My Head Is An Animal deserves the attention it is getting, because it is a well-crafted, spirited debut album with soaring choruses and delicious harmonies.

Over the course of the LP... the toe-tapping comfortably outweighs the head-scratching.

Flynn remains one of the country’s most overlooked songwriters and Country Mile is a good reminder of his skill with a well-crafted song.

This is an album that challenges you, and makes you want to understand more, which in today's disposable-pop world is probably not entirely a bad thing.

For someone skilled at making music both accessible and disarming--a talent she displays so seldom on Pale Fire--Assbring has sacrificed the ability to send such a message for the ultimately unrewarding spoils of electronic production.

The only evidence we have is a middling album marking a new chapter in a diva's life that doesn't sound any cheerier than the chapters that went before.

While Violens draw from strong influences, they capture their potency only fleetingly. Amoral is a worthwhile listen, with stand out tracks that hold much promise. As yet, though, there's too much that leaves you, like that promise, unfulfilled.

Foot-stompingly perfect pop, achieved without sacrificing the folky feel... [However] while there isn't a weak track on the album, they don't always seem particularly well stitched together.

At its most nondescript, it’s the sound of a band falling between two musical stools. At its best, I’m Leaving is the sound of a band smartly prolonging its sell-by date.

If you fancy a slightly off centre alternative to the mass appeal of more prominent electronic bands, despite a few wobbly bits here and there, then you won’t go far wrong with giving this latest collection a chance.

Though the duo occasionally strike gold, too many of these songs ultimately sound like pop as tabloid fodder.

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.

To that end, and overabundant allusions to The Beatles aside, Dig Out Your Soul is a feat in its own right.

At its best, June 2009 feels like a fuzzy, readymade memory. Yet, problematically, there's the paradox that whilst proceedings are worthy, they're too anaemic for wider public consumption - over half of the songs are under three minutes, most well under.

While there are no big surprises on Rockmaker, most of the tracks on the album are as instantly addictive as in their heyday.

This is Public Image Ltd at its best. This record is good. Outrageously good. Better than a record of an artist of Lydon's vintage has any right to make.

Unfortunately, just like The Vaccines debut, there is very little to really make you stand up and take notice.

While the closing tracks have some flashes of interest, they repeatedly fall into the same saccharine McCartney-esque cliches, making the last chapter of the album as unremarkable as the first.

Mostly, though, it is the unusual, the artificially-generated and the unexpected that characterise this music. Where this works best--as, indeed, it does on most of this compelling album--the band manage to corral the diverse elements together into something that is more than simply cohesive.

A short and not a little peculiar gem of an album then and one that proves that on his day Hegarty is full of great ideas.

There are certainly moments that feel like filler, but there’s much to like about Ghost Outfit. I Want You To Destroy Me is not life-changing or revelatory but it is a solid offering and occasionally provides the odd knockout blow of a song.

Pedestrian isn’t going to grab you by the throat or rip up trees, being both pedestrian in name and largely in nature too. But don’t let that put you off; the pace may be rather ‘foot off the gas’ but its subtlety is endearing, as is the vulnerability displayed by Bloom’s vocals.

Whether or not Shit Robot is making grooves and beats that are unique and progressive isn't the point. The whole point of his work is to embrace the glorious past and then push the necessary knobs and buttons that are commonplace today to take it to a wonderfully hip-shaking new level.

There are some encouraging if fleeting flickers of light and warmth here that hint there could be more to come in terms of musical development, but for now the group are little more than faithful revivalists of a niche subculture with limited appeal beyond those already converted.

Crow has returned to the kind of music she loved as a kid growing up in the shadow of one of America's hottest soul hotbeds. The result finds her sounding more at home and effortlessly exuberant than she has since Tuesday Night Music Club.

Autobiographical, hopeful, working through different genres, one can't help but feel that if she had stretched herself while remaining focused just on quality dance-pop that the record would have been fantastic and not such a sad sunset on the legendary Summer.

On their own merits some of these tracks are classy pop songs, but there needs to be more depth and scope to Grouplove's sound if they are to look forward.

For those prepared to take the rough with the smooth, there are many moments of exquisite beauty to enjoy on this record.