The chronological running order of Absolute Garbage is also unfortunate as it renders the CD impotent halfway through.

It is the band’s frontwoman whose personality is carried in the weight of this release--delicately cryptic lyrics screamed with a force that betrays the fact they're either complete trash or wilfully personal.

While there are moments that have the summer days – and daze – of ’99 flooding back, too much of this sixth long-player proper sounds disjointed and manhandled.

<i>An End Has a Start</i> actually sounds like it was crafted as ten quite individual chapters of a long-running saga; surprisingly, though, it ultimately works better than its predecessor as a cohesive, flowing album.

There’s just very so little of merit here--glazed pop-rock staggers into itself as the whole album washes past without you realising.

Ultimately, Men’s Needs… is brighter, sharper and just plain better than anything The Cribs have produced to date.

Zeitgeist sounds like a watered-down version of the best bits from Mellon Collie…, meaning it just ends up being too similar to Machina… for its own good.

With giant gyrating reverberated guitars and a grandiose brass section, this is the sound of a rock band attempting the sweeping gallantry of Sibelius or Tchaikovsky and getting away with it. It represents a smugly victorious ending to what is a phenomenally strong and well-polished album.

What’s really on display here is a well honed, experienced band flexing their muscles and creating tightly controlled, good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll music (of a rather cerebral variety) on their own terms, free from the weighty plague of fashion.

Justice know when to curtail the industrial strike and dazzle you with some star-skipping pop-chime, or a warble of gloopy future funk, before tossing you back into the unlit mire.

On the whole Goodbye isn't really much more than a background music soundtrack, something that would probably sound much better in an elevator than on an iPod. That said, it’s good for running a mile to.

Beyond Hütz’s maniacal wail lies a bed of musicianship so textured, so emotionally captivating, it entraps you with the alluring gaze of an Eastern-block temptress under a blanket of silky unrestrained rhythm.

After the sass and bluster of the first half, the record settles into a rather one-dimensional groove.

That it still ends up being reasonably affecting is testament to the band’s essential likeability, but it’s not enough to escape the feeling that We’ll Live And Die... is a record that’s worryingly lacking in presence or character.

Twilight Of The Innocents is surprisingly, frustratingly, bafflingly good.

Despite its occasional charms, Easy Tiger feels like an uneven piece of work.

It’s purely incidental material that goes nowhere for a dozen tracks and ends with just as much fuss as it began, i.e. none.

Though occasional glimpses of that trademark Beta Band brilliance appear, Astronomy For Dogs fails to act as much more than a reminder to listen to Anderson and company’s former glories.

And there's a pleasing strand of experimentation running through The Fragile Army that, even though it could have been developed slightly further, suggests that the Spree are more than a one-trick, um, choir.

This is by far The White Stripes’ most peculiar record.

In truth, The Sun won’t be the hype-extracting second coming of Fridge. But it is infinitely more modestly spectacular than the majority would have dared hope.

Art Brut manage to retain a frenetic brilliance.

This is a missed opportunity to stand up and move forward with popular music, and comes off as a backbench cry for how good things used to be before we all started caring about progression.

The rest of this collection floats between funny and worthless, tending much more towards the latter by the EP's close.

Amiina now daintily rap at the doors of a larger audience with a sound that is as delicate as it is arresting.

The Queens’ music has always been a kind of battleground for the proverbial devil and angel on Homme’s shoulders – with the devil winning, of course – and that continues to be the case here, with Homme’s bewitching falsetto croon acting as the spirit to the band’s tattooed, hairy flesh, and bruising, cactus-dry workouts giving way to lush, psychedelic oases of darkly reflective sound.

Riot sounds like a crunching, flashlight-white amalgamation of Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson, save for token ballad "We Are Broken" that echoes the enchanting eighties sounds of Belinda Carlisle.

Wild Mountain Nation stands alone as something of interest and disregard to the normal guidelines and restrictions in guitar pop.