The rest is solid if rarely spectacular, with the Crazy Horse rumble making a welcome return to Young's modern day repertoire.

Far from the bold reinvention initially promised, its restless energy masks over most missteps.

Most of this record isn't the kind of total genius that can be found elsewhere in their canon but it's a fine album that shows what can be done if bands just relaxed a bit.

There are no alarms and no surprises here, but it's a record produced by Jeff Lynne (who is a genius and anyone who says otherwise is a joyless idiot) so it sounds as bright, clear and appealing as anything this year.

Leave your prejudices behind, shut your eyes and just enjoy.

Red Night is a launch pad, doling out tunes and following each eerie throb with a radio-ready smart bomb.

The over riding result is that Hot Chip now seem infinitely more comfortable and competent in their skins.

The music they make is frequently stunning.

Despite the aggression in their music, it's not uncommon for APTBS to tone things down a few tracks into an album, but watch out for the lull in this one.

This is an agreeable record, but it comes from a man who we know is capable of something sublime.

Valtari might not be a huge digression for the band but that doesn't matter: this is quietly, entrancingly and thoroughly sublime.

Not only does The Plot Against Common Sense reach and exceed those expectations, it only goes blows them out of the water. Into the sky. To the moon. And beyond... This is everything a Future of the Left album should be.

Ultimately, Lex Hives sadly conforms to the patchy-at-best trajectory of the band's major label releases, but at least does so while taking a decisive step back in the direction of being the ferocious rock band which The Hives unvaryingly claim to still be, and indeed unquestionably once were.

There's an honesty of emotions, accentuated through the denseness and complexity of sounds.

A bit of musical beauty, some interesting lyricism and a pinch of hippy bollocks--still distinctly Patti Smith.

The sensitive sections are fine but tritely Musak at times. The power-soul sections feel a bit, sorry but, Jools Holland-y. There's nothing concrete that you can pinpoint that makes it feel false or weak per se.

Overall, this'll be way more easily digested by trad-minded hard rock consumers.

Heaven takes another firm and measured stride forward in what is rapidly becoming a celebratory jog towards brilliance: a re-affirmation of what heart, skill, craft and guile can birth given time and experience.

It is a refreshing, sublime, and exciting work of art.

Husky's best songs are carefully paced and uncomplicated; when they attempt to aim for cod-psychedelia they produce some turgid tunes.

Here's a band skipping from one musical fragment to the next with the reckless abandon of youth, trying out ideas, finding their strengths.

Blood Speaks a largely timeless-feeling piece which not only sounds like it could have been written any decade over the last 40 years or so, but feels eternal in the way it runs its course.

The sheer energy pouring from this record is breathtaking: not until the very final song ('Continuous Thunder') does Celebration Rock's sense of acceleration cease.

That's Why God Made The Radio isn't terrible or embarrassing, it is just is a bit safe.

In covering just three to four years of Lee Hazlewood's less readily available material The LHI Years mines a rich seam of individualistic pop genius, even the rump of which betters that found within the entire back catalogue of many artists.

Magnetic North seem to take you to another place entirely with what seems like very simple ingredients--subtle, dare-I-say tasteful instrumentation, and languid, slowly infectious melodies.

In its more luminous moments, it also contains enough to suggest that there is still a great album lurking somewhere underneath the Ladyhawke moniker.

This is jazz, this is funk, this is soul, this is gospel... but most importantly, R.A.P. Music is rap music, as fresh as it comes.