As on their debut, the sound is slick and polished and the songs are snappy and unpretentious, but there’s a lack of wit or invention.

He’s crafted a tender and often forlorn eco-treatise.

They've just made the best rock album since Andrew WK's 'I Get Wet'.

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.

Sadly, he only briefly reaches the heights of his best Gorky's work. [18 Feb 2006, p.36]

Solid singer-songwriter fare with more longing than your teenage years.

Allen’s old sharp eye feels watery on Sheezus, squinting at the discourse around feminism, race and privilege unfolding online in 2014, and riding them as a bandwagon back to the middle of the very space the Myspace-spawned pop star once owned, but not having the conviction to do much with them once she’s arrived.

[Rjd2] has moved away from sample-based instrumental hip-hop, throwing in gently psychedelic Beatles-y songcraft and live instruments to achieve a jack-of-all-trades sound that, while perfectly pleasant, is done better by Beck.

Amped-up, aggressive and with a deep love for our canine friends, he arrives once again, shadow-boxing to the max. [19 Aug 2006, p.33]

When it works, the results are astounding.

If Sparta have been damned thus far as the weaker of ATDI's progeny, let it be so no longer.

Morning Tide is a collection of songs that take the word ‘pop’ in ‘pop music’ literally, bursting with effervescence and joy.

St Jude is conclusive proof they have far more interesting things to say when they let the tunes do the talking.

Brave and futuristic, by venturing into space, Mescudi finally steps out of Kanye’s shadow--with not just one small step, but one giant leap.

Red is more a poor parody of the genre than a booty shaker.

Here is the ultra-Keane album, with tinkling, histrionic, arena-ready piano motifs™, soaring, emotive vocals™ and songs called 'Day Will Come', 'In Your Own Time' and 'Silenced By The Night'.

VHS Or Beta hit on a candy-coloured disco-funk previously only thought possible by men wearing daft robot masks. [9 Apr 2005, p.58]

A Better Tomorrow isn’t all good (most noticeably, it’s lacking killer verses from Raekwon and Ghostface Killah), but it’s a bold, clever album that’s thankfully positioned away from the hip-hop zeitgeist.

This one was originally an art piece performed live at the Borscht Film Festival in Miami, with attendees absorbing the sound and images simultaneously. Divorced of that context, it belongs only in the sea.

Bye Bye 17 ditches raunch and irony for old-fashioned songwriting and something approaching sincerity, and the results are kind of amazing.

Morrison, Spector, Doherty, Cobain; The Orwells know their roots and they know how that story plays out.

It's a soulful, romantic album about what happens when the lights come up at the end of the night and life smacks you in the face.

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.

Too gloopily uniform. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

Throw in the tinny synth on 'Fish In The Sky' and this album couldn't get any more late-'70s if it tried. If it was a TV programme, it'd be Starsky & Hutch--a dubious honour to say the least.

On ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2’, the producer meshes a wistful grab-bag of influences – nu-disco, funk, boogie, soul – with his skill for creating a mega-watt pop-hit, taking listeners on a journey on a psychedelic trip you won’t want to end.

Grey Oceans is CocoRosie's most beautiful and, more importantly, least bloody irritating record to date.

Clinical and precise rather than mind-blowing, Temper Temper will keep BFMV as a band with one foot in metal and the other in the mainstream, which is exactly where they want to be.

In the end, Ritual is not a bad album. But neither is it the album it would like to think it is.

This, then, is AOR: Adult Orientated Rap. Luckily, though, Jay-Z still turns out work of impressive authority.

Brandy is on fine form throughout, purring pillow talk and murmuring sweet nothings to anyone insane enough to listen. Now she loves him, now she doesn't. Really, it's too much.

In short Tha Carter IV flops not because it's straight-up bad, but because it's boring.

Sonic developments in the form of style, delivery and arrangement (an experimental approach no doubt encouraged by Mogwai producer Tony Doogan, who recorded the album in Glasgow earlier this year) are marred by disappointingly dumb and predictable lyrics, and where the quintet once made it sound so easy to come up with killer choruses, this second effort finds them slumping into forgettable filler territory on more than one occasion.

