This is the album they were born to make. It gives us all the things that punk has never been able to provide: romance, sex, the adventure of the open road and sheer nihilism-banishing energy.

O’Brien’s personality shines through, and it’s a pleasure to get to know him. It’s tempting to conclude he’s Radiohead’s secret weapon.

A wobbly start, but luckily The Coral are just finding their sea legs.

Lacking as it does the songwriting spark of Ariel Pink, the record lacks cohesion.

Manifest! is back-loaded with the big hitters, so you need faith and tenacity to find the gems.

Toe-curlingly unlistenable. [4 Sep 2004, p.73]

Stultifying moroseness and a constant furrowing of the brow permeate from start to finish. [21 Aug 2004, p.49]

The record veers off along theatrical tangents that recall Muse or ELO as much as Sunset Rubdown but ultimately don’t seem to make sense.

On ‘Born Pink’, BLACKPINK tread familiar thematic territory for pop music, but the imagery – finding solace from heartbreak at the bottom of a bottle (‘The Happiest Girl’), boasting about being the type of girl you take to your “mama house” (‘Typa Girl’) – isn’t particularly novel, though they have effectively applied a personal touch in the past (see Jennie’s ‘Solo’).

At times, there's the sense Tyler's charisma outweighs his content, and as such it's probably up to Earl to deliver the group's first bona fide hip-hop classic.

This is an album of genuine depth, one expressing the nervous conservative shockwaves which charge through party kids once they start to come down.

Life And Times is unchallenging pap. But it's furnished with the odd line of lyrical craftiness and melodies that, on the whole, manage to keep the stabilisers on his career because (as always) they make the seemingly untenable emotions of their writer sound tolerable.

In short, there's lo-fi, and then there's this album.

For all this uncertainty, the record is incredibly assured.

Three safe, heavyweight singles are backed up by a confusingly hit-and-miss album.

There’s something to be said for creating music exclusively for the club or to be bumped in car stereos in the summer, but with a bland, out-dated musical architecture, The WIZRD doesn’t even offer that. I

‘Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon’ showcases a multi-faceted artist only just discovering his potential. What makes the album truly stand out is that it serves as a testament to the strength, power and knowledge Smoke held in his ambition to go to the very top.

The album was written immediately after Brendon’s recent stint in the Broadway musical ‘Kinky Boots’, and while it’s fair to say he’s always had a flair for theatrics, the experience has injected these tracks with unprecedented levels of sass and drama. Urie is clearly still relishing the role of the sonic bachelor, and it shows. On Pray, it sounds like he’s having a total blast.

Musically, ‘When We Stay Alive’ mirrors the feeling of physical rehabilitation, the sense of claustrophobia unavoidable on the knotty ‘Fold Up’. The second half of the album, though, strips away the fog and the anger, finding blissful moments of clarity and closure that feel like real eureka moments.

It is an elegant and, quite frankly, utterly beautiful record.

It is by all means a stimulating body of work with ample substance, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Less focused on his innate individuality, it’s a John Mayer passion project that toasts to the good old days, when musicians were more inclined to follow instincts and feelings than clicks and likes.

Sustained power and little in the way of variety can make for quick fatigue, but at just 38 minutes long Cope has hooks and energy to spare.

If you like loud choruses, ceaseless energy and the bug-eyed extremities of crunk, look no further. [15 Jan 2005, p.43]

'Kiss...' operates on a level of perversity, honesty and originality that blows most bands out of the water.

It’s Hall & Oates without the casual genius; Boy Crisis without the chutzpah; Junior Boys without the emotional baggage.

The album lacks that bouncy, bratty energy of old, while never really nailing a more grown-up emotional register. Even so, glad that they're still there.

While their love of premeditated spontaneity might be admirable in jazzier quarters, in reality it means that almost every song on their debut is marred by sudden changes in time signature, key and genre.

With pace set to 'perky', the occasionally impressive hooks of (oh yes) 'Summer Fling, Don't Mean A Thing' and (oh no) 'Dumped' merge into a glossy mud from which nothing to rival All The Small Things emerges.