When it works, it works.

Even with the rich array of sounds, every track has an impressive immediacy and it's that balance that makes 'Personality...' so uplifting. [22 Jul 2006, p.39]

The influence of Chairlift, Warpaint, Alt-J and The xx all subliminally creep into adorable but chilling laments on dying young and wrecked romances.

'Sticks & Stones', 'Memory Room' and, oddly, the title track add slivers of graceful light to this bleak but captivating collection of noirish tales.

This is warm, sleepy music that buzzes like a fridge. Best heard lying down.

All in all, ‘ICONOLOGY’ is Missy putting a gun in the face of her haters and daring them to say something. She wants them to doubt her just so she can pop off with some zany game-changing vision that’ll set the world on fire. But she’s not ready to unload a full clip just yet. Rest assured, though – it’s coming.

Once upon a time it seemed like Grammatics had too many ideas, they couldn’t quite decide who they wanted to be. In the end, they just decided to be themselves, and the result frequently approaches bona fide genius.

It might be coming from the cheap seats, but for the most part, this is classy stuff.

This is an album in possession of a rare innocence and charm.

It's far from bad, but if you're still waiting for a Clinic record as great as the utterly seminal Internal Wrangler, keep waiting, and probably don't hold your breath.

The record works as just five songs.

The band continue to be radical, but rather than being reactionary, ‘There is No Year’ is precise, thoughtful and powerful.

This ain’t ‘Chinese Democracy’. ‘Still Sucks’ doesn’t feel laboured or overthought and never overstays its welcome.

A wonky, Teutonic thing full of outré drama and should-be pop classics.

Sure, there's the odd thoughtful spot of violin, like on "Give Me Shapes," but the record's relentless rawness eventually bleeds into a murky burble.

They may be Pivot no more, but they're turning heads – and for all the right reasons.

The Futureheads have defeated the machine at its own game and made a record that’s every bit as vibrant and vital as their 2004 debut.

This time around, though, the band operates with a little more future-facing pride and compulsion. It’s a lesson on how to do it yourself, and do it well. Defiance never sounded so good.

‘None of Us Are Getting Out Of This Life Alive’ isn’t just a testament to Mike Skinner’s intriguing evolution but also proof of his keen eye for curation. It’s good to have him back – and all of his mates, too.

Faux-feminist tracks such as 'Dirty Mind' are more Austin Powers than Phil Spector, too self-conscious to hit the heart-bursting heights of the originals, too much a pastiche to forge anything new. [15 Jul 2006, p.37]

His outfit have returned with an album that skirts close to perfection in its 35 minutes of glorious madness and transcendent, George Harrison-like guitar solos.

Riceboy Sleeps' is a tedious album of orchestral drones, produced by manipulating piano, strings and choir samples on solar-powered laptops

Uptown Special is Ronson’s moment of absolution: you can try to hate it, but in the end, as with all the best pop music, resistance is futile.

Given the somewhat disjointed making of this record – a journey that stretches from 2017 to mid-lockdown – it lacks the cohesiveness of recent material. The songs origins, however, have come from a completely different place for Morby, one more instinctive and reflective, as he jots down snapshots and musings eloquently into a handy piece of kit. Given that it kickstarted a new exploration in his songwriting, the resulting project is still worth savouring.

As much as the album is warm, wistful and pleasant, every song is a variation on the others, using similar chords and the same key, although final track 'Long Journey' packs more of a punch.

20 years after the outlines of the band was first sketched by co-creator Jamie Hewlett, the band clearly still stands as a vivid creative outlet for Albarn. He’s managed to tap into the chaotic ethos so electrifying and unpredictable first time round, and reanimate the band’s fortunes in dazzling fashion.

An eclectic but thoroughly satisfying record. [21 Jan 2006, p.35]

King Krule fans will find their hero to be far more accessible on ‘Man Alive!’. The Krulean gloom is beginning to lift and, with this newfound paternal responsibility and a more optimistic worldview in place, Marshall’s creativity is shining for all the world to see.

The album’s beachy vibes feel suited to a festival field’s carefree disposition. You just wish there was a little more to these songs.

Third album La Di Da Di is comprised of 12 entirely instrumental tracks that feel less like stand-alone songs and more like strange sonic experiments cooked up in a lab.

Fans alienated by My Morning Jacket’s more recent material will find plenty of comfort here.

They lose points, however, for a descent into guitar squall and full-on ‘Baker Street’ sax (‘Perpetual Surrender’), which mar an otherwise intriguing debut.

