Solid outing from country veteran.

The freeform mish-mash of sounds, scratches, samples, styles and lyrical themes is far too much of a mixed bag to have a wide appeal.

Mathangi Arulpragasam delivers intriguingly fluxed up genre bending third album.

Stonking new record from former Lad rockers. Who’d have thought?

Ho-hum third record from brit chanteuse.

This essentially middle of road noise bears some relation to their past work but lacks any of the grit or charm that made them such a cool little indie band.

Swedes living la vida on curious new outing.

Tokyo Police Club indubitably share similarities with their more commercially successful UK counterparts, Bloc Party.

Avant-rockers make shameless play for the aging Generation X market.

Lennox’s glossy white-soul template does sound a bit dated but she's still impressive when she gets it right.

Although the sound of 30 people making music is always going to have an uplifting edge to it, the songs here are less self-consciously happy-clappy than before.

Averegeness abounds from budding UK starlet.

Even though her debut album didn't go off so well with her label, Dixon's latest album gives her another chance in the music biz.

Surprisingly enjoyable party rock.

Southern rock merchants capture the energy of their live shows on accomplished fifth album.

A quantum leap in thought and execution from 2004 debut, These Were The Earlies.

Steady as she goes on AOR eighth outing.

A slight change of pace can be seen in this EP with a hip-hop icon cameo and some Eastern embellishments that may hint to new musical endeavors for Coldplay.

Reformation Post TLC may lack a tune as monumental as, say, the unforgettable ‘Hip Priest’ from Hex Enduction Hour, but 30 years into his career, Smith is still making music with the kind of vitality and imagination that shame most musicians half his age.

Two heads aren’t necessarily better than on! Fire Songs isn’t a terrible album, it’s just a little too sweet and safe for this writer’s ears.

Though it doesn't exactly live up to its name, Legend manages to capture the optimistic sprit of Barack Obama in

Patchy covers album from alt.rock veterans.

Irish Rockers still going for the emotional jugular on impressive fifth album.

Malin has seemingly adopted the persona and sound of his New Jersey counterpart Bruce Springsteen.

Pop chanteuse lets the sunshine back in.

Cutting to the chase, this album is full of Rihanna b-sides that sound like a carbon copy of everything in the charts right now and are completely personality free.

Slinky but less than earthshattering debut from buzzy manhattanites.

Devon’s finest makes a Motown-laced return.

A gorgeous, swoonsome album that electrifies and stimulates in all the right places.

The lyrics here are a lacerating mix of blue collar bile and blue language, little Lady Muck simultaneously waging class and crass warfare.

Kylie sticks to formula, makes half decent record.

The Thrills meets The Polyphonic Spree--in a good way!

In truth, Into The Wild doesn’t sound like a first solo album. It radiates a confidence and maturity that Pearl Jam have lacked on their recent albums.

It’s too early to write Maxïmo Park off, or to turf them into the ever-growing pile of indie also-rans. But they’ll need to pull out all the stops to recover their poise after this worrying misstep.

What the record lacks in lyrical insight, it more than makes up for in charm, so settle back, open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and make a toast to the good times.

You get the feeling that, in the long run, Diamond Hoo Ha is destined to be remembered as one of the lesser works in their canon.

Anastacia’s voice--once described by a critic as a ‘human air-raid siren’--is still hard to love: when she reaches for the trembling high notes your first instinct is to duck under the table and lock your head between your knees.

Revered outsider artist makes move on the mainstream.

Houston, We’ve got problems

Chase This Light is not a genre-defying album for the history books–-it just gives the impression that Jimmy Eat World are still capable of producing one.

Join With Us proves The Feeling are the band most likely to give power-pop a good name.

The potency of the admirable sentiments is undermined by the lacklustre execution.

Another dose of brilliant pop parody from the NZ twosome.

The manner in which the group weave complex musical tapestries is certainly impressive from a purely technical perspective, but you suspect that they were a lot more fun to assemble than they are to listen to.

Not up to par with his other albums, Tom Jenkinson's latest work is saved only by his name and not his art.

They’re a zesty bunch are Architecture In Helsinki, and never more so than on Places Like This.

Ragged glories from punk's oddball.

A boisterous and bratty collection of hook-swamped shout-alongs.

For Weezer fans awaiting the next installment, it adds up to a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of Cuomo’s sweet, strange mind.

Decent stab at Queens Of The Stone Age rawk from Mrs. Josh Homme.

