It is neither better nor any worse than The Logic Of Chance. But what is really telling is the lack of anything remotely resembling a standout track.

He has spectacularly failed to make an album that has any bite.

There are moments of brilliance, but it's bogged down by the kind of watery filler an older, more mature artist would have largely filtered out.

Perhaps if each song were half the length, the fun, easy-listening element to PBJ's music would be more clear-cut. As it is, Writer's Block proves a real struggle.

Their impression is clear, but the soul, and even the primary reason why this sort of music was great in the first place, is coldly removed. It makes for a slightly uncanny listen, like a collection of all the filler tracks from '88 twee.

Throughout the entire album, you’re left wondering how Smith, who is responsible for some of the most untouchable, spontaneous punk classics of all time, could muster the audacity to purposefully sound like such a parody of his previous self.

As a product that needs to sell it fits the bill perfectly - there are at least five potential top ten singles here--but as an album, the whole thing feels precision tooled, vacuum-packed and strangely lifeless.

There are some excellent tracks on the album but all in all this is a serious disappointment from a band of whom much more was expected.

The Prodigy are doing a lot of shoving, but little in the way of solving the problem they’ve identified. If they want to be considered as important as The Sex Pistols, they’ll have to do rather better than this.

Snark aside, it's a shame that aside from a couple of notable exceptions, the album title is just about right.

Gilmore has merely rendered Fever more American market-friendly and given it a strong flavor of stateside nu-metal. It's a pattern that is just too repetitious, too anodyne and just plain insipid.

Perhaps the global impact of the massive Call Me Maybe is what makes the album as a whole feel like a damp squib, but with or without US Marine parody videos, the rest of the album fizzles out into synth-pop oblivion.

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

All too often Rudebox plays like an undeveloped collection of half-baked ideas.

In the context of a studio recording, Cage The Elephant's premiere isn't far off insufferable.

The trouble is that in the two years since Love Angel Music Baby she doesn't seem to have moved on or evolved at all.

There’s certainly a market for anodyne, unthreatening, middle of the road pop, and Blunt appeals to that market very successfully. Yet those who look for music to move them, be it through the feet, heart or brain, probably won’t be surprised to find that there won’t be too much to appeal to them here.

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.

They sound nice, look nice but you'd be pressed to find any substance.

In the final analysis, The Whip need to focus more on the dynamics of the dance floor and less on looking cool for the covers of inkies.

Compared to what went before, The Return Of... is a massive let down.

Kurt Vile: 50% Velvet Underground; 50% The Jesus And Mary Chain. Childish Prodigy: 50% Velvet Underground & Nico; 50% Darklands.

While Meighan’s Liam Gallagher-like machismo may not have been to everyone’s taste, his vocals undoubtedly had much more presence than Pizzorno’s rather bland voice, which does little more than carry the songs on Happenings along, and is indicative of a broader lack of musical personality combined with a lack of truly memorable songs.

There's too much that should have never seen the light of day, that is little more than a band riffing on ideas in the studio without ever taking them anywhere near consummation. But Down In Albion just about remains afloat because there are moments on it when Babyshambles make us care.

All The Plans is full of driving piano, anthemic guitar, and a bit of swagger. They owe a huge debt to Coldplay, Ocean Colour Scene, and Oasis which, in itself, must be quite galling.

She is far, far too good to be fronting songs which sound ‘current’ only in the sense that you can imagine them ending up on Rihanna‘s rejection pile.

Ripe is a disappointingly bland affair. None of the songs have any edge to them, the tunes are predictable and the lyrics are mundane.

What the two have come up with next is a new member and a sort of hillbilly Pixies for children, or perhaps a grunge starter kit for Polyphonic Spree fans.