Decent, but delivered with all the enthusiasm usually reserved for stool samples. [26 Mar 2005, p.51]

Mostly, Paracosm is Chromatics if their nocturnal danger was replaced by nocturnal emissions, or Beach House if they got so stoned they forgot to change chords for minutes at a time.

The sheer scale, pop-pomp and balls on show here render their survival an absolute victory. Resistance may be futile, but the Manics continue to advance.

This is their most convincing and compelling work to date. Amid all the experimentation of this excellent album, The Districts have hit a new, complex and compelling stride.

The record isn’t as cohesive or experimental as ‘Caution’, it’s not a big musical transition moment like ‘Butterfly’ was, and it’s not as viral-worthy as ‘Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel’ – but it’s still pretty darn good.

Yet it’s also a record that’s in denial of things like the atomic bomb, IBM, the internet and the fucking millennium. And that really is the true spirit of nihilism, no matter how well you dress it up in your parents’ rags.

Clearly, Houghton's found fertile ground in connecting with her inner rage monster, but there's a different side to the album too: anthemic glam rock reminiscent of Bowie's work with guitarist Mick Ronson.

Although ‘Lungu Boy’ sees Asake still rewriting the rulebook on Afro-pop, you have to push through a lot of samey repeats of his past work before you get to the good stuff.

Overall Mercer’s songwriting creds are well in tact.

Here are 13 songs of dire cod-reggae, OK stoner rock and quite-good-'80s AOR, which makes them the thinking man's Tenacious D, for what that's worth.

It's a terrible pity: when she stops politicising like a councillor on a complementary therapy summer camp, there's music here that's full of the febrile commitment and unashamed passion that marked her out as a valid icon in 1975.

The band have responded with their most stylistically hatstand-but-indisputably-best songs yet.

Love Me follows up 2012 debut album ‘Salton Sea’, but edges away from sleek, techno throb towards something more tender and torch song.

Brilliantly, if subtly, displays a newfound maturity for Abrams.

Freed of the need to sound how people expect them to, the seven piece get the chance to show that they can turn in proper, craft-standard pop when they need to.

The result is a great album that simultaneously wears its bruised heart on its sleeve (the lovelorn should be warned: it’s a real tearjerker at times), and sugars its melancholy with opulent musical arrangements.

If Beck gets better as he gets madder, this is definitely his best since 'Midnite Vultures' - maybe even since 'Odelay'.

Yet get past the grating AF-isms and there’s some good tunes.

Post-mainstream breakthrough, Oxnard is a deft dissection of the fallout, just as free-ranging and hopeful as you’d imagine.

While debut album 'Faded Seaside Glamour' suffered from a mild dose of ADD, sprawling and meandering into atmospheric noodling between its smatter of acid-in-your-candyfloss pop hits, with 'You See Colours' Gilbert has sharpened his pop stiletto blade.

More subtle now, but Alice and Kacey are keeping us guessing.

They're at their strongest when at their hardest.

There’s something very ‘mopey American teenager’ about Lightning Bolt.

The slow, dusky familiarity and lack of dynamics make for more of a groundhog day than transcendence into any fifth dimension.

Sure, the two slower tracks might make for a break in the relentless pace, but who needs the rest? If you just so happen to be one of the best in the up-tempo pop-smattered emo-punk game, why bother slowing down? For this lot, more is most certainly more.

Admirable, if not necessarily lovable.

Temple’s unassuming sound can often hide how experimental he is. Not so on the lysergic electronics of ‘Sue’, which swirl like watercolour dreams.

Only the overlong ‘Ice Age’ disappoints on a solid, often stunning record.

Overall, Shulamith is a record that takes on serious issues but always feels engagingly personal, with ideas set to the kind of alt.pop melodies you couldn’t forget even if you wanted to.

The best Guided By Voices album yet. [28 Aug 2004, p.57]

The unlikely, ghoulish inspiration of a dead Dutch pop star has forced Pixies' frontman Frank Black into making his finest album since the demise of his influential '90s alt.rockers.

A huge step forward for them and, hopefully, for their public perception too.

Mvula’s keenly awaited debut record is ornate, gentle and clearly composed by someone with vast musical training. So it’s a shame that so much of it sounds lightweight and shallow.

Dlamini’s taking no chances here and, now that the smoke’s lifted, it’s clear she’s a pop contender with the nous and drive to go as far as she wants.