Ducktails have been labeled ‘chillwave’ and ‘hypnagogic pop’ due to their naval-gazing appeal. Sadly that appeal is lacking from this release, as is any sense of urgency, leaving Wish Hotel languishing in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe it’s because the whole sex-food thing is so overdone that the 18 tracks never drag, and it’s not often you can say that about a hip hop or R’n’B album.

Excruciating fret wankery... appalling metal funk... and Chris Cornell 'singing' like a castrated gibbon throughout. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

A thoroughly modern, almost Byronic, solo album that updates past excesses in the context of the present, and ignores Californian darkness in favour of a polished, summery outlook.

All perfectly good stuff, technically excellent. But 'American Life' also feels like an unnecessary sequel, a 'Men In Black II', made because hell, if it ain't broke...

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

If A Head Full of Dreams really is to be Coldplay’s last hurrah, then they’ve gone out with a flashbang of colour and catharsis.

Taken on its own merits, there are more than enough moments on Back On My BS to stop the world from forgetting his name. The pity is that, given he’s one of rap’s most distinctive voices, right now Busta seems to have no idea who he is.

Perhaps it was the pressure of following breakthrough hit ‘C’mon C’mon’, or some serious Jack White payback voodoo, but now, where should have roared a gutsy, triumphant comeback squeaks a patchy, mediocre-in-places record.

Jamaica Plain is inessential stuff.

The 12-song album’s first five tracks are passable, if not actually quite enjoyable. Beyond this point, though, only the most hardened Moz fan should dare to venture. ‘The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel’ is an unbearable cha-cha-cha; ‘Who Will Protect Us From The Police?’ is lumpen electro; and least listenable track ‘Israel’ sees him deliver political polemic via the dubious medium of a piano ballad.

The Loudest Engine punches for psychedelia and falls flat in a puddle of MOR.

Musically it’s akin to the recent Neon Neon album, but Kilfoyle’s musings on romance and class are all his own.

For the most part, Peace have made their 'difficult' second album look surprisingly straightforward.

[The songs on Majenta] confirm Edgar's inimitable creative talents.

Wiz proclaims that his "life is like a movie". Maybe so, but he needs to delete some scenes.

Father of Asahd isn’t perfect, and the celebratory baller vibe can get a little tiresome at times. However, this time round, whenever Khaled shouts “Another one!”, his catchphrase, it actually feels merited. DJ Khaled’s true talent lies in bringing people together.

There’s still no other British pop star quite as entertaining and unpredictable.

Through this, In Plain Sight has a frustrating tendency to lean on cliché; there’s a nagging feeling of déjà vu in listening to a record that has been made thousands of times before.

From the booming piano-tinged ‘Opener’, through to its more touching moments like ‘She’ & ‘Queens’, you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of love and light oozing out of every pore. This optimism and energy is endearing, and further proof that 2018 is proving to be a stunning year for the great dance LP.

It’s fun, but not the comeback it could have been.

‘Parachute’, the album’s first single, shoots for voguish, vaguely tropical production via Kylie and Girls Aloud hitmakers Xenomania, but is a tad sappy. Wilson’s pop vocal is much more convincing on the album’s bangers, ‘Press Rewind’ and ‘Happen In A Heartbeat’.

Not all of it works... but the 'What's Going On'-sampling 'Modern Marvel', mumbling folk-soul of 'Boogie Man Song' and widescreen shuffle of 'Champion Requiem' prove that not all hip-hop albums come with an expiry date. [23 Oct 2004, p.51]

Overall there is a sense that this is the sound of a band brushing their hair and fixing their make-up, trying to convince the world they're OK while secretly crumbling on the inside.

Even if this is business as usual for Xzibit, then at least business is good.

File this under 'disappointing'.

Occasionally they hit an addictive groove, but you'd hope so given that the songs are each five to 10 minutes long. Messy, and not in the good way.

The artist's 3rd album constitutes the h-pop formula at its most unremarkable.

Sure, it has its moments.... However, things come unstuck when Joker swings for romance.

This compilation isn’t anywhere near as enlightening or engrossing as its source material, but if you’ve seen the film, read the think-pieces and are now determined to buy the album, there’s just enough here to make it worth your while.

