A saddening case of brick production, paper soul--here the Quins are little more than twin airbags.

This EP titillates before leaving you wanting more; just how it should be.

There are four or five genuinely decent songs on here - but ultimately, as a whole it just feels a little too worthy, a little too overwrought, and a little too formulaic to be worth the 64 minutes and 32 seconds of your life.

'All Rights Reversed', the Chems' collaboration with Klaxons, saves 'We Are The Night' from sounding like it's still stuck in the mid-'90s and with Willy Mason and Midlake cropping up, Tom and Ed have again found just enough cool mates to save them from a general feeling of naffness.

<i>An End Has a Start</i> turns out to be a pupae album--it's Editors stretching their sonic muscles, poking the first spindles of whatever new form they'll take out of their gloom-rock cocoon come album three.

They've delivered the tunes, alright, but they can't help but fill them with angst, confusion and lashings of amp fuzz. Safe, predictable and packaged for the mainstream? This album is anything but.

It's best treated as a curio in the Smashing Pumpkins' legacy; and for those who grew up on 'Today', '1979' and 'Ava Adore', you're better left with your memories.

Interpol have made a great album.

Justice? Talent to spare, but that doesn't stop '†' being just another frustrating dance music album.

This, his third album and major-label debut, stretches this sea of sound even further, ebbing and flowing from ethereal opener "Never Be The Same," to the folky strum of "For Good."

It's far from their best work, yet from the fuzzy lollop of the title track to the reverb-drenched "Pendleton," it reaffirms that not only are Buffalo Tom one of America's great lost bands, but that real estate's loss is rock'n'roll's gain.

Ultimately, Gogol are all about a collective euphoria that's right in the here and now.

Their best album to date.

Fantastic Playroom packs enough innovation in its boosters to reach new rave escape velocity.

As debut albums go, it's unnerving that The Enemy are already this good and yet barely old enough to buy their own champagne when the ridiculously high chart placings inevitably come in.

Happy Mondays' first album since 1992's "...Yes Please!" is the sound of a damaged former addict being ushered into a studio for one last shot at the big time - before falling on his arse.

Ash come close here to that which has always eluded them: an album that amounts to more than the sum of its singles.

His many personas have made for an oddly characterless record.

There's 100 reasons to worship the Beastie Boys. But, plugging in a wah-wah pedal and writing an album of indulgent jazz-funk instrumentals is certainly not one of them.

Monch stays versatile, political, and intellectual as he uses his many gifts to be at once motivational ("Hold On") and verbally ambidextrous ("The Trilogy"). A winner.

As melody-ripe as anything from [Brian] Wilson's brain.

There's plenty of interest here, then--but is anyone still listening?

'Icky Thump' is brilliant, there's no way around that.

'The Sun'... lacks urgency and focus.

Unlike their debut's thrilling-but-ramshackle garage rock, this time round the words are harnessed to the kind of big, bold tunes that will lodge the five-piece in the mainstream consciousness.

'Idealism' is dusted with the kind of metallic house glitter caking LCD's 'Sound Of Silver', and, just as promisingly, the title track could have been carved from Daft Punk before they decided they were human after all.

An authentic graininess permeates In Camera, like you're listening to the whole thing in sepia-tone - from the coy country call-and-response of 'Come to View (Song For Neil Young)', which could have soundtracked a Jane Fonda film, to the lolloping 'Afterglow', and tambourining of 'Lion's Mouth'. Lush.

In short, it's as Icelandic as whale pie--elevator music, sure, but heaven's own elevators.

Spiky and cool where 'Songs For The Deaf' was smooth and tanned, tense and alien where that record was baked and ready to party, 'Era Vulgaris' is a record that feels like rust and stings like battery acid.

His choices are faultless and his sense of fun is very apparent.

In the end, whether it's a cynical bid for the mainstream or an experiment gone wrong, Riot barely registers as a minor disturbance.

Put simply, this is fantasy pop, performed to perfection.

Not quite double thumbs aloft then, but way fabber than it has any right to be.

Mad as a crate of stoats? Certainly. But worth investigation, all the same.

This album sees him rising from the hordes of spider-black hoodies, becoming a musical force beyond the Download ticket-holders.

His straightest record yet, delving into crunk, rock, drum'n'bass and pop with varying results.

A pop album that comes giddy with detailed digital patterns,

'Ultra Payloaded' is largely sub-U2.

A set of heartbreak hymns to sob come curfew time.

It's easy enough just to drift off and let these tracks gently massage your eardrums like a hover of trained hummingbirds. But if you choose to look beneath the surface, each track audibly vibrates with ideas.

File this under 'disappointing'.

The band now find themselves caught between soft rock and a very hard-to-love place indeed.

Cool cover or not, 'Strange House' is a strong debut from a band who, many sceptics believed, were at their best in front of a camera rather than behind instruments.

Someone needs to tell Wainwright there's a huge difference between 'epic' and 'over-egged'.

'Sky Blue Sky' returns to the original formula with which they made their name.

What follows is the sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity - boy-band balladry, U2-style stadium rock and Metallica-esque melodic crunch are all attempted with predictably patchy results.

Dungen are the band The Mars Volta wish they were.

