'Have Some Faith In Magic' sees them unbuttoning those stiff top-collars and delivering some of their finest pop bangers to date.

They’re still working out the kinks, though, so a few tracks fail to match their ambition.

There's nothing on Anxiety so arrestingly new or comfortably familiar.

The kids of the LC! still bristle with a fundamental melodic vibrancy, and the hand-in-hand maturing of music-writer Tom Campesinos! into the realms of Sonic Youth thrashes, cranky synthetics and handclaps, harmonium, violin and bar-room piano gives the record a gravitas to counterpoint Gareth's lyrical anguish.

It's not the world-claiming masterpiece it could have been. But as an evolutionary step from world-party-queen towards a more complex beast, it's intriguing.

The tender optimism of tracks like "The Morning" and the gorgeous, harpsichord-led symphony "Oh So Lovely" are wonderfully uplifting, but there's still room for some snarky self-deprecation on "Baby Loves Me" too.

Power's handful of great tunes make it worth the wait, but its more affected moments make it difficult to love.

We're treated to none-too-shabby performances of the obvious lighter-wavers as well as several lesser-known wonders, including a rocked-up take on 'Green' favourite 'Orange Crush' and an airing of the sublime 'Cuyahoga' from underrated 1986 release 'Life's Rich Pageant.'

It’s not a bad record, but, ultimately, All We Are lacks energy.

Oklahoma’s Samantha Crain does weird so very well. The only trouble is, she just doesn’t do it nearly enough.

Recorded with a Luddite's zeal- no keyboards, samplers, sequencers - he's... managed to document the clanking claustrophobia of modern life.

A happy, penguin-chilled sunset beach barbecue of a collection. [3 Jul 2004, p.65]

It’s nothing new, but it is fun.

Recorded in sessions at a French convent and a San Francisco studio and featuring analogue electronics alongside strings, brass and woodwind, Geocidal is monolithic.

Time and circumstance have not blunted his abilities, and Understated is lyrically empathetic, musically emphatic.

At other times we're not sure whether we should be laughing or feeling uncomfortable; either way Ventriloquizzing is certainly no dummy's game.

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.

Trouble is, as grown up and grouchy as Sum 41 may have become (on record, if not in Strokes-mocking video), they sure aint no Fugazi.

Still not Friday night material, then, but a moving display of one man's myriad sorrows nonetheless. Bless.

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.

The record works as just five songs.

Interesting but inessential.


There’s been a hope that he’d one day return to his dream-pop roots. Stars Are Our Home isn’t that, but there are shades of his past on the twinkling, self-titled opening track and ‘(I Don’t Mean To) Wonder.'

Like the enraged hormones of Iggy Pop slugging it out with the grandiose pomp of Queen. [28 Aug 2004, p.57]

The results are remarkably plangent and romantic.

While the harsher edges of their previous efforts have been sanded off long ago, frontman Neil Fallon still has a bucketload of fire and brimstone left in his belly and no-one does the possessed preacher man schtick quite like him.

This record may not be as wild-eyed and rabid as it's predecessor, 2000's 'Cocaine Rodeo', but it's loaded with more illicit sex, insanity and glam-punk brilliance than you can shake Satan's pitchfork at.

Big Talk is a record to be roared while stood atop the bar, and then deny all knowledge of the next day.