This surprise album – despite its frequent beauty – works best as a puzzle piece rather than a standout record in its own right.

There are standout moments--the aforementioned ‘Beloved’, the full-hearted chorus of lead single ‘Guiding Light’, the delicate tinkle of piano underpinned by a dog barking in the distance on ‘October Skies’--but you must sift through these sprawling 14 tracks to find them.

A collection of offcuts revamped in the industrial style that has characterised his recent work--isn't [a latter-day masterpiece that will spread his appeal beyond his hyper-devoted fanbase].

There’s melody and slick production throughout, but all the life and soul of an accountancy website.

It’s equal parts witty and serious, poppy and knotty, cracking wise one minute, then demanding you sit quietly and listen carefully through some complicated soul-searching.

'Storytelling' is the first indication that Stuart Murdoch has finally got some decent red meat down his gob and he's no longer resigned to wallowing in his dank indie mire until The Pastels come home.

This being Courtney, there’s also an emotional rawness to ‘America’s Sweetheart’ which you’ll either love or be repelled by.

The truth is, though, there's just a lack of magic, a lack of something special going on. It's not bad. It's not good.

The beats are slick and the vocals flawless.

'Ultra Payloaded' is largely sub-U2.

If it’s your introduction to them, there’s likely just about enough to convince you to dig a little further. ... But if you’re a survivor of the ‘00s indie scene, there are no new tricks here that’ll stump you. The by-the-numbers feel of ‘Four Leaf Clover’ makes us feel like the unlucky ones, and ‘Tesco Disco’ should have been left in the reduced section.

It’s decent in places but it’s just… you know that feeling you get when someone you love is so wracked with pointless worry that you just want to shake them and shake them until they snap out of it?

It’s only when he plays to his strengths that On My One comes into its own.

Shocker! The long-awaited (it says here) follow-up to a sublimely average debut is another half-arsed muppet show executed with the charisma of a terminally ill sloth.

It eases up on the rigorous deconstructivist tendencies that have so permeated the last two 'Lab records, taking a cue instead from the carefree effervescence typical of recent live encounters.

At least 40 per cent of 'The Spine' is really rather charming. [3 Jul 2004, p.65]

Excuse me sir, is this 1993? [26 Aug 2006, p.43]

More often than not Origins falls flat, with insipid choruses and melodramatic refrains. Big, bold and a little bit naff, this is another bread and butter album from a mindbogglingly huge group.

Almost every sound here is precision-tooled for maximum obnoxious effect.

Because a grand and fabulous mode of theatre pervades everything about this band, you’re often a few degrees off completely connecting.

The results on their 10th studio album are pleasingly baffling.

At its best 'Riot City Blues' is dumb, fun and silly. [3 Jun 2006, p.33]

You'll find nothing more despicable this year. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

The overriding feel is of an album just too jaded, too joyless to truly count as a return to form.

The Wombats have aimed low, and in its own special way, This Modern Glitch is a triumph for mediocrity.

We’re all for people celebrating the music they love free from boundaries of race and that, but there’s something inescapably grating about hearing a German/English newspaper heiress wittering on about fucking Babylon in thick patois. Crushingly disappointing.

Things limp from bad to tedious with 'White Noise', a song so passé it just bought its first shares in ITV Digital.

This experimental concoction Redd delivered is a hit-or-miss.

The thing that's not missing here is songs. [18 Jun 2005]

Bread And Circuses isn't bad enough to be s death knell, but neither is it good enough to be their commercial rebirth.

CSS may care deeply about every song (though it often doesn't sound like it), but for the listener, a lot of the charm has worn off.

‘=’ adds up to another album on which Sheeran comes off like a millennial Lionel Richie – namely, a very gifted singer-songwriter who’s sometimes sunk by his saccharine streak.

Like a modern empowered woman, Keane are obsessed with ‘having it all’. Juggling a career, great hair and kids equates for them to making safe, dowdy AOR while giving the finger to those who call them safe, dowdy AOR.

They’ve possibly succeeded in alienating the casual fan with the brief moments of nastiness that are here.

That cat-in-a-swing-coat yowl will still be a divider for many, but it's a snag of human individuality in a smooth, if mixed pack.