While frontman Matt Davies' transition from apocalyptic yoof-preacher to hoodied motivational speaker will definitely leave listeners with an extended sense of self-belief, the winsome angst that once drove songs such as "Streetcar" has all but disappeared.

Ultimately, Maximo Park have bravely taken a chance with this album, trying to experiment with their sound rather than settling for what had previously brought them success. Shame they weren't up to the task.

'Volta' is another amazing statement of intent - full of hope, eccentricity and wonderfulness.

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

What this collection of songs from his mid-'90s creative purple patch shows is that few people in recent times have done sadness so exquisitely.

'The Boy With No Name' is everything you'd expect from a new Travis album and less.

Unfortunately though, Fields never quite reach such dizzy heights on the rest of the album, preferring instead to apply their considerable talents to creating numerous prog-outs that lack the heroic factor of their first single.

If it doesn't quite scale the dizzy heights of 'The Holy Bible' or 'Everything Must Go', it certainly comes close and is, in many ways, the quintessential Manics album - the cathartic regeneration that the band really needed in order to become relevant again.

If you were looking for a new Bowie, Patrick Wolf is proving himself the Thin White Duke's successor in more than just his extravagant dress sense.

They have clawed their way back with an album encapsulating much of what initially made them such an exciting group.

This is an album that sits well alongside classics such as 1987's 'You're Living All Over Me'. In other words: a genuine monster.

Breathy, sophisticated and existentially troubled. [2 Sep 2006, p.19]

She sounds more relevant on these songs than she has in years.

The most doubter-defying second album since 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'.

It's often as befuddling as it is brilliant.

'Dumb Luck' will numb the pain for an hour, but you'll be buggered if you can remember anything about it afterwards.

When it strays from charmingly retro to willfully 'raw' it all goes wrong.

Despite his surprisingly palatable baritone, this remains an album you won't want to listen to more than once.

This is just one long squelchy fart of a soundscape that Reznor himself admits is probably too long. It's certainly too unremitting.

'Grinderman' is an almost defiantly edgy record.

This is about as close to a bid for mainstream acceptance as you're going to get from Bright Eyes.

'Jarvis' never quite gathers an irresistible momentum like his past glories did. There isn't a bad song on here, but there are several which don't fulfil their full potential.

Their songs are either shitty soft-rock or worse, wink-nudge pastiches like the new-wavey 'Someone To Love'.

'Because Of The Times' cements Kings Of Leon as one of the great American bands of our times.

It may sound simple but it's devastatingly effective.

The beats here are as staggering as ever, but of an indulgent 19 tracks, none sound like they were good enough to give to anybody else.

Sadly, TAI...'s surprise maturation isn't yet 100 per cent complete.

'Myths Of The Near Future' is charged with the same spirit which fuelled legendary rave pranksters The KLF's period of pop subversion.

'Reformation...' is darker and deadlier--more Cramps than Killers. [10 Feb 2007, p.32]

'Yours Truly...' is a rip-roaring pop record - sprightly, lean and adventurous - a bold leap skyward from 'Employment'.

Vile, goth-jock pop with all the wit and nuance of a urine-soaked sock.

11 tracks of the same old maudlin balladry.

On 'Octopus' The Bees find their groove and sound blissfully unaware whether anyone else is listening. You should, they've made their best album yet.

Whereas Murphy's wise enough never to let his showing off spoil the fun, he can't avoid investing these songs with heart and soul.

Both Marr and MM mainman Isaac Brock have a weakness for bombast that can make them sound like Snow Patrol playing Gogol Bordello, but the album heaves with vim and variety.

The trio have discovered a few new sonic tricks, but it's the celestial duel-vocals of Parker and Sparhawk which continue to ensure that Low always reach such beautiful highs.

This stinks of trying too hard.

This album proves that Bird is up there with the kings of US alt.country pop like Lambchop and My Morning Jacket.

Unless you're a fan, the title says it all.

If you enjoy using your brain rather than listening to it fizzle to the strains of Virgin Radio, then buy this.

She has talent to burn, but rather than challenge herself, Stone has chosen to throw herself on a multi-million dollar bullet train to the centre of mediocrity.

If only because feeling sad isn't as good as feeling happy, this isn't as enjoyable as before.

'Tongues' contains some of the most uneasy listening ever.

It's a pounding alt-rock dynamo with its head sunk in Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr rarities.

Ultimately, 'Ten New Messages' is too myopic to see beyond its own concrete cynicism.

If 'Hats Off...' is slightly too much, too soon, they've still done enough to impress.

Disappointing, then, that the eight-track ‘bonus disc’ opens with a cover of a cover: a lo-fi version of ‘Valerie’. [Review of Deluxe Edition]

Right now, their bouncing glamorama feels like the most important album you could own.

An intimate, frequently beautiful and consistently surprising record that gets better with every listen.

'Pocket Symphony' sure does drift over you like a duvet of mood-stabilising drugs.

A record with the bleak-yet-redemptive spirit of REM's 'Automatic For The People' and the musical magnificence of a 'Deserter's Songs'. But also a record that - as much as 'London Calling' or 'What's Going On' - holds a deep, dark, truthful Black Mirror up to our turbulent times.