A glossy, well-produced album of populist anthems with a gangsta undertow that expands his worldview and celebrates success.

At least two thirds of it is still comprised of head-spinning speed metal, but there are signs of genuine progression -- not to mention progressive rock -- from the off.

Unfortunately, in trying to take on all comers at once, there are parts of Queen that feel like an overreach. There is a better ten track effort hiding in Queen, but you get the impression Nicki kept tracks like ‘Miami’ to hedge her bets in a bid for streaming success. The Queen is back, but only just.

By letting their heads float off into the clouds and planting their brogues firmly on the ground, Those Dancing Days have created an album of fizzing indie-pop to charm both the starry-eyed teen and the world-weary indie connoisseur.

It's all solid stuff, but if Murderbot wants to be an ambassador for the genre, then perhaps he should try tackling less divisive subjects, such as politics or war.

[An] album stacked with songs of trailblazing angst ('Je Me Perds'), sinister desperation ('Cold') and nut-cracking jams {'Stop Kicking').

Overall the album is a reassertion that when it comes to hard-pumping guitar'n'drums duos it's unjust that Steve and Laura-Mary are billed below the likes of The Kills on the big festival bill Sellotaped to God's fridge.

From its cover in, there's a knowing, bustling swagger to The Streets' finale, if only in its relishing of a quick dart for the exit.

It's often as befuddling as it is brilliant.

Yet as her sounds grow bolder, her lyrics become more intimate. Mesirow is in confident control of an inviting world that’s all her own.

On ‘It’s All Smiles’, No Rome has created an immersive world that envelopes you like a warm hug and urges you to let it all out – whether happy or sad. It might have taken a while to get to us, but an album with that effect is often worth the wait; Rome’s debut most certainly is.

Much of this record plays like a tribute to '90s miserabilists Red House Painters, all phantom-like reverb over misleadingly comforting folk tropes.

With In Our Bedroom... Stars are rewriting the textbook on romance with effortless glee.

That it isn’t resoundingly terrible (as background music it’s passable, as long as you can’t actually hear it properly) is due to its general beigeness rather than the sparse flashes that illuminate it.

Despite the surreal subject matter Johnston's soundtrack for his own comic book is romantic and deeply human.

While the music works when it’s slow, sparse and emotional, the band’s debut comes into its own when it steps up the pace.

Carefully constructed and wonderfully cohesive, it's an album or earnest, yearning rock that shows Lonely The Brave are aiming for the fire cannons and shirtless mega-gigs that Biffy Clyro have worked so hard for.

There's something disappointing about this, however undeniable the quality of material.

Like a scented Lush bath-bomb of mediocrity. [27 May 2006, p.31]

This one whips the spliced, spooked melodies and vintage rhythms of Blood into new, distorted shapes that at times recall the dark textures of Prurient's 'Bermuda Drain' or Fever Ray's debut.

Fever Dream is perfectly listenable, but missing the magic spark that made them smash successes when they first emerged.

In turns more glam-indebted and more duskily evocative than anything they’ve previously offered up, Himalayan’s aims are as monumental as its title.

After the conventional bar-band fuzz of The Catholics, ‘Nonstoperotik’ is a welcome return to the quirky experimentalism of "Frank Black" and "Teenager Of The Year."

When it strays from charmingly retro to willfully 'raw' it all goes wrong.

Few albums designed to sound like a party actually play like one, but Bruno Mars has pulled it off with style.

This might not be the ‘music of the night’ that rotund talent show type Lloyd Webber and his phantoms had in mind, but based on the majority of this album Messrs Kapranos, Hardy, McCarthy and Thomson can definitely take us out tonight.

They don't quite conjure the heart-slowing plod of Pecknold's mob on their second album.

This Is All Yours engulfs you like a deep forest. Alt-J Mk II, then: an impressive expansion, with hugely improved connectivity.