While the lovely melodies and Vega's hushed vocals make it perfectly good background music, to achieve the full effect you have to listen to those lyrics--she's one of the finest lyricists of recent times.

A record which stares back at you with the appeal of an ex you'd rather not have bumped into.

But for both ["The Heinrich Maneuver" and "Mammoth"], and indeed elsewhere, it's the way in which the elements of the track click into place with a Swiss watchmaker's precision and artistry that really hits home.

There are moments of sheer brilliance on Ga... and due to the band keeping things short and sweet (the album clocks in at about 36 minutes) those moments are rarely far apart.

It stops short of SMD's effort by quite a way, but it's a fine and much welcome showing for a pair of self-professed amateurs.

It's really rather good.

As singles, most of these songs would fly off of the shelves, but taken as a whole album it can get a bit tiring.

Right at the end, they redeem themselves with a romantic little pop ditty that strays into Colourfield territory, with Clarke's scowling, angry young man tones wrapping themselves as well as they can around gentler, less confrontational sentiments. It's the most interesting thing on the album and if they can harness this flexibility a bit more in the future, they might just find themselves lasting the course.

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

Whilst Ash's signature energetic punk-pop pastiches are very much in evidence in the shape of "I Started A Fire," "You Can't Have It All" and "Princess Six," it's fair to say that they have managed to explore acres of new territory.

No matter how careful and careworn Bry's immaculate vocal takes are, the band chug along with their muted guitar chords and thudding drums as if it were a mere run-through.

One of the freshest, funkiest, tragic and joyous albums in recent times.

It's eccentric, it's exhilarating, it is, in parts, absolutely insane. Yet it's never less than absolutely compelling, which is what makes The White Stripes one of the greatest bands of modern times.

Kurr's claustrophobic sound causes a restless reaction. For all its fragile beauty, it's at its best in small chunks.

The Queens treading water is still better than watching so many others horribly drowning.

Version is destined to become one of the great party albums of the summer - just playing it once is guaranteed to cheer you up.

With Wild Mountain Nation they present a raucous and varied constellation of souvenirs, rough-hewn but lush, crackling with a weird and lucid energy.

An excellent debut album, full of brash confidence and seductive charm.

An album full of perfect pop songs, which borrow and rework musical themes and motifs from across 40 years of McCartney's career.

The fact that neither side needs the other is why Tromatic Reflexxions works so obscenely well.

With its frequent emotional crescendos, then quiet dying away, Ma Fleur is more than a match for its predecessors, and will undoubtedly cement The Cinematic Orchestra’s reputation as intellectually sustaining performers of beautiful, emotive music.

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

The National were worried that they wouldn't be able to follow up Alligator, that fans would be disappointed. Boxer proves their fears ungrounded - and that Alligator was no one classic wonder.

Where before they gave the distinct feel of a quick side-project for a bunch of talented musicians who were currently in other bands, on Mirrored it's clear that their hearts and souls are in every one of these songs.

Most of the tracks here could have emerged at almost any point between the late 60s and now, but when you're confronted by the sheer bittersweet enthusiasm that van Pelt manages to squeeze into each one, it would be a little unfair to draw up a family tree.

Better then anyone could have hoped.

It is different in many ways, but never neglects the melodic, vocal and lyrical genius that has established, and will continue to establish, his status as one of the all time greats.

The 10 tracks that make up Tales Don't Tell Themselves brief-though-engaging narrative are deeper, more accessible offerings that need those vital extra two or three listens to really sink in.