A rackety, sing-along sound from a band on a largely undefined mission.

Twelve is a solid enough collection, but one can’t help wondering if it would’ve been better had she made like Fellini and called it 8 1/2.

It’s a case of “been there/done that/snogged someone I shouldn’t have to this track on Saturday night” – and by and large the scene is starting to collapse in on itself.

A respectable collection which raises the question: why do the Killers pad their albums out with mediocre filler, when they have at least some decent alternative material to spare?

Whatever personality Lewis has is smothered by an oppressive pre-ordained sense of direction: she sounds simply like another cog in an impressive, but, soulless machine.

In places <i>An End Has a Start</i> is bleakly compelling; nevertheless, great swathes of the record strain towards a pasty arena-rock future.

Shallow and unfunny third album from london boys

Starry-eyed debut hits more often than misses.

Such inconsistency is forgivable on an overreaching debut, less so on a sixth album just 35 minutes in length.

Quietly bucking the trend are The Shortwave Set, whose follow-up to 2005’s The Debt Collection confounds convention by actually being pretty good.

Chapman creates yet another soulful, personal album that adds to her repertoire of timeless tunes with a few mentions of Jesus and Barack Obama.

‘Amarillo’ Man records Richard Hawley-produced album of songs from Sheffield.

Four years in the making second album from Oz hard rockers.

Concept album about cricket from Divine Comedy and Pugwash frontmen hits the sweet spot.

Kylie's persona infuses the album, even if her vocals do not. As pop heatseekers go, X is a heartbeat away from perfection.

A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation is by no means a bad album, but at the same time it’s hard to see just what all the fuss is about.

Hard Candy sounds bloody expensive, but has precious little to declare except an infatuation with its own reflection in a nightclub mirror.

Suddenly sullen Kooks produce a limp effort.

Bad-boy rapper fails to raise his, er, game. There is something peculiarly insecure about The Game (AKA Jayceon Terrell Taylor).

R’n’B lothario sings the praises of monogamy on patchy fifth album.

French Smoothies return to lunar landscapes.

We’re treated to less-interesting takes on the work of Bloc Party and The Libertines, low on hooks and utterly devoid of interesting production quirks.

The album fifteen years in the making that sounds like a slick but robotic imitation of what it might have been long ago.

Gahan hasn’t arrived at the palace of wisdom yet, but it sounds like he’s enjoying travelling this new route there.

Cynical vocodered mediocrity.

On the new B52s album, the group famous for ‘Love Shack’ party like it’s 1992.

Millennial ‘It’ Boy gets the horn on eighth album.

The fact that Hammond can’t actually sing that well is rendered practically obsolete on this album; his hazy drawl may not be the strongest in the world, but it suits these songs just fine.

Not many tricks up their sleeves on this album. The Bronx make more of the same noisy, aggressive songs on an album with the same title as their last two.

Production superstars The Neptunes get back to penning their own tunes – with highly impressive results.

Rivers Cuomo and co. deliver another scintillating collection of punk-pop – with added experimentation.

LA producers bond over Sao Paolo funk.

The Circus isn’t terrible. In fact it’s very listenable; genre-wise it falls somewhere between Beatlesy ballads and Billy Joel’s 'The Piano Man.'

Mixed up confusion.

You can slag them off all you like but it’s impossible to truly dislike their catchy, inoffensive pop-rock.

Throw away your fashion magazines and join the army, teenagers.

Love as a battlefield.

The record is low on saccharine balladry, high on rhythm protein.

Pretty much every song on Straight No Chaser is a future pop anthem of powerhouse proportions.

Re-hashing a similar formula throughout 12 tracks makes for sour and rarely enjoyable listening.

The ghost of Marvin hovers over debut by Digi-Soul merchant - sensuous dancefloor fodder with an evocative voice.

Interpol frontman Paul Banks makes his solo debut with a surprisingly worthwhile side project.

Ultimately, the greatest achievement of Mark Ronson’s genetically modified Version is to demonstrate the superiority of the organic source material.

This is a maddeningly inconsistent collection, with more misses than hits – though Kelly’s best moments do go some way towards atoning for his flaws.

Marshall Mathers tackles his most complicated subject...himself.

The results are too often less-than-inspiring, and our Marilyn’s music has not established the sort of consistency required to atone for this lack of drama.

Country diva channels marriage break-on first LP in nearly a decade.