While it's an impressive document, it can’t quite recapture the nocturnal intimacy of ‘Nothing Else But This’ and ‘Dream’.

Much as there's no getting away from the fact that this is basically one long remix, it's much better than the car crash we all predicted it would be.

If soft-hearted London folkies Noah And The Whale aren’t quite as deft with savoury rice, they’ve got the knack of balancing heart-melting, pupil-dilating ditties with words of chill bleakness down pat.

Beneath their notorious humour, 11th studio album Coaster is less angry than previous political witch hunts, but Fat Mike and co still love to offend.

Fool’s Gold might mine a rich vein, but they rarely forge anything more than mere tourist trinkets.

Sheeran hasn’t committed as wholeheartedly to the genre-hopping bit as he did on ‘÷’. There are an awful lot of those sickly ballads, some of which are better than others: ‘Old Phone’, inspired by seeing an old text from Edwards, is genuinely moving.

He’s managed to morph his frustrations of the world into engaging and frantic material that packs serious spirit. Yet another album we’ll have to wait to see live.

It’s the ‘meh’ shruggable moments of filler around them that dog the consistency of ‘Wallop’. There’s not the high-octane fuel or direction to take the record to the heights that it so constantly teases.

An odd album. [13 Aug 2005, p.58]

So unashamedly beaming with the spirit of 1991 that it should be wearing a flannel shirt and a woozy expression. [22 Apr 2006, p.41]

It's not so much that [they] sound a bit like The Rapture so much as, occasionally, they seem to be running off Xerox copies of specific Rapture songs. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

Don't start here before the essential LPs... But once you've fallen in love (and believe us, it's inevitable), this is a mesmerising next stop. [17 Jul 2004, p.48]

An older, wiser, more mature and more accomplished Thrills but -- to be honest -- the heart of 'Let's Bottle Bohemia' could quite easily have been made from the leftovers of 'So Much For The City.' [11 Sep 2004, p.54]

The most interesting moments on ‘Deleter’ arrive when the band embrace ’90s dance in all its euphoric, Technicolor glory. There is still plenty here for fans of the band’s more melancholic, anxiety-ridden electronica, but there’s some much-needed escapism to be derived from getting lost in Holy Fuck’s tripper soundscapes.

Their charm lies in the feeling that below the faintly twee, wistful, synthy exterior beats a feisty riot-grrl heart.

As things stand, it too often feels like a watered-down version of what Jack White peddles.

Whilst stylistically Nasir may well have plenty of strong moments, its contradictions make it a difficult, problematic listen: it’s the silences on here which so often deafen.

Somewhere beneath the unconvincing sheen of these songs there’s a great band trying to break out. Maybe next time.

[The] constant sense of melodrama robs the record of its potency, the impact of that pounding sonic template diminished through its constancy. The sense of doom is familiar, the sound of the band’s new record even more so.

It's all rather one-paced and sags badly after tenth track 'Lick Up Ya Foot' but, by crikey, the likes of 'Big Tings Redone' and 'Dutty Rut' provide the perfect soundtrack for out-on-the-stoop sunshine boozing.

This patchy album shows these sharp-suited Londoners on safe indie territory, but caught in several minds.

Although it can be overblown, Sean’s passion is unreserved here, the record peppered with Instagram-worthy captions that urge listeners to take inspiration from their surroundings while keeping friends and family close.

Sound Mirror’s mix of jazz rhythms and psychedelic funk cuts a distinctive, if unfashionable, path.

Instead of an album hurtling 100mph in one of those directions, Fragrant World feels like the work of a band with stabilisers on.

While it doesn’t reach the impossibly high standards of their back catalogue, there’s enough promise to suggest there are good times ahead.

This is easily KOL’s most promising, liberated record for over a decade but still surprisingly restrained in places. Can they have fun? Yes it appears, in places, but they could have had a whole lot more.

