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.