By drinking deep from the coolest records and the hippest poets, Penny succeeds in beginning a new chapter for her band.

Like so much of Gene's fine back catalogue, this is an album about the ways in which love can buckle you under and life can break you down, options closing in like the walls of an Indiana Jones dungeon.

The good news is that 13 is an amalgam of everything you’d want from a new Black Sabbath album featuring three of the original members.

'Reveal' is the slippers, fire and photo album - but this doesn't mean REM have resigned themselves to the placid lethargy of age. It just means that they've found a place to sit back and take stock after a long, colourful journey.

It's the sound of the band mutating from the exciting, mysterious person in the club to the partner you pee in front of and take shopping for carpets. [15 Apr 2006, p.35]

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]

The moments of dark introspection still linger in the album's secluded corners, but overall, 'A Brighter Beat' is exactly that.

Their sound, which paved the way for the likes of Bloc Party, is still pretty timeless.

Its high points are so charming you're willing to forgive the occasional low one.

They’re still doing it better than anyone else; ravier than Foals, more fun than Fuck Buttons, flexing more post-hardcore muscle than Metronomy. It’s just that we kind of hoped they might surprise us again. That said, if they’re not pushing any new envelopes, Come Down With Me is still satisfying on its own terms.

Yes, PiL have made better records. But it’s nice to know John Lydon still cares enough to rage.

When it works its magic, as on the opening suite of tracks, you will happily sit mesmerised for seven or eight minutes of glimmering sonic twilight and translucently tingling ambi-organic pearly-dewdrops droppery. But when the spell is broken, as on two or three later tunes, when more traditional instrumentation turns up late and dishevelled for a half-hearted cosmic-rock supernova, the effect is rather like gatecrashing some purgatorial soundcheck by a Pink Floyd covers band in, say, 1968. Or possibly Spiritualized.

It navigates a contemporary confluence of influences with such wit, intelligence and passion that (certainly if you like Joy O or Zomby) you will just simply love it.

While a couple of songs--most notably ‘Satisfaction’, a three-note guitar riff spun out for eight-and-a-half minutes--suffer from an acute case of stadium bloat, it’s all done in such a jubilant fashion that it hardly matters.

Cancer Bats are not just ripping it. They're tearing it a new one.

This Is PiL is a relatively edgeless makeover, albeit infused with the progressive spirit of '79, and bolstered by what has always served Lydon well.

On the one hand it's easy to knock; on the other it's difficult to dismiss. [4 Jun 2005, p.58]

Gloomy as it is, there are some brilliant flashes of light to be found here.

Even with the rich array of sounds, every track has an impressive immediacy and it's that balance that makes 'Personality...' so uplifting. [22 Jul 2006, p.39]

An adventurous and fun record.

The pop-punk politicising does get exhausting over 14 fiercely energetic, relentlessly right-on tracks, but even after a decade as a folk star, Oberst still gives the other grown-up emo kids a run for their money.

Sure, 'The Weirdness' rarely comes close to capturing the feral magic of the band's best vintage work (even if 'Mexican Guy' is built on the same rhythm as '1969') , but, hey, it's The Stooges - and that should be enough for anyone.

If Burrows gifted Razorlight two of their biggest hits (in "America" and "Before I Fall To Pieces"), what his former band gave him in return was the platform to bring something far more interesting into the light of day. Welcome the new dawn.

While the album may not fully scale D'Agostino's high bar, in attempting to make that leap Cymbals Eat Guitars have made their best album to date as well as a touching goodbye to a friend.

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]

The five new tracks added for the UK release, especially the Suicide throb of ‘Run Around’, suggest the real thrills are to come on their debut proper, but for now, this is an exciting enough introduction to a new force of darkness. Buy two, and give one to a hippy.

Uptown Special is Ronson’s moment of absolution: you can try to hate it, but in the end, as with all the best pop music, resistance is futile.

Music For Men is a sugar-coated dance record that echoes with universality.