While it's far from perfect, Casiokids have done well to polish their sound, even if they've not yet quite decided what they want to be when they grow up

In the unlikely event you needed any more demonstration of the woman's talent, this is it.

For all its innovativity and dogged determinism, the album's latter moments just can't compete with the top heavy appeal of its opening tracks.

A stunning debut album, one that proves the hype was more than justified.

Mr Oizo is not a man with a long attention span, and that shows as each track zips between styles and moods relentlessly, entertaining but sometimes maddening.

May not be groundbreaking, but it's a solid first album.

So the songs merge into one, and the parts add up to less than the whole. And taken as a whole Future This is a bit much.

Fans of Jones's solo work may find For The Good Times a bit too country for their taste, but anyone who was won over by their debut will find a lot more to love about this new outing.

Wired Together is a patchwork of half-finished schemes - loud enough to give you a headache, bland enough to stop you thinking - that pales next to its genre contemporaries and seems to aspire to little more than making a trendy noise.

These singles show that Manic Street Preachers have stayed true to one at least one of their ideals – which is to write the best songs they possibly could.

By the end of it, the creative highs have balanced out the tepid lows and all that's left is a plain old simple straight line.

There's no personality here, nothing to cling on to and love.

Part of Lopatin's considerable appeal is his apparent refusal to settle.

While it doesn't quite account for the storied legend of the band behind it (these guys wrote Sonic Reducer, Ain't It Fun, and Final Solution, after all), Barfly is an album that sounds immediately important.

When you hear the body of work in these sessions, and witness at first hand the musical creativity and bond between them, it only leaves you wanting to hear more.

Oh Fortune is a luscious wall of sound, one that should see the criminally underrated Canadian featured more regularly alongside the heavyweights.

Bob Ludwig's remastering punches up the drums and adds clarity and volume to the mix without overblowing it or excessively altering the overall sound, and the result is that these two albums sound incredibly modern, relevant, and invigourated.... Siamese Dream includes exceptional demos for U.S.A. and U.S.S.R., as well as Moleasskiss from the much sought after Mashed Potatoes bootlegs.

Bob Ludwig's remastering punches up the drums and adds clarity and volume to the mix without overblowing it or excessively altering the overall sound, and the result is that these two albums sound incredibly modern, relevant, and invigourated... The Gish standouts include a demo of Daydream with Corgan on vocals in place of D'arcy Wretzky and an extended version of Drown with blistering alternate guitar solos.

With half of rEVOLVEr emulating his older tracks and the other half making strained attempts to branch out into rap and dance, it appears that the rappa ternt sanga simply hasn't found anywhere else to turn.

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.

Despite their faults, The Black Keys do have something to offer the world in terms of reliable, entertaining garage rock. Just don't expect innovation.

Some bands are stronger on record, while others go up a level when performing live. The Unthanks are equally compelling in both settings.

What Regan has unquestionably created is a landscape of wide-eyed, sincere beauty that is very much his own, delivered with a poise that few of his contemporaries can match.

An evocative album of considerable depth that beautifully completes the triangle.

While this may be something of a stopgap release while Maclean tries out a new venture or two, Everybody Get Close has plenty of dancefloor noise, and is switched on to the rhythm throughout.

The album itself--whilst impressive in its seamless cohesion--does become rather formulaic in Birdy's treatment of the covers, and therefore suffers from a distinct lack of variety.

Cornell's voice might not be as tight as it was back in 1994, but it remains a formidable instrument - and lifts this collection well above that of an average live album. It's the lack of variety that stops it from becoming truly great.

Both Ways Open Jaws is an album that is best when taken as a whole and wholly intriguing trip into that most treacherous and elusive of terrains: the happy marriage of eccentricity and pop song craft.