While there is plenty of soul in the sound, there is a lack of body in both delivery and melody.

To Lose My Life is an album made to a predefined plan with skill and no heart.

It's this capacity to write immediately affecting songs coupled with an effortless cool that will see Hurts catapulted towards stardom. The fact that the album tails off dramatically with a series of appalling ballads in the shape of The Water and Unspoken will almost certainly be overlooked in favour of the classy sounds of Wonderful Life or the glorious pulsing anthem of Better Than Love.

There's something appealing about their brand of music with its light, sunny harmonies and direct choruses.

In the final reckoning, a solid album is raised a bar by its direct communication, illustrated by the closing 'Hard Time For Dreamers.'

The Path Of Totality is overall quite an interesting and largely rewarding proposition. Whether it manages to please dubstep or Korn fans however is another matter.

While the impressive Himalayan featured six tracks over four minutes long, By Default sees this length exceeded just once, concentrating more on short, sharp power punches.

Pavement fans expecting similar lo-fi experimentation may be disappointed with The Real Feel, but anyone who appreciates organically structured rock songs should love this album.

The tunes here are good enough to warrant repeated listens and when the album hits its stride, it's got a couple of proper anthems. It's not trying to be anything particularly clever or innovative--and it's fair to hope for some sort of evolution for a second album--but the trade off is a satisfying one.

This isn't really an album to analyse in any great depth, more to nod to endlessly, ideally with a drink in hand and a clutch of friends arrayed around, in staunch defiance of our grey-skied British reality.

Whilst most die-hard fans are likely to be put off by some of the tracks on offer, this is the sound of a band settling into comfortable maturity.

Ultimately though, Music is a case of too much filler, too little killer, even when divorced from its controversial origins.

Go Hard is worth a listen, if only to laugh at all the bravado.

Trouble is, the arrangements on Head Up High are low-key to the point of nothingness.

Nothing groundbreaking there, you might think, but it is all done with a down to earth approach that is at once appealing.

They managed to produce a collection of songs perfect for the summer months [in second album, Cave Rave]. The same could be said of Spreading Rumours, which is another album that could just as easily provide the soundtrack to Summer 2014.

This comeback effort is a huge amount of fun and a reminder that it's great that the Happy Mondays have never completely disappeared.

Like most Hole albums, Nobody's Daughter has flashes of inspiration but is generally weighed down by inconsistency and too many songs that sound like they were phoned in.

An album that playfully veers all over the place and leaves you feeling as heady and confused as a first time stoner.

At times it may seem like the most depressing easy listening record you've ever heard, but there's plenty of depth and deft touches here to make it well worth checking out.

As such, the experimentations, and their hit-and-miss nature, doesn't make for an album you want to play over and over again; in fact, a fair amount of tunes are rather forgettable and don't really offer much.

Until Now never quite shakes the feeling of being a little gratuitous--a few euphoric gems aside, there isn't enough creative spark on the record to justify its existence, and listening to it feels about as useful as attending a Swedes gig without the live atmosphere.

Tides stakes an admirable claim to being a first tentative step in building a more advanced, melodic palette.

Listening to Rules is a surprisingly boring experience. At several instances throughout this album you wish someone would let rip with a guitar solo, fire off a rave horn or just do something to liven up proceedings.

18 Months neatly packs Calvin's hits from the last year and a half into a solid playlist.

[They] have returned sounding pretty much exactly the same as they did three and a half years ago.

While this makes for pleasant enough listening, we know that Damon Gough can do a lot better than pleasant.

Instead of recycling the catchy tunes of his '80s heydays, Lewis has gone back to his roots, delving straight into the Stax Records catalogue. Welcome to Soulsville.