Generally the album hits all the right notes, with great vocals and solid sounds, but at times you may be overpowered by the sickly-sweet nature of the beast.

The production on Dirty Gold--generic, consistently uninspired, gauche--bears absolutely no relation to the album’s subject matter, and jars horribly with Haze’s dark forceful flow.

At its most cleverly executed, Polysick's sound world is easy on the ears but never quite easy listening – entrancingly, exotically beautiful, but with a barb in its tail.

In My World is a counterpoint to McQueen’s recent work: while the introduction of vocals reveals another side to Matthewdavid, the humour--too often overplayed--is its weakness element.

Considering her career so far, this is super cool, contemporary grown-up R&B that shows just how far Rowland has come.

It’s not a huge stride in a new direction, but its incorporation of new sounds into the established blueprint sounds like a band both mature and renewed.

It stands out as one of the year's most demanding, lasting listens.

Almost overwhelming in places, and certainly distinct, Light Asylum is, quite simply, a brilliant album from musicians who deserve immense respect.

As an independently made pop album, the debut of a new project and, essentially, an experiment, Love and Devotion may have weaker moments, but is very well accomplished overall.

It may well appeal to those content with downtime after more forthright records. As an album, however, Evelyn’s good mood sits somewhere between decisive and whimsical.

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.