Share The Joy finds Vivian Girls trying to broaden their scope and missing the mark a bit. Certainly, fans of the band will find something to like.

Cosmic Egg is the kind of album you'd quite happily pop on for the first part of a road trip while you're full of enthusiasm, but it'd quickly get changed at the first toilet stop.

The Spinto Band are genuinely highly impressive musicians, they're still as creative as ever, cramming riffs and off-kilter rhythms into their songs like clothes into a brimful suitcase, but creativity isn't always synonymous with good music.

Devlin’s talents as both lyricist and rapper are never in doubt, but for all the album’s pomposity and scale, musically speaking, it feels like a big step backward.

Unless you are in the company of some helpful stimulants, it is ultimately frustrating and chaotic. You can marvel at the wondrous and wacky keyboard sounds one minute, but you'll be shaking your head at some of the strange musical harmonies and directions the next.

Sadly, too much of the Easy Eighth Album sounds a bit hollow and empty, the sound of a band wanting to move on, but without the energy to properly capture the old glory days.

While there is nothing here to relegate Art Department to the role of also-rans, there is nothing to get wholly excited about either, as the music consistently retreats towards the background.

The main issue that dogs this album is weak composition – few of the ideas are outright bad, but they don’t earn their runtime.

What we have is a confusing, confused and self-indulgent record that frequently sags under its own ambition, with the fleeting moments of beauty offering a chastening reminder that sometimes it’s better to simply stick to what you’re good at..99

The sense of a missed opportunity lingers.

Even for all its collaborations, bringing in Mary J Blige and R Kelly, the desperate skirting around for identity leaves this album feeling underwhelming.

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

As a whole, Painting is not a bad effort, with some nice tunes, though it’s all a bit dull and predictable: good brushwork but lacking inspiration.

Asher is manifestly talented, so perhaps Aquaria is best described as a tentative testing of the water before his next big production job. But there’s not a lot of fun to be had by the listener here.

It adds up to a disjointed, uneasy compilation of songs, with the band seemingly refusing to conform to expectation.

There are some amazing moments on this record; it's a crying shame that they're linked with the sound of a band treading water.

The production is highly polished and everything appears to be utterly disposable.

The music is plainly listenable, the progressions are often entertaining and the lyrics are intricate. For fans, the minor evolution and heavier sonic palette may whet their appetite, but for anyone in search of a new revolutionary energy in the realm of indie rock, steer clear of the throne room.

As it stands Water is a transition record, signalling a direction of travel but inconsistent and frustrating.

Former Pulp bassist Steve Mackey eventually ended up producing the record, and he gives Pierce’s various sonic wanderings space to roam, but sadly it’s an amble of a circular nature.

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.

He delivers an LP of soulful songs with the help of songwriters who have also written for Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran. The result is a mixed bag.

A good first try for an album, but it's just not quite there yet.

An album that could have built on the promise of the last, and instead dilutes it in an almost certainly vain pitch for chart success.

Maybe it's familiarity, maybe it's contempt, maybe it's something to do with both, but there's nothing on True which marks itself out distinctly enough for it to warrant more than a passing glance.

As infectious and riotous as If You're Young might well be, the inescapable reality is that the mass middle isn't walking over hot coals to buy this sort of music at the moment.

This then is an album that doesn't quite work, being as it is constantly in a state of conflict.

The record drags when it should soar.