Expo 86 is good, it's just not great. Wolf Parade, the 2010 model, are good, not great.

Ultimately Perch Patchwork has some good pieces that just don't combine to make a great album. It's hard to call a band that is just releasing its debut full length "overcooked," but that's exactly what some of these tracks sound like.

Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans really should have been released a couple of years ago when Uffie was at the height of her fame. She should have struck while the iron was hot. She’s missed the boat completely now.

As the title suggests, it's a record which marks a transition for The Roots but which, like the America it addresses, is still aware of the burden of the recent past.

Further is at times a thrilling listen and barely puts a foot wrong, yet at a time when electronic music is expanding so quickly, it doesn't shine as brightly as it might have a decade ago.

The album is a sprawling, confusing, self-indulgent mess. Nonetheless, there are real glimmers of brilliance here.

It defies the listener not to nod their head and tap a foot, layering foreboding piano, languid acoustic guitar and a swampy riff under semi-rapped verses and a chorus about being found at the bottom of a river, and demonstrates Mason embracing his albatross with the ease of a man only too pleased to have one.

It's not got the immediate clout of Antidotes; and it's not one to spin when prepping for a party (it's actually kind of a downer, apart from 'Miami', which kills). But if you work with it, something really ghostly happens.

Proclamations that only the music matters, not the units shifted, are liable to ring a little hollow. Nevertheless, there's a lot to like about Body Talk Pt. 1.

Even with that super high-gloss finish, it's hard to dispute the depth of songwriting talent throughout American Slang, and as a summer rock album, it's (quite literally) nigh on faultless.

Listening to Barbara is like watching the England football team; expectations are high at the outset and true to form, things get off to a rousing start. However, after the halfway mark normality sets in, there's an alarming sense of underachievement and long before its conclusion, you're dismissing them as hapless failures.

For those who have heretofore found Harcourt to be a little too melodramatic, this is likely the album that will have them reconsider his work. We all need a little romance, and so much the better when it's delivered with a bit of knowing quirk.

Not so much judgement on Oasis as a whole, but y'know, it's just not a fun best of. The second disc is 73 minutes long, contains only two tracks from the golden era, and after a while becomes not unakin to drowning in the colour beige.

The cover of the Isley Brothers, "Why When The Love Is Gone" after "Don't Make A Sound" seems like sloppily tagged on attempt to be shown that the group's influences are genuine. Otherwise, Release Me is a perfectly produced pop gem with all substance and a lot of style.

The music is dynamic, danceable and largely based around swelling arpeggios of stabbing synths, but it remains resolutely cold, major keys avoided.

Shadows illustrates the band's strong points - simple yet effective melodies coupled with sumptuous vocal harmonies courtesy of Blake, McGinley and Love while lyrically scaling a fine line between happy-go-lucky romanticism and solemn melancholy.

This is how the covers album should be done, with tight technique and loving affection blending together to give the new versions life and bite.

Whatever the case, for Christina Aguilera, the x-factor has gone. The daring single minded focus has apparently been lost.

Harpischord, bombast and multi-tracked vocals create an eerily outdated sound, setting Destroyer of the Void's stall as an overblown oddity.

This isn’t a few Eighties synth presets stuck through a distortion pedal--it’s music that resonates far beyond a simple aping of well established precedents, often managing to be funny, sad and thought provoking in the space of a single track.

The front-heavy momentum of Pigeons is enough to ensure that that the dreamy beauty of Here We Go Magic's debut has been fiercely preserved.

It means you can put on LP4 around any mixed group of people at a barbeque or house party this summer and people can simply enjoy the sensory pleasure of interesting, lively music without analysing the cultural baggage than comes with it. The King of Space-age Pop would surely be proud.

While that argument over the art of the singer-songwriter may be embedded in a lack of originality, Villagers have managed to craft an endearing record, glowing with a heart-warming level of nostalgia.

With Champ they have rekindled the catchiness and immediacy of their first offering.

Too often songs come across as a pastiche of the Atlanta group, with none of the splashes of colour, none of the real sense of building atmosphere.

More often than not, Peggy Sue derive passion from poignancy, taking their listeners on a journey that makes having a broken heart interesting again.

Overall, Wake Up The Nation isn't a bad record, but it can be a bovine test of endurance, at least if one is to devour all sixteen tracks in one sitting. Had the quality control officers had the guts to stand up to its creator in chief, this could have been an endearing re-affirmation.