Guthrie's creative spark is as bright as ever.

Take the receipt and lose it--you won’t be returning this record anytime soon.

It's astounding that AB can reel off so many downright enjoyable songs that it almost hurts.

It's no contender for end-of-year honours, but so far as pop goes in 2006, this may well be the pinnacle.

At the purest of all levels, this is a presentation of sound in detail, which, to listen to carefully reveals surprise after surprise.

To sum them up in one word, "reliable" would be the most appropriate.

Precocious, other-worldly and vividly ambitious.

By marrying the subtle ethereality of bands like MBV with the swashbuckling pomp of a modern-day Iggy, they are a band at once single-minded and confused.

It's probably the most engagingly brilliant heavy metal album that'll be released on a major label all year.

Deliciously downright dirty.

'Capture/Release' may not be the jolliest record in the world, but perversely, it’s damn good fun and a heck of a lot more.

It is all too easily consigned to background music if you stop paying attention.

There's something impenetrable about it, an obtuse level of abstraction and a slightly joyless delivery that really leaves this listener with no point of entry at times.

Initially addictive and tantalising, an hour of consuming their slickly engineered autopop leaves you with little more than a faint sense of emptiness.

What is most interesting about this record, apart from it’s self-assured collection of off-beat laments is the amount of exciting doorways it flings open for the future.

It’s not rocket science, that’s for sure, but there are tunes here that most million-selling bands would give away all of their mansions for.

As an experimental project, it's clever and varied, and a vital chapter in the history of electronic music and sampling. As a pop record, it's tantalising, sensitive and essential; if you don't already own My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, the reissue's extra tracks make now as good a time as any.

It sees Mono edge closer still to the classical spectrum, incorporating strings to great effect.

It’s pleasantly like listening to a lost Bobby Darin or Andy Williams recording session where they took the wrong medication for shits and giggles.

That it’s a certainty for inclusion in critical end-of-year top tens is a given.

While it may be the most proficient musical record that Morrissey has put out in aeons... it doesn’t quite measure up to the high standards set by You Are The Quarry or the superlative debut that was Viva Hate.

While there is nothing even marginally groundbreaking here, Placebo have still returned with another steady record in Meds.

If this is The Vines’ vision then they have set their sights on something remarkably mundane.

Parts of this record sound more like final clasps of desperation rather than any forward progression.

It’s how Interpol would sound like if they dealt with universal themes and reflection rather than singing about fellatio fantasies with Stella, or their length of loves.

A deeply personal, occasionally lifeless but equally insightful passage into the latest chapter of Richard Ashcroft's life story.

Repeated listenings reveal the record for what it truly is - the most human of comeback records.

With their third album, Liars have succeeded in creating the near-impossible; a conceptual work that speaks to the emotions and the intellect simultaneously.