Mostly: total bliss session.

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.

An album of washed out, happy-sad, semi-psychedelic sounds that glower as much as they gleam, it’s perfect for those 3am mornings when you’re full of alcohol and regret.

Here, Byrne's well-plotted tunes can rule, and Norm can keep himself in the background, going against his natural tendency to overstuff.

It’s bread and butter blues-rock, packed with lyrical anachronisms and clichés, but it’s done well.

Though lacking standout tracks, this is an icy masterclass in how synths should sound.

They produce pretty mutations; their first collaborative record throws up a mix of stuttering electro-rap and ethereal pop.

While its synthetic atmospheres initially intrigue... The music wavers indecisively between structure and formlessness, ending up as curiously misshapen objects, half-finished designs.

The record peaks with its first two songs.... The rest is Condon shirking off the grandeur of his earlier arrangements with his simplest songs yet, but without showing he’s got the songwriting chops to move on.

With a bit of luck, Broken Records won’t be afraid to indulge themselves a little more in the future, because it would be a minor tragedy to see such a worldly band opt to wallow in mediocrity

A strident, self-assured album.

His sound is furious, muscular and relentless - not to mention camp, dangerous and slightly insane.

When it comes to big, belting choruses backed with equally sizeable orchestration, Graham doesn’t muck about.

An album of impossibly adorable disco - Star Wars "ping p-p-p-ping ping" bits, cheesy synths, George Clinton (!...hmm) workouts... all delivered in a slightly unsettlingly ersatz kitschness, half-hinted ironies, indietastic samples, hip-hop phrasings and The Asian Influence seductive throughout.

As essays from high-flying, high, high school dropouts go, however, 'The History Of Rock' isn't bad, if a little low on inspiration.

Bragg and The Blokes' delivery sounds just as dated as the social traditions they lampoon.

The Lover Chanting EP is, admittedly, inoffensive and low-risk. However, it’s a solid enough attempt at breaking away from the ‘band that does collaborations’ tag.

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."

Blonde Redhead continue to splinter off into an exciting world of their own.

To immerse yourself in 'Violet Cries' is more akin to entering a Ye Olde English fairy tale than some trashy vampire fiction, like discovering a weighty, weathered tome that lies under several thick inches of dust and recounts a distant age.

Winehouse's live performances were (sometimes brutal) indicators of how far she'd gone into her own personal darkness for inspiration. It's perhaps predictable that it's the earliest material here that makes for the less harrowing listen.

They’ve made one that sounds like it was recorded without a care in the world.

Ultimately, too many of these tunes are rehearsal room grooves in search of a hook.

Her voice--treated and autotuned to within an inch of its life throughout--still sounds like that of the Mouseketeer who brought us '...Baby One More Time’, with every breathy “Mmmm… yeah!” and all the oh-so-naughty lyrics, such as the ones above, sounding forced and unconvincing. Of course, on a large number of the tracks here she has the solidly cool-sounding (no doubt expensive) backdrop of futur’n’b pop.

Simply put: an album stuffed with great, joyful songs.

‘Love Goes’ does possess a handful of pop- and radio-friendly tracks, but at its core its Smith’s knack for sap and soul – and their singular, chilling vocals – that forms the base of the record. When it comes to songwriting, Smith oscillates towards what they know.

In the end, MDNA is a ridiculously enjoyable romp, but oddly not for the bits that are supposed to be fun. Instead, it's the psychotic, soul-bearing stuff that provides listeners with some of the most visceral stuff she's ever done.

Pure melodic thrills for a while, but those with low twee tolerance should steer clear.

Speck’s mimicry is little more than pale homage to a real eccentric, highlighting the gentle sadness and underlying soulfulness of Pink’s music. PDA lacks this, and comes across as frivolous.

Its mixtape nature means it isn’t yet the concise album Keel Her might one day produce, but the breezy likes of ‘Go’, ‘Riot Girl’ and ‘Don’t Look At Me’ are tuneful pop pastiches in the vein of Dum Dum Girls and Ariel Pink.

This is an album of thoughtful and considered dissent rather than the righteous rage of old.

Too often, ¡Tré! falls back on a formula--fast, box-ticking choruses fashioned from chords you can count on the fingers of one hand--that Green Day have pretty much stretched to breaking point.

