it rather than to cascade any real statement of intent.

The sledgehammer approach makes sense, in a way, but only if the satire is sharp and coherent. Too often on Sheezus, it’s not.

His dull lyrics get made more of a point of through repetition, they shine brighter than his well-crafted moments of introspection. There's only so many times listening to a man singing about someone waiting at a bus stop can be bearable.

For all the nostalgia and bland meanderings it is worth visiting this record for the closing tracks alone--but you might not want to come back too often.

This sounds like Steve Wold, not Seasick Steve, and the result is an untidy, tedious affair.

There are hooks here, but they are scattered and often attached to tracks that come worryingly close to mediocre exercises in MOR.

No Pier Pressure shows just what too many cooks can do to a Beach Boy's broth.

Esben and the Witch seem stuck on an autopilot where any levity is out of bounds and an abyss beckons for all the wrong reasons.

What is disappointing about Slash, however, is the fact that it seems getting the names into the studio was where the creative process began and ended. So many of the songs here would simply not make it onto new albums from anyone involved.

From the very start, The Libertines is the sound of the band at its most muzzled; paralysed by poor production, underdeveloped songs and private lives that have become more sensational and noteworthy than the music.

There’s nothing inherently bad about anything on Losing, but nothing’s going to stick around, either.

Unfortunately, instead of producing an album that feels new, exciting, and refreshing--exactly what you’d expect from a band in their position--you get some lazy attempts at something different, before a retreat into the comforts of a tried and tested sound.

A majority of IMD is destined to end up splattered across car adverts and in film soundtracks where the scene is of a pulsing, throbbing, energetic nature. Sadly, that won't lend it any more substance.

This insistence on maxing out on subplot, comes at the expense of an initially intriguing premise and, ultimately, your attention span.

Junk is purely for Anthony Gonzalez. In that regard, it is indeed his most personal work. It is indeed a statement, though a cheap and hollow one, worthy of its title. Frankly, you expect better.

Black Pompadour is not a bad album, it’s just flat; it’s delivered with little to no passion, meaning that listening to it in its entirety will be a test of patience for some.

Even though it’s not overlong at only 55 minutes, it still feels bloated and unnecessary.

What The World Needs Now... is solid proof that reformations never sound good on record.

An album as close to a dictionary-standard definition of the word mediocre as there is likely to be in the whole of 2008.

There's nothing that really stands out as a hit on here, nothing to get the crowds in Whitesnake t-shirts (ironic or otherwise) moshing in the manner of Permission to Land's hits.