On their third album, the trio largely abandon the Latin influences of earlier outings for a medium-haul flight back to the more two-dimensional sounds of Canadian indie-rock.

They’re out of step, out of time, out of place, and have completely gone off on one in their own strange little world; as such, there’s much to admire about The Bravery. Just never go down to Endicott’s basement.

There's two ways for the devout Dandys fan to approach 'Odditorium...' . 1) it's their 'Kid A', a brave blunder into a new creed of experimentation into which they will hopefully one day re-work The Tunes. Or 2) what they really wanted to make was a week-long jazz opus played entirely on dying cats, but the record company made them put some proper songs on it.

Tides is ambient in the same way as a water feature in a garden: soothing at a glance, but ultimately boring.

There's a squelchy warmth at the heart of 'Human After All' that's been well masked since their arrival. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

So, his odd decision to make Jamiroquai-like pillow-pop adds yet another string to Oye’s heavily-laden bow, but this is one we’d happily take the wire-cutters to.

This album feels more like a deserved victory lap than a forward step or a new instalment, but apart from his sole vocal on 'Feel So Close', the victor seems oddly absent.

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

Cleaned up but never pared-down, it's his most wholesome collection since 'The Hour Of Bewilderbeast'. [21 Oct 2006, p.35]

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.

Musically this is the sound of middle America at its most ugly and nauseating...

This is often quite brilliant genre-busting music from a girl who makes a mockery of Lily Allen’s status as the voice of ‘ordinary’ Britain.

Har Mar's best effort to date. [4 Sep 2004, p.72]

‘Changes’ is a knackering listen. Overly reliant on trendy production and profound(ish) romantic proclamations, it’s a disappointing comeback from an artist who has a track record in creating hits.

At least his grimmer outlook has inspired some equally raw music.

Some tracks are merely forgettable--‘Days Of Decision’, ‘Lenny’s Tune’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’--while others charge headfirst into oddball territory.

All we learn from these wispy solo offerings is that Lemonheads songs are not improved by persistent cassette hiss and background noise.

Kane’s ante is upped, but Coup de Grace still isn’t quite the killer blow.

Given what we know about Cuomo’s eccentric inner world, it’s hard not to find those dazzlingly perfect melodies kind of hollow.

From someone whose appeal relies so heavily on his openness and honesty, the album feels out of balance: like there's a hole where its heart should be.

Cloud Nine could certainly do with a few more musical ideas, but this shouldn’t trouble Kygo unduly--after all, the same problem never held back David Guetta and Calvin Harris.

The beats are from the worst Ice Cube album ever made and the rhymes are sub-Coolio. [18 Dec 2004, p.51]

Save for the brief reprieves of the barbed, anti-everything 'Words I Never Said' and the historical rewrite of 'All Black Everything', Lasers walks a fine line between conscious hip-hop and sleepwalking.

Not sure-footed enough in its subversion, its artificiality feels fake rather than carefully plotted.

What's curious here is how, for all the Kid's ludicrous victory laps, 'Cocky' is so soft in the middle.

There's something a little too ‘phone advert’ about it all to properly excite.

Placebo have been plumbing the same vein for so long, they've slipped into self-parody and come out the other side with their lipstick all smudged.

It’s those sudden, inexplicable breakthroughs, those little lightning strikes of inspiration, that this compilation is ultimately concerned with. And it’s in those moments when these crappily-recorded fumblings become a source of real fascination.

Like their forebears, these LA beardies get the plaudits for taking raw, honest emotions and richly infusing them into every moment of their music.

It's a shame Mr Pain needs these cameos as much as his instrument of choice--without them, the temptation for the listener would be to simply Auto-Tune out.

But as a big comeback for these Welsh titans, it's more lost than prophecy...

What The Time Is Now lacks in coherency, it makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.