The record is most effective at its most gentle and sparse, his voice given room to breathe. Where the lyrics becomes too grandiose, words clash with the folky style, leading to abrupt jarrs in pace and direction. Yet, as with most of Corgan’s solo projects to date, there are still plenty of moments of beauty here.

While the low-key arrangements and melancholic song choices may make Tinsel And Lights an EastEnders special of a Christmas album, if you're planning on a microwaved turkey dinner for one this year, there's probably no better soundtrack.

This is a nine-song collection of modest ambition, but ‘Buoys’ undoubtedly succeeds on its own terms, that consistently understated sonic template interspersed with surprising moments – the bassy thud of electronic drums that interrupts ‘Crescendo’, the hip-hop style piano riff that marches through ‘Master’ – that makes it a rewarding repeat listen.

Miike Snow’s debut is a curious affair: clad in icy, inscrutable packaging a la Sigur Ros with american singer Andrew Wyatt carefully enunciating every overwrought word, it’s also jam-packed with the kind of dazzling pop tricks you might expect from three chaps whose day job is churning out radio hits for the likes of and Jordin Sparks.

Lacking as it does the songwriting spark of Ariel Pink, the record lacks cohesion.

Time Team is intergalactic, ambient, Rustie-ish drug music set to snare kicks and sturdy hip-hop beats that at its best is deliciously mind-bending.

Please Mr Eitzel, get to the bar and pour yourself another drink. [1 Oct 2005, p.45]

He dissects his 20-something malaise with a dry and eloquent wit like a K-Mart Morrissey. [6 May 2006, p.33]

If ‘Holy Fvck’ is a funeral for Lovato’s pop music, it also marks a new beginning, with an artist reborn. As the musician explores this ferocious sonic world and celebrating her musical roots, it’s the start of a bold new era.

By its fourth track ‘Loser’, the album’s first single, his insecurities are so hammered down to the listener – “I’m a tragedy / tryna figure my whole life out” – that it begins gets in the way of his arrangements, which so far are imaginative and varied compared to the stylistic tedium of ‘The Slow Rush’.

A decidedly strange record with flashes of beauty and brilliance, then. How utterly Yoko.

While Hercules and Neon Neon took their dance nostalgia and turned it into something smart and new, Sam Sparro too often sounds like it's come straight out of an electro-funk generator--perfect reference points intact, but not developed or built upon or made unique.

The Irish duo are joined by an unnamed vocalist on a couple of tracks, but the instrumentals are the best work here.

Despite the fluid interplay of the four MCs and J5's evolving musicality, 'Quality Control' lacks the singalong pop immediacy of 'Jurassic 5'.... Quality then. But it's not the old-skool classic we'd hoped for.

It's an impressive attempt to drag folk music out of the hayloft and onto the dancefloor and it marks the emergence of a smart, sincere and talented new pop star.

Bahdeni Nami isn’t a bad record, exactly, but it’s not quite the best place to crack into Souleyman’s catalogue (which, if you believe estimates, stretches to a mindboggling 500 recordings).

As a whole, though, the album’s overall feel is still deadeningly generic.

It remains to be seen whether Do Nothing can use the solid foundations of ‘Snake Sideways’ as a launching pad to ascend to the giddy heights of their initial promise.

The production (by Wheezy, ATLJacob and others) laid a solid foundation for Baby to make a few hits, but the record is nothing to write home about.

The first quarter of the album is a soothing ode to an immense talent gone too soon. But soon the record starts to sprawl and spiral.

‘Let the Lord Sort ’Em Out’ isn’t a total misfire: it’s composed, thoughtful and often impressively lyrically detailed. But after 16 years, Clipse didn’t come back knocking down doors and shocking the world.

It’s less an album, more a collection of savvy and generally savvy collaborations which blurs traditional genre boundaries unselfconsciously and acknowledges that Latin-pop is the sound of the near-future. Most of the time, it’s a credit to Sheeran’s songwriting skills and well-honed persona.