Will only sound sweeter as summer draws nearer. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

This is a man who penned a song called 'Chimbley Sweep' without conceding how daft that sounds, and this overblown opus about a mythical Margaret is equally wet and earnest.

Clipping's nightmare is riveting, particularly during its sweat-inducing peak 'Get Up', which uses an alarm clock as a beat underneath breakneck verses.

‘Doggerel’, in its hospitably decanted way, is every bit as transportive and absorbing as the early records, and further proof that Pixies’ music remains the alt-rock gold standard. Swill it around and savour.

It may have taken six years, but ‘Dopamine’ sounds like the (damn) album Normani was meant to make all long.

Mainman Rick Froberg might be midway through his fifth decade, but he and his cohorts can still make one hell of a racket.

‘Free Love’ sounds like a tug of war exertion without the fun, satisfying results of albums past.

Francis Trouble is a bright blast of radiant, prismatic indie rock. More surprisingly still, it’s Albert’s most fun record yet, hurtling along on his trademark zipping guitar lines.

See, in All Or Nothing, The Subways haven’t just made a great record – they’ve vindicated everyone who still believes in the power and the glory of three chords and distortion pedals.

Henson spends 20-odd minutes working his tremulous voice--somewhere between Paul Simon and Wayne Coyne--around echoing guitar.... Then suddenly he finds the socket and ‘Don’t Swim’ rages into life, his guitar bashed and throttled.

Where the first four records (and particularly the Matador releases) sounded like a band fighting for their lives – or at least pretty keen to make you listen – this is the sound of a band struggling to muster the energy to go on.

For five songs, it's the best album ever, rattling along on post-punk guitar flourishes and Cale's auto-tuned vocal. After that it descends into an enjoyable weirdathon.

Meatier, beatier, bigger and bouncier. And all the better for it.

The rootsier material is often fantastic, which shows up the goofier stuff even more. Kesha has balanced tender country songs with blinging pop throughout her career, but you may wish for ‘High Road’ to stick to one lane.

So 'A Bigger Bang' is no masterpiece. As a loss leader to allow them to continue touring, it's not even as good as 'Don't Believe The Truth'. But it's the best record they were going to make, and a world with the Stones is better than one without them.

Obviously this isn’t a ‘Definitely Maybe’ or ‘The Stone Roses’ – no-one could touch those hook-laden masterpieces. As a triumph of style and mood, though, ‘Liam Gallagher John Squire’ is well worthy of their enduring legacies.

As long as he keeps on being this magnificent, Mr Ripley can be as avaricious as he damn well pleases.

Ultimately, the record doesn’t feel wholly complete. By the final rotation of this imperfect kaleidoscope, there are inconsistencies that only highlight the fractures that underlie Ephyra. But Woman’s Hour have a knack for communicating this feeling so gracefully.

The blues kings show no signs of turning off their well-beaten path here, but they’re still capable of conjuring enough magic on the journey.

A pop album that comes giddy with detailed digital patterns,

Gently acoustic, peacefully steeped in nostalgia and remembrance, it generates a warm glow of grace...

It's ace, like you imagine Madonna would've sounded if the records had matched the raunch of her videos/concerts/multimedia-experiments.

As a bite-size CV of the last five years of his career, it’s pretty good.

Ultimately, however, it’s hard not to notice that the production outshines the delivery.

Efterklang’s first release on the legendary 4AD label is packed full of immediate melodies and soul.

It’s a bit TEED on a beach, or SBTRKT with mask exchanged for a tasteful side-parting.

‘Honestly, Nevermind’ is an unexpected elevation from the bland trap, R&B remakes and Drake’s melancholic attitude to love we heard last time around. He doesn’t quite shift the latter as much as one would hope – the album is as tiresomely woe-is-me as anything he’s ever done – but the house sound has at least given him the creative boost that his recording career has been crying out for recently.

It's a grandiose (Rick Rubin produces), earnest affair that sheds the trio's earthy realness for a glossy veneer which is sometimes thrilling (the majestic 'And It Spread') but often, well, nothing more than an unconvincing stab at that most scary of concepts: mainstream country.

This album, like their previous two, has one moment of utterly triumphant rock Valhalla amidst a bunch of pretty good retro-soaked poses.

Despite its strong start, the sagging back end of ‘Las Ruinas’ unfortunately means that this mixtape isn’t likely to stick in the memory for long – here’s hoping Rico comes back stronger next time.

Doesn't do a lot different from [Let Go]. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]