Kittie are rubbish, with a permanent lyrical setting of "Feel A Bit Miserable, Parents Don't Understand Me" and no original ideas whatsoever. [21 Aug 2004, p.49]

Sadly, towards the close the balance is lost and the fine-but-inessential ‘Summer Moon’, ‘Weeds Through The Rind’ and ‘Schlager’ end things on a weak note.

There's a 10 out of 10 album that's been thrown away here; as it is, it's the best demo you'll hear all year. [12 Nov 2005, p.41]

Even a late appearance from The Weeknd can't save this omni-tonal snoozefest.

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.

The first REM album to really disappoint. [2 Oct 2004, p.60]

If they want to be treated like adults they’ll have to release something, y’know, gooder.

There’s nothing game-changing about The New Classic, just recycled hustlin’ tropes and an ugly, nasal double-time flow overcompensating for mediocre wordplay.

Exquisite, state-of-the-art beats, rhymes and vocal hooks. [25 Sep 2004, p.65]

Electronic, if not exactly rejuvenated, are rewired, recharged and, really quite good again.

Too often, the follow-up to their 600,000-selling debut 'Spit', is plain overbearing, a violent marriage of melody and brutality that makes for a highly uneasy listen.

Beyond the sonics, the lyrics are embarrassingly piss-poor as well.

Musically, it's nowhere near as life-changing as its subject matter, but MacNeil's mortality menagerie make cute enough companions in the void.

The debut album from half-Scottish, half-Swedish songwriter Nina Nesbitt is pop so sugary it’ll rot your teeth.

A muddled album that claims to love pop, but seems thoroughly averse to having any kind of fun.

‘What Happened To The Streets?’ doesn’t musically reinvent trap the way its more cinematic predecessors did, but the new record showcases 21 Savage’s duality – an ascendant star perpetually wrestling with demons.

Biggest irony? A trillion bucks' worth of vocal talent can't top 'Watch This', a crunching Dave Grohl-embellished instrumental jam. Sounds like a convenient juncture to give Axl a reconciliatory ring, fella.

The result is a record that fully embraces the theatricality of its genre but falls just on the right side of ridiculous.

The effortlessly cool beats, hooky choruses, and above all, his witty, super-fast flow indicate this skinny blond to be a genuinely talented star.

While the album is full of quality tunes that sound nice in isolation, as a complete package, it lacks the versatility to take it to another level.

While Monastic Living might say something profound about this awkward, enigmatic band, if you’re out to explore Parquet Courts for the first time, the facts are plain: you should pick any record rather than this.

Daring as some of the tracks are, they overwhelmingly loop her vocal around a generic house lick that has the effect of giving her very little to do vocally.

This love for dramatic highs and muted lows on this album makes the record a rollercoaster of emotions and sounds, and a polished and entertaining debut.

Individual tracks can feel forced rather than organically nurtured. It all means that by the time they hit ‘Making Up Numbers’ and ‘Everybody Wants Me’, there are no longer enough new tricks in their bag to hold our attention, and ‘Emergency’ bleeds away without a climax.

Instead of bashing critics away with brilliant tunes, they find themselves defining faceless bluster-rock.

it paints crudely and schematically a portrait of the artist as messed-up, disillusioned, self-indulgent twerp with an unhealthy appreciation of the mid-'80s US guitar underground, whose demo-quality doodlings (Graham plays, sings, produces and paints everything. And all to a rather average standard) should probably have never seen the light of day.

As if the macho posturing wasn't bad enough, 'Haunted Cities' is also a mess musically. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

'Break The Cycle' is nu-metal as envisaged by Tipper Gore - 14 tracks of parent-friendly grunge-flavoured soft rock that make Creed sound like GG Allin.

It looks like a Mariah Carey album, it sounds like a Mariah Carey album.

Now they’re safely out of what passes for fashion, their retroisms sound more loving than offensive.

This retro sound is no surprise as Echo & The Bunnymen producer Hugh Jones is in control, and he infuses No Fighting In The War Room with a sneering urgency. It works, but only in spurts.

While ‘Music Of The Spheres’ feels like quintessential Coldplay, there are some more surprising moments buried in its tracklist.