‘Talk Memory’ is technically proficient but all too often the record lacks the playful spirit and brash confidence the band carried themselves with in the early days.

There’s not much sugar to sweeten the pill, meaning Trap Lord is often one-note and depressing.

Tracks like 'Bacaroo' and 'Sailing Bells' deploy the sort of lovely string arrangements that sweep you off your feet and have your knickers on the floor before you even notice your cold bits.

Six years on he sounds like a man not getting nearly enough cuddles.

Adding interesting new textures to his playbook, it’s perhaps helpful to think of ‘The Waves Pt.1’ as a soundtrack to something bigger, the wading out to sea before the full immersive plunge. By the time ‘Part 2’ arrives, Kele will likely have found even more ways to expand his horizons.

The collection is more of a mood piece than of noticeable, memorable songs.

As prolific as he is iconic, Ride Me Back Home is Willie’s 69th (nice) album and sees him in absolute sweetheart mode.

Lion King: The Gift is a great example of Beyonce’s fantastic taste, and of her ability to oversee an album that doesn’t focus on her while also cementing the soundtrack as a worthy substitute to the original. Most importantly, it puts a spotlight on artists from the continent in which the movie takes place.

By teaming up with Godrich, McCartney has come out of his safety zone and challenged himself in a way not seen since his first solo album way back in 1970. But the feeling remains that the one person who could really inspire him to write one final classic record was tragically murdered in 1980.

The sonic range on display is certainly a stark departure from the twisted world of Chvrches’ thrilling 2021 album ‘Screen Violence’, but at times, it can feel more like an ideas workshop than a bold artistic statement.

While ‘Old News’ also has a light, airy quality – every note of ‘Roadrunner’ is imbued with a deep melancholy. While it might not provide the same hit as the jubilant likes of early hits ‘Boogie’ and ‘Gold’, Brockhampton are still masters of tapping into a mood, and it’s an immersive trip as a result.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but little to be ashamed of either.

There are moments when her A-Level Debating Club earnestness gets the better of her, but there's still three quarters of a great album here.

'Light' is let down by anaemic sound. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

The whole album is driven by that Nick Cave sense of foreboding menace, an outlaw spirit that would sit well on the Peaky Blinders soundtrack. But while there’s plenty of that classic BRMC ‘tude, and a vintage touch, they’re still full of ideas.

None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.

While this second LP broadens their scope to take in baggy, shoegaze, jangle pop and even some ill-advised bits that sound like Travis.

The jangle and thrash of Terry Bickers’ guitar and the wistful air of it all could come straight from their self-titled 1988 debut.

Like his predecessors', the results here are decidedly mixed.

Gray’s newfound penchant for ’80s pop doesn’t come with a notion of irony – he’s fully embracing even the era’s most ostentatious elements. But despite his own sincerity, there are moments that drift closer towards a caricature of the era than a true homage to the decade’s most innovative pop.

Yusuf now far more believably inhabiting the role of the kindly dad offering his offspring life advice, while ‘On The Road To Find Out’ showcases the most impressive transformation, weaving in North African desert sounds against steadfast lyrics of self-discovery. It suggests that Yusuf has now finally found just what he was looking for all those years ago.

This smartly dressed record may allow James to feel at least slightly relevant again.

Tender Opposites is a technical delight, sounding like psych-nitwits Deerhoof giving an old friend a bearhug.

Some of Skins is good, some of it is not good. Musically, the tone is, mostly, consistent and effective, and the album’s overall effect is that of a sickly, vivid insight into a troubled life. And there’s not much else to say about it.

If it’s a collection of tried-and-tested bangers you’re after, showcasing three pop powerhouses at their proven best, then crack on. In search of a left-field album of crate-digging curveballs? You’re best looking elsewhere.

At one point, Presley claims, he and Le Bon used the sound of a frog’s ribbit for an instrument. It’s here where Hippo Lite verges towards sounding like music that was only ever made for its makers, rather than an outside audience. In a quest to discover simple living free of consequence, Le Bon and Presley can, at times, get lost in their own little bubble.

