Compared to some of Primal Scream’s bold ventures in the past, it may be a bit lightweight, but it’s full of effervescent appeal.

Heavy Love is a fine, if ultimately inessential, summation of what Garwood does best.

Even if the strut is more tentative and the recollections come with a twinge of regret, Cause I Sez So is certainly one for the ages.

'With Every Heartbeat' is evidence enough that this man has talent. He just needs to use that Rolodex a bit more.

Big Anonymous is a deliberately paced album that some may find a bit too bleak to visit often. It’s beautifully crafted, as you’d expect from Sarah Assbring, but at times that darkness can become a bit all-consuming. If you’re in the right frame of mind though, El Perro Del Mar’s world is one that’s well worth stepping into.

Right at the end, they redeem themselves with a romantic little pop ditty that strays into Colourfield territory, with Clarke's scowling, angry young man tones wrapping themselves as well as they can around gentler, less confrontational sentiments. It's the most interesting thing on the album and if they can harness this flexibility a bit more in the future, they might just find themselves lasting the course.

The State Between Us has some brilliant moments, but those moments are too stretched out: many of the tracks could have been half their length and been equally effective, and some could have been cut altogether for not holding together as pieces of music. However, even at its lowest ebbs it retains some intrigue from its novelty, and the sheer ambition of the album is not to be faulted.

The Orb’s lazy beats count too much on Perry’s meaningless, abstract ruminations, or Perryisms, to add some sort of absurdist (anti-) meaning to a (mostly) boring collection of songs.

While it may not break any new ground, there’s an oddly addictive ingredient to the Cigarettes After Sex formula, which this album has in spades.

It may be unpalatable and difficult but it is a debut album that should at least be commended for its dark, experimental ambition.

The softness of Helen Marnie's voice against the rocky, stark landscape of Velocifero gives Ladytron its edge (something that doesn't work as well with the two tracks sung by Miro Aroyo in her Bulgarian tongue), but overall, it's never really enough.

It means that the album’s instantly accessible and familiar to anyone who’s ever smoked a cigarette, flipped the bird to The Man or nailed the pastor’s daughter in the churchyard; but is subject to the law of diminishing returns which kicks in every time the fuck-you teen persona is reincarnated.

For the most part Marshall gets it spot on, but when she doesn't she only serves to highlight the quality of the originals.

Open-mindedness and a change of approach is often laudable but, in this case, it has resulted in an album that, whilst entirely pleasant and enjoyable, is far less adventurous.

The lasting sense left is of an unexplored potential which, if this is it for The Civil Wars, could be in its own messy way an appropriate swansong.

While not as flawed and over-ambitious as London Undersound or Human, the feeling persists that this is an artist who would benefit from calling a halt to all the grand projects for a while and going back to basics.

Part of the problem is that faced with a performer as low-fi and minimal as Conor Oberst in the first place, many of the unfinished demos presented here, such as I Will Be Grateful This Day and Seashell Tale, sound much, much too thin.

All in all, The Hidden Cameras are typical of the avant garde, slightly off-kilter art rock we've come to expect from Canada, not a million miles away from what's being offered by fellow countrymen The Decemberists or Broken Social Scene.

Malachai have made some good listening choice even if this has not translated into a wholly successful listening experience.

Their sonic departure won't be radical enough to put off fans, but the ultimate feel is familiar enough not to persuade any detractors. They may have taken a step forward, but they're still on the same street.

The feisty personalities and powerhouse vocals have stayed intact, making it even more of a shame that the very essence of the group seems to be absent on London With The Lights On.

With the lightweight numbers up front and the centrepiece dominating the lacklustre cast around it, the album is surely one of the most uneven and unsatisfying in recent memory from Callahan.

The one big drawback of Gold Dust is the danger it may provoke a 'so what' reaction, simply because for all of its polish, it doesn't really take the listener anywhere that interesting.

The results of The Place We Ran From are ultimately pretty mixed. To start with the positives, it is a lot of better than expected and there are some genuinely decent pieces of songwriting. However, to enjoy those you have to wade through a thick fog of filler that either doesn't really go anywhere or just doesn't connect.

If it’s not especially the place to come to look for surprises, it’s still heartening to see that, at an age when most people have happily settled into their Saga Magazine subscription, this sonic surfer has still got the blues.

Though The Duke Spirit lack the Tex Avery mania of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or the eye-bulging strutting confidence of Polly Harvey, they do have an easy way with structured reverberative grooves.

Ultimately, Join Hands gives a decent impression of Congratulations’ sound, even if it becomes a bit too much over the course of an album. However, there’s enough songwriting prowess demonstrated here to hint that there may be even better things in the future from Congratulations.

This is a collection of solid, excellently-produced and sporadically brilliant alternative songs, and nothing more.