Instead of updating his sound and style for a contemporary audience, Prisoner of Conscious comes off as a series of half measures.

I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up as the best dubstep album released this year.

Ultimately the genius of Kiss Land‘s production lies in its ability to literalise Tesfaye’s fractured state of mind.

Five songs coming in just under 18 minutes of superior darkly-stranded pop music.

For all this record’s gesturing towards pop directness, it is sorely lacking in impact and in memorability.

Regional Surrealism will leave you with a sense of the unresolved, but that's no bad thing: think of it not as a neatly contained expressive statement so much as a window onto a deeply idiosyncratic meditative practice.

MDNA runs the gamut of quality from ghastly to mediocre to brilliant, but it's not the unmitigated disaster that many feared.

Ultimately, the album’s electro-house elements feel like comparative cheap thrills placed amongst the wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship elsewhere on the EP.

My Everything isn’t quite everything, but it’s enough.

With a few more such thoughtfully crafted moments The Big Dream might have been an entirely adequate sidenote in Lynch’s ever-growing oeuvre. As it stands, it is barely that.

James never really follows it through.

Although Gordian, as an album, doesn’t quite stun, the producer’s sensitivity to the form makes it a far more convincing prospect than most.

For the most part, it's content to lull the listener into a state of bliss.

How you find Document And Eyewitness will depend on your appetite for artistic bloody mindedness. Still, if you’re a fan of Wire, you’ll know it can be moreish.

It’s an honest album, and while you may not skip back to all of it, its jagged pieces all have their place.

MGMT is by some margin the New Yorker’s most intuitive, sincere and naturalistic record. The bad news is that it’s not at all musically interesting.

[IV Play revisits] Nash’s usual tropes through a more varied sound palette that demonstrates a willingness to experiment and, at rare and glorious points, a raw sense of urgency fuelled by his bitterness.

At times, notably in Born to Die's first half, it's a little too perfect, with songs meticulous to the point where they become sterile, but when it starts to find form, I can't think of an album since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that was this big and sounded this good.

Lip Lock is exactly the kind of pop album that rappers set on crossover success should be making.

Yet despite having created a record that admirably challenges pop conventions, Black Dice could let a little more of the tradition in to help shape their material further and get the most from this direction.

Indie Cindy plays just like one of Black’s solo efforts, but with better session players: good, yes, but never great.

In The Lonely Hour is an album made by an artist who spent years waiting to be famous, but when he got there, found that he didn’t actually have that much to say.

The result is an album of experimental electronic pop that, sadly, doesn’t do much of any consequence, sounding both big-studio glossy and curiously cheap, busy but largely flailing around in the hope of finding an interesting direction.

Tiffany’s voice at its most confident-sounding, it becomes clear that Rainbow Arabia have come on leaps and bounds from their debut, releasing an evocative, vivid album beyond the expectations of most.

Even when Unapologetic fails, it often does so in interesting ways.

The record is at its weakest when it’s more hoedown than hoes down.... Generally though, Cyrus’s fourth album is more--ahem--bangers than clangers.

It is satisfying--almost a relief--see potential in this record for something more from the group.

Their music is about 40 per cent less exciting shorn from the lurid splatter of their videos, but music in 2014 is a more interesting place for their presence.

This is two albums in a row now that were basically a bit boring, and she needs to sort it out soonish please.

A tedious album from an otherwise great talent.

Everything that is missing from [Lady Gaga's Artpop] is here, but everything that is good about it is spectacularly absent from Prism.

It's not a classic album, but its contents implicitly argue that the concept of a "classic album" has become irrelevant in 2012 anyway.

While the final result may be uneven in places, if you leave your inhibitions at the airlock you're guaranteed an enjoyable ride.

The album's middle section treads water--'The Palace' passes by without making any impression whatsoever, '1313′ sounds like a more conventional Panda Bear--and then it all goes tits up.

Magna Carta’s a mess, and not even an entertaining one--it’s simply a dull record by someone who’s in deep danger of going down as a dull human being.

The lyrics are at best perfunctory, at worst an insult to anyone who isn’t a total nork.

If you dislike fidgetty edits and squealing high frequencies fine--go and listen to Eleh--but if you like dance music crashing into the most mainstream of the mainstream on a skateboard, being cheeky, rude, funny and giving you a massive rush when you listen to it, then here it is. Recess. Enjoy.

What strikes you first about Album Title Goes Here, apart from the moronic postmodernism-for-tweens title, is how resolutely un-danceable it is.

For Years is very well made, especially for a debut, and has a lot of emotion--but it also feels applied to an existing context, and one that has dated quickly.

Better Living remains a repetitive, tonally monotonous album. But its a repetitiousness which works to further evoke a life of spirit-crushing routine, while reinforcing the idea of a permanent headache.

An extremely promising debut.

Generally though, The Fifth‘s “dance” tracks--‘Bassline Junkie’, ‘Something Really Bad’, et al--just seem too limp to succeed as radio hits, and they’re certainly not good or interesting songs in any other capacity.

Play this album from start to finish and it’s hard not to feel that at the core of its cheaply gratifying genealogy is nothing but misery.

Ultimately, it’s a failure of imagination--reflecting either a deficiency of talent and/or invention on Derulo’s part or his complete contempt for the listener.