Musically, ‘Mainstream Sellout’ doesn’t stray too far from [Tickets To My Downfall's] blueprint laid out, but lyrically sees Baker get more honest, more revealing and more comfortable in being uncomfortable.

There’s definitely a nod to new Nashville here--however, we’re talking more Mumford & Sons if they started songwriting for Justin Bieber than the grit and guts of Waylon Jennings or the current king of classic country, Sturgill Simpson.

Lavigne has never been pop’s most sophisticated lyricist, but her plain-speaking style makes for compelling listening here. ... The album’s second half is generally happier and blander.

An exercise in taking a joke way too far.

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.

Not a bad album, but a divisive one for sure.

While we were expecting an opus about how the coalition government’s really lame, he’s delivered a relentless bosh-pop thump that’s more ‘Bonkers’ than bonkers.

Their problem? Others have overtaken them. [17 Jun 2006, p.39]

Hymns finds a fully-in-control Okereke, still tangled in the electronics of his solo albums (“Rock’n’roll has got so old, just give me neo-soul,” he admits on ‘Into The Earth’) fusing with Russell Lissack’s spectral shoegaze guitars to steer one of the century’s most pioneering underground bands into more mature and absorbing, if murkier, waters.

Wilson's voice is a sorry wisp of what it once was. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

JL have dropped a weird pop record so humorously danceable that Ke$ha’s probably planning a collaboration as we type.

Mine Is Yours? You can keep it, thanks.

Labrinth may work wonders in the background, but he's far too anonymous on Electronic Earth to mark his card as much of a solo star.

The rough edges that gave them their early oddball indie pop character have been sanded off in favour of earnest but uninspiring anthemic rock.

They need to retire. NOW.

Bad Vibes Forever is better than Skins, the first XXXTentacion album released after the rapper’s death, but all of his posthumous music to date has fallen short. Even if you do hate XXXTentacion, you cannot deny his influence on modern rap. But ‘Bad Vibes Forever’ is a serious case of over-embellishing thin material.

The whiff of soft-rock schmaltz is occasionally close to overpowering. [16 Sep 2006, p.36]

It's at its best on the likes of 'Blackened Blue Eyes', which... is a cousin of their classic 'One To Another.' [8 Apr 2006, p.41]

This is a slew of hackneyed teenage poetry, trowelled onto a bed of sift-rock cliché.

Another long-awaited offering finally drops and it's wonderfully enchanting.

The Enemy¹s second is weighed down with pomp and bluster.

It all ends not with a bang, but a shrug.

Oasis can't help but sound like a group battling to free themselves from being last century's thing.

Sticking to the formula followed by fellow Welsh emo posers Lostprophets and Funeral For A Friend, the generic metalcore verses and overblown choruses are all present and correct.

Only on 'Caretaker' and 'Not Wing Clippers' does their third eye briefly blink; for much of the rest of this debut, the outlook's grey.

Angels & Airwaves labour under the illusion that "mature" equals "worthwhile;" and that means long, directionless songs swathed in echo pedals and factory-set keyboards.

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.

Beneath the patina of skeezy Freshers’-Week-LOLZ lyrics (“got a water-bottle of whiskey in my handbag”) lies a talent.

'Sad' is an Adele-apeing weepie, 'Payphone' has a guest rap from Wiz Khalifa, and both 'Lucky Strike' and 'Fortune Teller' feature cod-dubstep breakdowns.

Intriguing, but unsatisfying.

The title track sounds like it is vocalised by the female speech function on a Mac's TextEdit facility and is roughly the worst thing ever made, yet it's still only the third-worst track on the album

Pop princess turned electro muse fails to deliver.

On the balancing strength of those two songs [Dangerous & Much Too Soon], Michael manages to dodge the bullet enough to be kind of enjoyable. But it's worth remembering that both songs date back to the 1980s.

The beats may be basic and the quality fuzzy... but there are diamonds among the dirt. [21 Aug 2004, p.49]