Yes, this is still Muse, but here they’re trying to be something else--well, everything else. They are avatars in a ridiculous simulation of teenage nerdery, inviting you to steal away from the nightmare, and into an electric dream.

Overall, U2 have built a stadium rock cruise liner they’ve zero interest in rocking, and Experience is 50 minutes of very plain sailing indeed.

All done in their trademark chirpy Camden ska way. [30 Jul 2005, p.49]

As a pop product, the album performs its function--and it’s commendable of Minogue to experiment with a different sound. It’s just a shame to hear a pop queen like Kylie seeming to buy into tacky generic artifice because it happens to be in vogue.

Honey suffers when its producers smooth out their rougher edges to accommodate Katy’s chart-star status.

There's the odd good song... but these are rare moments from a band wallowing in coarse experimentalism. [20 Jan 2007, p.31]

It’s not Hudson’s foghorn bellowings that are the real enemy on this record, it’s that motherfucking computer program [Auto-Tune].

While it’s often been easy to sum up McGuinness himself with that statement, whether he wants the attention or not Chroma is a forceful enough effort to propel him centre-stage.

‘Wachito Rico’ exudes a breadth of musicianship that proves Boy Pablo is no flash in the pan, despite having found viral fame overnight.

It’s clear plenty of good choices have been made here. It’s not quite redemption--only time will tell if he’ll curb the recklessness--but it’s certainly a start at reinvention.

Although the off-counter flow can get monotonous at times – unfortunately making a number of the tracks on ‘Michigan Boy Boat’ rather skippable – Yachty’s embrace of the Michigan scene here come across as a daring way of reinventing his once-bubbly rap aesthetic.

A little more variation would have been nice, but you know what they say about stopped clocks.

Where once lo-fi underachievement stifled Barlow's outsider pop genius, 'Emoh' abandons dictaphones to the dustbin and sees Lou documenting his wonderful, incisively literate pop songs with something resembling sheen. [5 Feb 2005, p.51]

Touted as half 'Get Ready', half 'Technique', it lives up to every predictable stylistic retread that entails, to the point of self-parody.... Thank Christ, then, that the songs are so good. [26 Mar 2005, p.49]

It may not possess the mind-blowing innovation of 1995’s ‘Clear’, but when something is as darkly gorgeous as this, it’s hard to quibble.

Stylistically, superficially, this forward propulsion sees him loop back to the start with six-track EP My Dear Melancholy,, which appears to sink back into the browbeaten R&B with which he made his Google-friendly name. This works--sporadically.

'Survivor' is brimful of staccato Timbaland skew-beats and a heroic disregard for the 'all-important' milkman whistleability factor. It is, quite frankly, nuts.

An album that veers between the lush pop melodies of her last two LPs and a full-frontal riot grrrl assault.

It’s hard to knock stompers like ‘Roaring Waters’ either, but the vanilla title track and the plodding ‘Hammer & Tongs’, come off as cheesy, even for this lot.

California is too long, but has the humour, pace, emotion and huge choruses of a classic Blink record. Mission accomplished.

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 sound of a pioneer who refuses to stop innovating. [8 Oct 2005, p.45]

‘Feed The Beast’ is a tremendously entertaining showcase for a pop star who can go deep when she wants to, but is also smart enough to understand the visceral thrill of dumb escapism.

This is not his finest hour nor his most groundbreaking, but just having him on the scene is enough--even if all he’s able to do is spread joy.

It’s all nicely polished, but there’s nothing underneath.

One of the strongest punk debuts of 2015.

At its most cute, on the sublime ‘Intrusive Thoughts’, it’s a gauzy roll in summer hay, but when the guitars start to scowl it quickly turns from fey to feral.

He has some bangers, despite being pretty hit or miss. This second stab at musical longevity is exactly what it says on the label: all over the place. But at this point in his musical career, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Yesterday Was Forever was a record paid for by fans, and made for the fans.

It quickly grows dreary when there’s not a knowing smirk to match the intensity.

Departure isn't merely a psychedelia record cut with Suicide-aping proto-punk. These eight songs wrestle free of that assumption, flying off in myriad directions.

Athlete's lyrical content is shockingly mundane.

[Their] penchant for pastiche has evolved... into full-blown plagiarism. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

The Christmas album can risk being a sonic Round Robin, of interest to few but its creators, dispossessed of all perspective as they've mired themselves deep in their icky, cosy world.

