It's guiltily satisfying in a bearded, nodding sort of way, but there's little to grab on to in such an ironic hall of mirrors.

The debut album from Liverpool girl-trio Stealing Sheep strips the style of all Wicker Man cheese and stuffs it full of modern relevance.

‘Serpentina’ is a welcome reintroduction to the artist and a cathartic ode to doing things your own way.

Sonically restless, Madame X doesn’t imitate current pop trends as much as it mangles them into new shapes. A record that grapples with being “just way too much”, ultimately, it refuses to tone things down.

Lost Friends is a set of pile-driving anthems that demands your undivided attention.

Electrelane could do with tightening their concentration spans, but everything else is just fine and dandy thank you. [7 May 2005, p.66]

Their fourth album has none of the witchy class that makes these others so compelling and comes off like a painfully hokey play-act.

And so paranoia produces, if not a great album, a respectable transition from love-him-or-hate-him brass-toting berk into a genuine, bonafide pop maverick.

Lostprophets have, against the odds, carved something genuinely fresh.

Whereas his 2002 solo debut shot a glance back to Michael Jackson's 'Off The Wall', this is more indebted to 'Smooth Criminal', early '80s Prince and on its ballads, Stevie Wonder. [9 Sep 2006, p.37]

Half-knowing, half-full of anthems and lyrically halfway to hell, Off With Their Heads is musically halfway there. Kaisers have barely missed a beat on the highway to massive-dom, but they’re hardly raising our heart rates.

On 'Octopus' The Bees find their groove and sound blissfully unaware whether anyone else is listening. You should, they've made their best album yet.

They tag-team across the record with a cheery glint, a self-deprecating wink and a boundless charm that's hard not to like.

Definitely a beautiful album but its hopelessness is never-ending, like a friend telling you their relationship troubles for hours and hours.

The 14 tracks--almost entirely instrumental--play out as loose sketches of piano, violin and electronics, making for an ultra-sparse, carefully considered album.

‘Who Cares?’, O’Connor’s fourth album, is a gorgeously measured step forward.

It’s tempting to tell Smith that Murphy wants his shtick back (along with his suit), but the pastiche is often effective, at least.

He’s an impossible person, by all accounts--especially his own--but also an exceptionally expressive songwriter.

The barbed musings on dead scenes (‘Dull Boy’) and vacuous hipsters (the aforementioned ‘Big Toe’) add lyrical bite to an album that, sonically, barely strays from good vibes territory.

Revelations wants to be unlistenable, but it can’t always hide Shamir’s songwriting strengths.

Gibson’s inclination towards expressing thoughtful and emotional contemplation largely balance out the record’s apparent eagerness to simply rave through the pain.

Monuments To An Elegy is essentially a Corgan solo record which shows flashes of his old power, while also straying into some seriously dodgy attempts to update the Pumpkins sound for 2014.

Occasionally... she does hint at her past genius. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

These songs are the sound of joy, canned and compressed for your aural pleasure.

When Dinowalrus get it right, they do Britrock rather well indeed. From 'Riding Eazy''s shimmering funk to the dance-punk strut of 'The Gift Shop', there's a lot to like--even if on paper it does all appear terribly clichéd.

Straightaway, what's so appealing about this album is the double-barrel hellfire tactic the four-piece employ on almost every song.

The Oxford band’s second album since their 2014 reformation benefits from a wealth of creativity and experimentation that Bell may well have been suppressing for over 20 years.

This is pure Tricky; sometimes at his near-best, sometimes coasting, but always unique.