Sandé clearly has the chops to stand out in the sophisticated cross-platform arms race of modern pop music--the soaring ‘Shakes’ and ‘Sweet Architect’ are proof of that--but you still wish she didn’t fall back so readily on cliché.

If Two Door are to hold onto anything from ‘Keep On Smiling’, it should be the playful, curious moments that convey a sense of fun, even if that’s deceptive. When things get serious on this record, the band stumble and the smiles begin to slip.

Too many songs blur into the next (‘Interlocking’ and ‘All Out of Catastrophes’, to name just a couple). Perhaps it’s due to Nadler’s dependence on certain vocal patterns and a no-frills, three/four guitar chord approach. Simple song structures aren’t to be scoffed at, but trouble lands when things become a little too predictable.

Weezer have delivered an album that’s intimate, thoughtful and resolutely human.

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.

It's still party music, but for a different kind of party.

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

Killer Sounds gets away with its confused billing because Hard-Fi have always known instinctively how to navigate their way around a chorus. That skill set survives here in big, stupid bloody pop songs.

Beyond the familiar name drops and signposts, there are flashes of a band in control of their destiny, and willing to try something new.

Although the off-counter flow can get monotonous at times – unfortunately making a number of the tracks on ‘Michigan Boy Boat’ rather skippable – Yachty’s embrace of the Michigan scene here come across as a daring way of reinventing his once-bubbly rap aesthetic.

Over length of 12 tracks, the soul/G-funk stuff becomes a little one-note, while the Disney-fied material lacks the charm that makes Prass such an engaging, idiosyncratic performer.

The truth is, though, there's just a lack of magic, a lack of something special going on. It's not bad. It's not good.

By going back to the sound of his early work, Scott steps back into the gargantuan shadow of his mentor. Kanye West – particularly the mechanical abrasiveness and fragmented textures of 2014’s ‘Yeezus’ – is not just an inspiration but an apparition that looms over Scott’s identity on this album.

For the most part it lacks either the experimentation of James Blake or the pop sensibilities of SBTRKT.

Good, but not "The Greatest."

At the moment, her music is best consumed in blog-sized chunks, not as a stodgy 48-minute album.

Many of the digressions are compelling, however, the frequent changes in approach mean that its creators’ personality isn’t always easy to grasp. This mercurial quality is a result of several straightforward rock tracks that are noticeably weaker than the album’s finest moments.

An album to be remembered for? Probably not, but it’s bold, it’s a laugh, and he’s done it his way.

The Moog returns here, but 'Suns'--two minutes of busted TV static--is an inscrutable opener.

Lyrically, this is the best Rose has ever been. Poignant, affecting and candid, at times it’s spectacular. Yet the music fails to reach the same heights, resulting in a mismatched record.

Risk To Exist is a cracking post-debate disco record, certainly, but no one ever changed the world over cocktails at Club Tropicana.

She's far less successful when she goes into full-on retro pop mode, as on the incredibly cloying 'Put Your Brain In Gear' and 'Runaway', but when she decides to plump for the darker end of the spectrum, she shines.

‘Flatlands And The Flemish Roads’ evokes feelings of motion, ‘Ode To Viennese Streets’ a sense of relaxation, but strip away their titles and the concept evaporates, leaving a warm but undemanding album.

Solid singer-songwriter fare with more longing than your teenage years.

If Christopher Nolan ever does one of his gritty makeovers on Twilight, the soundtrack’s as good as sewn up.

Where he’s inventive and precise in directing his energy, he’s able to make real uplifting and imaginative indie bops. It’s a shame this album’s not full of them. The potential is there, but he’s not quite hit it.

Memphis sextet Magic Kids started out in the midst of the city's celebrated garage-punk scene, but you'd hardly know it on the basis of this airheaded and obsessively nice-ified debut album.

There are ideas here that could have been developed into a stunning 10-track album. Unfortunately, Quaristice contains 20 ‘tunes’, many of them elusively experimental ear-tormenters.