If you scratch below the surface of 'See You On The Other Side' you'll find little of substance. [3 Dec 2005, p.43]

‘Blameless’ and ‘Little Moments’ marshal some nice glimmering synths, but Alec Ounsworth’s mewling vocal--while unquestionably distinctive--remains a bit of an odd proposition to achieve the requisite Everyman appeal.

The more you delve into it the less you find, because it’s all affectation.

He splits the difference on ‘Music To Be Murdered By’, indulging his immature ego (griping at bad reviews, stirring controversy for the sake of it) even as he offers salient social criticism and admits his missteps. He’s ready to pass on hard-earned wisdom before running his mouth like he hasn’t learned his own lessons. And he offers casual fans a hook or two before embarking on another lyrical work-out.

‘The Battle at Garden’s Gate’ is a mixed bag of heavy metaphor and lazy observation.

They're having their own sonic keg party here: coasting through the fuck-ups on the basic likeability-- the sheer shaggy melodic charm--of the hosts.

The only criticism is that the lyrics fail to make the impact implied by titles like ‘Feed Me, Jack; Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love’. That aside, this is an unexpected delight.

It’s still a brilliantly sleazy punk rock’n’roll album that feels, sounds and smells just like you want The Bronx to be, and the fact it’s so pure and elemental works strongly in its favour.

There's still signs of the nutso techno loony who prompted NME to invent the term 'drill'n'bass' back in the mid-'90s. [14 Oct 2006, p.35]

The record boasts maybe his finest solo single to date in 'Brittle Heart', plus a clutch of mid-tempo rockers that scrub up nicely--even if the seedy Soho glam of yore is replaced by a leadenly earnest tone.

As it is, and considering the upheaval following Adam Kessler's departure, it's best to look at Portamento as a marker of the potential brilliance that album three could bring.

By the end, they've told a story of adolescence spent crumpling at the hands of others, while having to pick up the pieces all by yourself.

Isis’ lewd lines on this debut arrive, then, as the law of diminishing returns for all things brazenly sexy begins to set in.

The Amazons will do little to dispel any of the criticisms of the current state of rock, but there’s just enough here to suggest that when the band are at their most electrifying, not much can halt their inevitable rise to the top--despite what the old guard say.

Just because Brain Thrust Mastery doesn’t attempt to shoehorn some hamfisted social commentary or poverty-ending rhetoric into its 11 tracks doesn’t make it lightweight indie fluff; far from it–-We Are Scientists are serious about having fun.

There’s enough musical ambition, heartbreak and menace on The Big Dream to keep the Lynch nerds absorbed.

The deft Tom Petty chug of ‘Indian Summer’ is anthemic enough, but there’s little else to get excited about.

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 fine mix of fantasy and reality, made by a band who never run out of ideas, sung by a singer too smart to fall apart and too excited by rock’n’roll to stop being stupid.

They're a confident band, but the tragedy is they're at the top of someone else's game.

Full of distortion-drenched vocals and slacker guitar lines, Yucca is a brilliantly messy thing.

New Jersey's The Static Jacks haven't got the most ambitious creative palette.

Round the back nine (‘Golden Fire’, ‘Kilmore’s End’, ‘Overnight’), the attention to detail slips, and they end up with a load of meat patties of twee that just come across as Owl City in fashionable shoes, a whiny inner-child deserving of a smacked botty-bot.

Self-loathing, self-pitying, self-centered, bad-tempered American rock. [6 Nov 2004, p.59]

The Killers are still as flashy, unintentionally funny, and flagrantly affected as ever.

Ultimately, though, Rip This prevails through bloody-minded ear battering.

Ultimately, we’re left wondering: have Liars lost it, or found themselves?

There's certainly nothing here that'll match 'Wonderwall' or 'Live Forever' for pub karaoke ubiquity, but with this record Oasis are at least tentatively stretching themselves in new directions. [28 May 2005, p.61]

Banjo Or Freakout effortlessly mates electronic distortions, low-end theory and achingly gorgeous pop melody – with emphasis very much on the latter.

In a cleaner, more mature, concerned-about-its-blood-pressure manner, Head Carrier revisits Pixies’ prime, primal age, melodically pumped and squaring up confidently to its admittedly formidable forebears.

What should have been a worldly record of peace ends up limping with musical dissatisfaction that outweighs its virtue. [29 Jul 2006, p.31]

Musically, they’ve ripped off swathes of things contemporary and popular to make them ‘hip’, but it just feels like some dodgy old guy at a bus stop telling you he digs Klaxons.

