The debut album from the Leeds sonic evangelists features tracks about an assassinated prime minister, the Salem witch trials and an East German border guard who committed suicide through guilt after escaping to the West....These subjects are then twinned with a sound rich in solemn and ultimately cacophonous guitar.

Ben Howard’s fourth record sees the artist move beyond his usual methods and proves, if anything, that he has too many good ideas to stay focused. Of all the problems to have, it’s a pretty good one.

E Volo Love may seem oddly relaxed at first, but acclimatising is a breeze.

Finn certainly takes a paddle – if not quite a dive – into fresh sonic waters.

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.

It’s a brave record, but also a frustrating one. While you’re persuaded by the clarity of Rostron’s vision, it’s hard not to also suspect a shortage of ideas.

There's occasional crimes of flannel-wet schmaltz but mostly Smart is like an esoteric, London-based Dam-Funk with a fondness for chemically enhanced raving.

What used to feel like surfing amid the cumulonimbus suddenly feels like snorkling in soup.

Price has pulled off a smarter trick: after doing ’80s Britain and ’70s America, The Killers now finally sound like… themselves.

OK, at Disneyland. Yes, on drugs.

A remarkably intelligent and engrossing record for then, now, and the future.

The end result is a record rooted in the bass flicks, shimmering synths and lovelorn lyrics that defined their debut.

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

It’s a pairing that, on paper, makes sense, given that Depper’s talents with a synthesiser leave Thank You for Today feeling like a more polished version of 2011’s ‘Codes & Keys’. Yet the wide-eyed freshness of that new songwriting pairing leaves things feeling a little too shiny.

Those heavier cuts are the album’s best--dark, dreamy and abrasive.

Jaded & Faded strikes a fine balance between self-deprecation and the supreme confidence needed to get away with suggesting you've had your chips. But there's no second album syndrome here. It whoops ass.

[It] doesn't really sound like Prince at all. [25 Mar 2006, p.35]

This is not the carefree record Splashh were expected to make, but it is all the better for its dourness.

The album’s slower tempo won’t be for everyone: if you’re all thrills, no substance, then maybe this album is not for you. But you have to respect ScHoolboy Q’s dedication to showing us a different outlook on life, and exploring many emotions. Introspective--yes, but these are songs for the summer.

Still, it remains a challenge to crack their ice-cool exterior, to really feel things as they feel - but does that matter? The Strokes are, and have always been, a band that looks great at arm's length - and consequently, 'First Impressions Of Earth' remains, in the best way, untouchable: the first - indeed, maybe the last - word in New York City cool.

Fans of the Mancunian mood sculptor will see this lavishly packaged collection as the latest step in securing Bazza's reputation as the North West's sardonic answer to Barry White.

A little more emotional chaos, a dash of the dark stuff, might make such avuncular campfire grooves more worthy of our time and money.

A seething, furious album; a declamatory statement against cynicism and passivity and the simple injustices of everyday life.

Gone are the ill-advised brass and bare-faced chart aspirations of 1996's awful 'Wild Mood Swings', as are the flippant pop songs that commercialised The Cure in the mid-1980s. What we are left with is the dark, dense core of Smith's psyche, and a reminder that The Cure are at their fearsome best when creating soundscapes awash with uncertainty and dread.

'Nation' is not bad - it's taut and tense and if you buy it quick you'll get to hear their logic-defying cover of Bauhaus' 'Bela Lugosi's Dead'. But it's hard to reconcile 'Nation''s obsession with the scourge of globalisation with Sepultura's conversion from third world pioneers to just another angry hardcore band.

‘Unnatural’ is full of sexy, snarling swagger and ‘Walls’ zips by on a wave of thundering riffs. Elsewhere there are hints of industrial (‘Money Machine’) and even reggae (‘Slow Down’), all proving that Nick Valensi has plenty of ideas and invention to offer outside of The Strokes.

In general it pays to avoid electronic producers with dreadlocks, but let Sumach 'Gonjasufi' Ecks be your exception.

The LP toes a line between eclecticism and kitchen sink, but the one thing he hasn't chucked in here is a little focus.