A confusing, intriguing record, then. Not their strongest, but there's a transition underway.

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.

Taken as a whole, it's some of Nick Thorburn, Ryan Kattner and Joe Plummer's finest work to date.

It's eclectic, but the linking thread is insistent dancehall beats and a sense of dumb, colourful fun.

It'll never be your favourite album, but you'll wish your adolescence sounded as carefree as this.

A substantial offering awash with humble entreaties and doe-eyed, lounge affectations.

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

Such is the band’s melodic power the sensation is like slipping into a warm bath rather than eavesdropping by the psychiatrist’s chair.

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.

A disquieting atmosphere is conjured by both the constant shifts in tempo and Niblett’s emotionally naked lyrics, while ’s naturalistic production deepens the album’s near-menacing intimacy.

Carnation restores some of the eerie, discombobulated feel of his debut.

Musically it's the cream of nostalgic pop, and the lyrics exhibit a wafty elan; but in purely conceptual terms, Cults is too busy flying on clouds of giddy adolescent wonder to plunder the depths of its pretensions with conviction.

After exploring some most unlikely corners, Swing Lo Magellan is arguably its best at its simplest.

Contains... some of his finest ever songs. [5 Aug 2006, p.29]

Harris has distilled all of the synth-popping, amp-busting sounds of electroclash and disco-punk into a complete set of proper pop uppers.

Pull The Pin has urgency, a sense of menace and though it deals with issues like war ('Soldiers Make Good Targets') and the London bombings, there's little of the sanctimonious rhetoric Stereophonics of old were guilty of spouting.

it's largely a successful experiment, with sumptuous keyboard melodies and live drum breaks replacing the heaped samples of old.

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.

'Vision Valley' is the sound of a band with nothing more to lose, a super-condensed portrait of their career thus far.

They’ve stopped trying to do indie rock by numbers and gone back to the sort of idiosyncratic weirdness that made us fall for them in the first place.

It’s a late resolution; like their debut, Crystal Castles feels long; not too long for comfort but too long for coherence.

A similar slide into the mainstream for Jim James and co certainly wouldn't be out of the question – not least because Circuital, despite stiff competition, is possibly their most impressive work to date.

While Green Lanes doesn’t exactly break new ground, it does refine their warm’n’cosy formula enough to interest.

If you're after better versions of classic songs, think again. But as a humanising, comprehensive and often heartbreaking document of a man who, in five years, changed the face of music, almost by accident, it's essential. [20 Nov 2004, p.55]

Their records once had a two-sided feel, Angus' songs lacking the drama of his sister's, Julia lacking her brother's restraint. Here, particularly on 'Death Defying Acts' and 'Little Whiskey', they've got the balance just right.

This is a smooth, sleek band with their eyes on a bigger prize and they undeniably lose something in the process.

Simplicity obviously works to their advantage. True, with all unnecessary distractions gone you're painfully aware of Wareham's stretching for the high notes, but from the leathery creak of 'Bewitched', to the arch pop of 'Moon Palace' via the rollicking fuzz of '23 Minutes In Brussels' it hardly seems to matter

Their most well-rounded effort yet.