It's just that it all feels so pointless and half-arsed that it's impossible to muster more than an apathetic shrug in judgement.

What stops The Red Album being a great Weezer album, is--for the first time ever--Cuomo’s invitation to his bandmates to sing and write songs too.

His considerable production chops can't disguise that his songwriting too often feels half-formed.

Astounding. [1 Jul 2006, p.36]

Volume 2' is a suite of profoundly unhurried, directionless and pointless noodling, passed off only half-heartedly as some exercise in musical exploration.

The pedestrian half of 'Encore' only serves to underline how awesome the other half is. [20 Nov 2004, p.53]

It sounds very pleasant.

Swoon is a bit of a dying whale of a record. In a good way; vast, dark, a little mysterious, sad, dignified and palpably in pain.

The spontaneous sounding arrangements--topped by Watson's uniquely mercurial voice--are at turns ornate, grand and subtle, but never less than totally bewitching.

Only 17-minute finale 'Friendly Society' wears thin, its ideas forced and spread too thinly across clunky sub-sections. The rest, though, is languidly atmospheric, peaking with the moonlit disco jam of 'Sideways Glance'.

Pacific Daydream is all carefree, expertly crafted pop, free of irony and all the better for it. Lock the doors, crack open a cold one, and enjoy an endless summer with Weezer.

A so-so album which suggests it may be time for Ms Fenty to take a holiday.

‘C,XOXO’ is a laconic, off-kilter pop record filled with heavily Auto-Tuned vocals inspired by T-Pain. It’s a new sound for Cabello that heightens the music’s intriguing, trippy sheen. Throughout, her lyrics pivot between pithy and revealing.

Jay-Z has upped the commercial rap ante once again.

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

De Martino and White are on an unashamed mission to make perfect pop, but seem to have treaded the path too literally.

At less than two minutes, many of the songs remain as sketches neither punchy enough to work as snotty punk songs nor ever developed into anything more.

‘Even In Arcadia’ shatters any pressure of expectation into oblivion, building on the bravery of its predecessor, sonically, while its lyrics reveal the most exposed version of Vessel we’ve seen yet. From Eden to Arcadia – and beyond – let the worship continue.

Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt 2--don’t go looking for a part one, you won’t find it--sounds like it’s on its own strange course.

When the disparate influences mesh properly--as on the irresistible ‘Fool You’ve Landed’--they find a very happy medium.

Reality Check stands as a fun, frank and startlingly perceptive debut that surprises for all the right reasons.

Her choice of collaborators is piss-poor, and as every vocal snarl and heartfelt croon is wilfully blanded-out by the musos and their sterile embellishments, we might as well be listening to The Corrs.

A mildly diverting collection of the good (DJ Cam, Model 500), bad (Beth Orton, Mary Margaret O'Hara) and pleasantly forgettable (Dubtribe Sound System, Ananda Project).

'Mimi' manages the unique trick of being self-indulgent without actually ever sounding much like Mariah. [16 Apr 2005, p.51]

It quickly loses its appeal and gives way to the feeling that this is a just reasonable thrash metal record.

At its best, his songwriting is appealingly simple and straightforward: the title track offers an evocative portrait of a relationship that’s breaking down. But at times, Horan’s lyrics let him down a little.

Like Cyrus, it’s shameless, strange and supremely entertaining.

Never quite hitting the peak of "Hell..." they walk a fine line here between fame-hungry thugs--something that ill-fits them--and existential thinkers with the “intellect of Einstein” and a fondness for sonic dissonance.

Although still fans of start-stop measures and tempo changes, this time around songs are given some welcome room to breathe and the quartet focus on grand, pastoral soundscapes, which loosely recall the likes of Pink Floyd.

Blood Red Shoes is probably the duo’s most satisfying effort to date--frustratingly short of the “quiet triumph” they sing about on closing track ‘Tightwire’, but an admirable racket nonetheless.

For all Hemerlein’s prodigious talents, you can only have your heartstrings tugged for so long before it all gets a bit wearing.

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.

They may never outshine M83 but Rituals at least establishes Team Ghost in their own right.

It’s spunkier than 2008’s ‘Sebastian Grainger & The Mountains’, but still meek in comparison to DFA 1979.