Oftentimes, Davis dips his toes into this new realm of instrumentation, only to return to his heavy comfort blanket, twisted riffs drowning out any tentative experiments. You can’t help but wonder just how interesting Black Labyrinth could have been if he only dove a little deeper.

As well as the miasma of Lush and MBV, the likes of 'Heedless' have a skewed Breeders-ish growl that keeps lines satisfyingly defined amid the sun-bleached, soft-focus beauty.

Any attempt at bombast is pinned down by singer Liam Palmer’s weary baritone and wry poetry. Intriguingly glum.

At its best, the record builds on some of the weirder elements in Hot Chip, but at its worst spirals into self-indulgence.

‘Shadow Offering’ is an intriguing, if slightly scattered, listen.

If 'America's Sweetheart' was a breakdown record, 'Nobody's Daughter' is a recovery album. As that analogy would suggest, it's not always pretty to witness.

It's neither exhilarating nor challenging, but it is a solid and energetic work, imbued with an unambiguous love of old-time rock.

While it’s a step down from both "VV" and his Danger Mouse work, it at least might be his definitively stoned record.

He’s a unique talent, no doubt, and has once again made a work on his terms. It’s at times an exasperating listen, but that’s kind of the point.

Sparks and fireworks go off all over ‘Typical Music’ too and, bar a few inevitable misfires, there’s plenty to gasp at.

The lustiness of his Bob-cat yowl on warm and well-weathered numbers such as 'King Of Spain' makes 'The Wild Hunt' a refreshingly clean listen....Ambitious? No. Delicious? Yes.

His music has always had as much empathy as it has had political fire, and it’s the former that dominates here. ... It makes for a record that can occasionally get exasperating in its lack of momentum. ... Yet it is also album that leaves plenty of room for nuanced, compassionate songwriting that never loses grip of its sense of empathy.

For the most part, ‘-‘ feels like a warm but cautious hug from a sensitive friend – Dessner gives Sheeran space to say what’s on his mind without trying to crowd him. ... But most of ‘-’ is doggedly one-paced, an often drawback of Dessner’s mellow production stylings.

The album is eclectic, unapologetic and, at times, a little lost in its own spectacle.

Sure, there’s a residual whiff of mediocrity here, but Carl’s clearly found something else in himself as part of this new gang, and as Dirty Pretty Things’ music grows in assurance, it appears Pete will remain a solitary man for some time yet.

They’re not reinventing the wheel, but pulling the Harley out of the ditch.

The initial feeling that this album is destined to be one of their many jokey, disposable ventures dissipates slightly as Osborne’s near-peerless ability with a brain-alteringly great riff takes hold.

At best, these are semi-finished rejects from 'The W'...

It's thrilling. It's pantomime. It's what Ross does best.

Many of the guests are of the squeaky-clean variety--Ella Eyre and Sinead Harnett will be deemed edgy by almost no one – while two Lianne La Havas-sung numbers tackle bossa nova (‘Needn’t Speak’) and slinky disco (‘Breath’). Still, Rudimental know when to light the fireworks.

While her words don’t always deliver, ‘Petrichor’ stands best when her emotionality and innovative soundscape take hold.

‘A Written Testimony’ is a 39-minute, 10-track project that offers all the usual Jay Electronica tropes: complex rhyming patterns, double and triple entendre, lyrics across various languages laid over psychedelic production with minimal drums. Electronica excels on a technical level throughout. Yet, while this is the most anyone has heard from him musically in over a decade, there’s a sense of reticence throughout the LP.

The comparatively featureless pessimism on the rest of the album makes for an oppressive and often dull listen. It’s a shame, because underneath it all, Lord Huron are making lusher and more varied sounds than ever.

So, even the fact that these 29 tracks, including 3 remixes, have sometimes been re-produced, re-jigged and finely honed production-wise doesn't diminish the original effort involved.