Unfortunately there are too many moments where the pace flags, however, and Lavelle, while not exactly running out of ideas, falls back on the familiar ones.

It's a sometimes bleak record, but one that shows that Armstrong and his cohorts are not satisfied by taking the easy route.

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.

An all-out disco party record is waiting to be unleashed amongst it all somewhere, but Discodeine's debut is something of a mixed bag.

In short, the album is great but you do wish these bands could learn to dress better.

On The North Sea Scrolls, Haines stays true to his own brand of dark, surreal mystification and harnesses two other individual talents to create something that some will find highly satisfactory.

A collection that contains no weak links, no fillers, no afterthoughts and almost no mistakes.

Certainly there are some interesting moments on Music From The Spheres. But overall it’s the sound of Coldplay treading water. More alarmingly, it begins to sound like they’re trying not to drown.

Ultimately the album is three or four songs too long, but Man Of The Woods is rarely less than entertaining. Too slick to be a genuine man of ‘rough’, Timberlake nevertheless continues to lead the way in his field, even if he does so without consistently reaching the greatness he so clearly strives for.

Although The Brink does sound more assured and accomplished than their debut, The Jezabels’ return poses a number of problems, the most central of which being that it is just far too pedestrian.

As an album @Reverend_Makers provides infectiously good spirits, a good bit of Sheffield steel and a nice dash of humour here and there too, delivered with a dose of urban grit.

The whole thing simply flat lines into mediocrity.

For those expecting the worst ahead of Bloc Party’s return, Hymns is likely to validate all their fears. Change may have been unavoidable after losing two influential members, but to change beyond recognition is almost an insult to the original band’s legacy.

There's more than just a niggle that Free isn't breaking new ground. More disturbingly, the album is a wasted chance to build on Vivarium, and isn't as good as so much of the music it tries to emulate.

It may not be groundbreakingly new, but All Our Favourite Stories is one of the most entertaining albums of the year.

The record does admittedly sound excellent. Urgent and rippling with intensity it has a power that is let down by the lack of simply great songs. Far too many tracks follow an increasingly tired and weary rock formula.

As much as everybody appreciates a good reunion, 10 isn’t really worth getting excited about unless you’re a diehard fan.

The patchiness of the album is perhaps a consequence of Kylie trying to placate the disparate portions of her remaining fanbase. Still, seven keepers out of 13 is a decent hit rate. A merry little album.

The album is a 60 minute blur, and while there are brief moments of clarity there's just nothing special about Blood Money.

Sometimes moody, sometimes optimistic, this doesn’t feel sure of what it wants to be and instead feels a little like an Air outtakes album.

They haven't completely taken their eye off what made the Charlatans so successful in the first place, but the new sound is none too convincing.

The Great Escape Artist is the least cohesive of all Jane's Addiction's albums.

At times, it's so relentlessly bouncy and upbeat that you feel like mowing down an entire shopping centre with an AK-47. Yet there's enough promise here to confirm that the hype about Mika is pretty much on the money.

Clarke is a genuinely talented songwriter, if rather earnest in his intentions, but in Music for The People he and his mates seem to have lost the plot.

Too many songs spend too much time doing precisely nothing.

The desire is there for more of that visionary spirit--though the suspicion lingers that with everything just simply too available, Moroder no longer has the focus and inspiration that fired his finest work.

After a while, it grates badly on the nerves.

There's the sense that Wild Palms are a band who desperately want to create their own world but Until Spring never quite manages to draw you fully into its bubble.