Every single one of the lyrics is either a really, really lame Spacemen Zero drug innuendo (the – hey! – 10-minute epic ‘’Half-State’), about ‘twisted’ love (the – hey! – ‘stripped down’ ‘Sweet Feeling’s Gone’) or mentions “highways”.

'Mythnomer’'s nightmarish pitch-shifted vocal and claustrophobic beats are a misjudged move, but on the whole Breathing Statues is a world that's ripe for sinking into.

This is a flawed, sometimes absurd, but always intriguing album that repeatedly approaches being something special.

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

A not-bad record. [11 Mar 2006, p.43]

This is an impeccable debut: two feet in the past and one open mouth pointing towards a very bright future.

Like their last, Only By The Night is front-loaded with world-beaters but then gradually ebbs back to more interchangeable moments. More than ever its strengths, when it succeeds, later become its weaknesses. It tries a mite too hard.

The title track is 11 minutes of painfully celestial balladeering self-indulgence, a mess of standard-Sufjan jittering flutes mixed with the most offensive noise from his best-avoided early electronic period.

They do their best to distance themselves from Actual Sabbath, but too often it’s by slouching through their Satanic netherworld, Dio’s cabaret bludgeoned down by lurching riffs and over-egged orchestration.

Rhe majority of this 46-minute album is gripping, a sickening start to the year that makes Saul’s temporary departure all the more understandable.

The very fact long-time collaborator Rick Rubin is at the helm is proof enough that while the production is mostly immaculate, I'm With You is an exercise in how a multi-million selling rock behemoth plays it safe.

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

Yung Lean still lacks quality control. The middle bulk of Stranger can feel like being suspended in ice, experiencing a never-ending comedown.

Dead-eyed, malevolent and alluring. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

As ever, their relentless chirpiness can grate, but the orchestral indulgence has been pared back, giving ringleader Tim DeLaughter’s songwriting room to breathe.

Fly Yellow Moon sounds like Guillemots with all the wonky bits weeded out.

"Relapse" should have been the end of his career, but by admitting his mistakes as well as trumpeting his successes, Shady's given himself one last stand.

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

Produced by metal guru Ross Robinson, There Is A Way is a slicker beast than the Danan of yore, yet that rickety collision of a million ideas remains.

The Earth, Wind & Fire-sampling ‘It’s Sunny’ is too cheesy, and ‘Aye Muthaf***a’ slips in some Rihanna-style dancehall beats, but elsewhere TLC offers a familiar mix of breezy R&B tunes and folky self-acceptance jams.

So, yes, it’s a tougher collection than the first, lacking the merciless hilarity you’d expect. But it’s also a strong step forward and one that proves they won’t disappear in the changing breeze of fashion.

If you don't mind flicking the fast-forward, there's enough hot shizzle to keep you returning for more. [20 Nov 2004, p.57]

Immersion is less fun, harder work than In Silico. It feels like Pendulum are trying to be more than an anonymous CD you put on at a party when everyone's too boxed to DJ any more. They shouldn't.

From thunderous Mafioso fable 'Live To Die' to A$AP Rocky-starring calypso riot 'I Got Money' via Snoop Dogg collab '1,2 1,2', the Chef's steely signature East Coast flow has seldom sounded more imperious.

This is Tom Morello: Unfiltered, the work of a rap-rock renegade who answers to no-one, exploring new terrain well into the third decade of his career, an artist unwilling to rest on his legacy.

There’s a clarity here, a sense of maturity in the lyrics too – something that was often missing in his previous work. ‘Nobody is Listening’ has its flaws, but Zayn is clearly working out a few chinks in his armour, and this comes across as a step in a new and fresh direction for the enigmatic artist.

The Nextwave Sessions EP careers wildly between moods and atmospheres, and sounds like a band happy to let go and experiment because they’re comfortable with who they are.

Not their best, but still more consistent than any British indie album released this year.

After two albums treading water in the tricky oceans of landfill indie, the tides are turning.

These five tracks climax with ‘Hypnotised’, a solemn country swooner resembling John Lennon’s ‘Mother’, easily their best barnstorming ballad since ‘Fix You’. It’s heartening evidence that Coldplay haven’t entirely been sucked into the machinery while trying to subvert pop music from within.

