The slower songs do have the effect of balancing the album. Even some of the upbeat tunes, usually The Little Ones' strength, are sometimes in danger of veering from endearing into cloying.

This is perhaps not the classic Definitely Maybe has become, but with their army of live followers accumulated since Christmas, combined with that ready made clear charisma and cocky confidence--if anyone can revive Manchester, it is the Courteeners.

For them, you feel, everything else is incidental--by-products of an already winning formula. For at the heart of each of the songs here is a touch of resonance--the kind that all the best pop records have.

There's not one duff moment during the album's 50 minutes - it's pop music to be treasured, loved and listened to for years to come.

While the melodies are stodgy and predictable, the lyrics don't help a great deal.

If you've approached Herbert's music before you'll already know to expect the unexpected. If it's your first time, use all the surround sound you have and revel in the power of free musical speech and a fantastic update of timeless jazz styles.

The album may start well, but there is very little on the record that will last long in the memory.

On the whole Start And Complete is a singular and fearless album that conveys significant emotion, rewards repeat listens, and shows what can be achieved when a band's approach to music is defined by bravery and vision.

This album provides a gateway to a spine-tingling and thought-provoking experience which more than compensates for the intermittent poor man's Bjork moments.

It's those lyrics that make much of this second album such a disappointment.

It seems that the first principles that got Aeroplane their quality remixes--a real sense of atmosphere, and slow disco-house beats that might be regarded as 'cosmic' in some circles--are only fleetingly glimpsed. Deluca has proved that he can comfortably write in a number of different styles of music--but on the next record it might work better to stick to the ones he has truly mastered.

Aided by conductor and arranger John Wilson, who coaxes a first-rate performance from the London Classical Orchestra, Ocean's Kingdom is an accomplished if unremarkable foray into an unfamiliar medium by the ex-Fab Four polymath.

The sense of a missed opportunity lingers.

Weird it may be, but when CocoRosie get it right, as with the cutesy pop and dark piano melancholy mix of Lemonade, or the beautiful ethereal balladry of the title track for example, they are unstoppable.

This is music that originates from the soul, but it is delivered in an entirely soulless fashion.

For all its flaws, it remains a tremendously fun record. But artistically speaking, it’s woefully weak.

A few of the tracks have a moment, usually a chorus, that you might want to play back a few times. But like Editors, taken as an album there's nothing unique, rewarding, or even merely engaging enough to be worthy of another spin.

On Magna Carta... Holy Grail, Jay comes off as even more pretentious than Kanye.

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.

Despite some bland detours into the middle of the road, there are still enough good moments here to remind of her talent.

This is a quality piece of craftsmanship and there isn't a weak point on the album.

The best parts of A Head Full Of Dreams are where the band cut loose and play around with expectations.... However, those who hate Coldplay with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns will also find plenty to grease their wheels on A Head Full Of Dreams. There’s the lyrics for a start, which are almost universally terrible.

When the band does not explore their influences as assertively, their music blends in a little too closely with that of their peers.

His 11th solo studio album Low in High School is a mixed bag of brilliance and dross. There are some genuinely interesting new explorations while other tracks are deeply disappointing. Disconcertingly uneven, yes, but not safely predictable.

Despite the occasional lapse into MOR sludge, this is mostly the sound of a band back on form.

The problem with Tides End as a whole is that it all sounds a bit like a blander, toned-down version of every electro-rock album released in the late Noughties, and unfortunately for Minks, five years isn’t long enough for people to get nostalgic about a certain sound.

The lameness of the words would be forgivable if they were paired with music that provided any kind of pleasant distraction. But across Happy People’s 10 tracks, the band prove themselves incapable of writing a single decent hook.

[Majenta is] an album that brings the influence of Prince on his music to the fore. It works well, with a healthy funk quotient present throughout, going with some lyrics that might make a grown adult blush but which stop short of being too risque.