‘Heartbreak Weather’ pads its way through every different phase of relationship-based grief, inevitably letting some moments of catharsis feel more impactful than others. It isn’t an entirely lost cause, but one to build upon for a more inspiring future all the same.

For the most part The Constant boils down to a thin chart gruel, too lumpenly pitched between the Carling Academies and the cattle-grid nightclubs to leave a mark.

Oddly for an album so big in scope... it's very intimate and confessional. [3 Jul 2004, p.64]

Skinner has consolidated everything he’s done before, chucked in where his head’s at now and come up with an album that, while lacking the visceral thrill of ‘Original Pirate Material’, is a minor masterpiece that will mean a lot to a more select bunch of people.

It’s about as exotic as a cocktail umbrella.

Too much of Not Your Kind Of People is pedestrian, anodyne and utterly unremarkable.

Far from being terrifying, it sounds like Smith is actually having fun.

There’s the occasional peak, like ‘Clown’ or ‘Destroy Me’, but Candy For The Clowns feels more like an act of stubbornness than defiance.

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

No song is quite right: a lyric about angels or elephants here, a trip-hop beat there, and even the Milky Way would blush.

They've proved themselves to be a band who defy convention with an album stuffed full of subtle invention and an emotional intensity that you really wouldn't expect from a band still too young to grow a beard between them.

Not, by any means, a disaster. More a cruel glimpse of a talent that occasionally blazes but is frustratingly inconsistent.

Where all this fits in the mesh of the Prince pantheon is anyone's guess, but it's in the good part, and after nearly 40 albums that's an achievement.

The Courteeners have developed the ability to, at points, blow away tribal allegiances with hooks forged from pure indie gold.

Underworld might not reach every peak it aims for, but it tugs on the heartstrings in all the right ways.

The music here might be gimmick-free, but it's imbued with a dark sense of confidence.

The more this album wears on, the more it feels a world away from the band who once grabbed attention with that charming and vibrant 2003 album. ‘Lovers Rock’ features moments that will satisfy those who’ve stuck by the band this far, but it ultimately feels like The Dears are running out of gas.

So, though it’ll be a while before they shake off the inevitable age fixation, TMOT have produced an album that’s a stroke of genius regardless of age.

Ultimately though, this feels most like the result of a major-label brainstorming session titled 'Which Of Our Artists Will Fill A Santa Suit Best This Year?'

The generous would suggest this is the album Oasis should be trying to make; the cynical that it's a collection the Inspiral Carpets did make over a decade ago. [7 May 2005, p.66]

Mostly, though, The Dodos’ little quirks--the lack of bass, the blustery drumming, the lyrics that threaten to say something profound but never do--irritate rather than intrigue.

It’s Bellamy’s job to prise open deeper socio-political dimensions as much as it is to comment on the times, and Muse’s music once more matches his adventurous intrigue.

Flamboyance and melancholy in equal measure, then, but 'White Noise' mainly leaves you cold.

Continuing a penchant for darkness established on 2009's 'Marry Me Tonight', Work (Work, Work) is probably as grim a sounding record as you're likely to hear.

Overall, it misses Hot Chip’s outsider appeal completely, coming off as whingey and middle aged. Don’t bother.

Though this record is as polished as anything they’ve done before, it somehow feels easier to break through the sheen, and get to the heart this time around.

His [singer Brian Fallon] dramatic vocals might be in full force, but conspicuous by their absence are The Gaslight Anthem's usual lyrical canvases of Americana, save for a couple of brief glimpses of the old dive bar-dwelling, jukebox-thumping badasses in the pair of back-to-back weepies that close the album.

Musically, they've come on. Kevin Baird's bass work – always a highlight – is finally showcased to full effect on the 'Rip It Up'-style swagger of 'Wake Up' and the jagged riffing of 'Sun', while 'Pyramid' features some seriously impressive guitar noodles.

It's just nothing. Complete plastic nothingness from the outset.

His latest album is as likeable as he seems in interviews: assured but unassuming and sometimes hard to fathom.

Here, ultimately, the DJ remains resolutely in the background. ANd that was never the point. [16 Sep 2006, p.35]

Despite overwhelming evidence to support the notion that he should quit vocal duties forever, he continues to labor under the delusion that his cochlea-shredding falsetto sounds like anything other than Prince with his scrotum in a vice.

A few strokes of fortune might send this London quintet--or, say, Clock Opera or Fixers--towards stratospheric hugeness.