Ire Works is their most controlled effort to date, even more so than 2004's mainstream-friendly (relatively speaking, of course) "Miss Machine."

It's all wildly self-indulgent, but pleasant enough.

Unsurprisingly, it’s overcooked in places. In addition to super-producer Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), an array of producers come and go on the 17-track record that nearly stretches to a full hour. ... But little could possibly dampen the record’s spirit and spunk.

While Bought to Rot might not possess the focused tenacity of Against Me!’s latest record, ‘Shape Shift With Me’, it’s a varied, meandering album that roams freely across multiple genres.

Just when you're starting to worry some of the cancer vibes might rub off, he'll crack that underdog grin and knock out a number like 'Hey Man (Now You're Really Living)', backed by a bunch of cheerleaders. [18 Feb 2006, p.36]

There’s no doubting the musicianship on display across ‘What Kinda Music’. Misch and Dayes certainly complement one another. But it’s hard not to long for a little disruption to the album’s soothing sonic cohesion. While they were clearly having fun, it was probably more fun to make than it is to hear.

Without visuals to add a knowing wink and a flourish of pop absurdity, it sometimes settles into a comfortable groove of trap-influenced drum beats, moody instrumentals, Frank Ocean-y electric guitars and percussive brass peals. Rarely deviating from earnestness, this is at odds with the absurd brilliance of his defining moments thus far.

There’s still enough dusty amplifier buzz and garagey thump to keep indie aesthetes happy, but intentionally or not, Spectrals now sit in a sonic nook which most resembles the stolid pre-punk orthodoxy of pub rock.

It’s uneven, with flashes of brilliance. Blood is a record that builds slow and steady, as it continually keeps you on your toes with its experimental and exploratory nature.

Today, in a world rooted in an entirely different stratum of rock, they're as lively as the corpses that archaeologists hook out of peat bogs: perfectly preserved, but not great for dancing or conversation.

Some of the album’s charms only emerge when you search hard for them, as on the disjointed gloom of ‘The Light In Your Name’ or the dankness of ‘Spiral’, and there are a few ponderous cold spots.

‘Algorithm’ will probably appeal more to the older hip-hop cynics, though anyone who grew up in a house where their parents played ‘California Love’ or ‘It Was A Good Day’ will also revel in the nostalgia offered by the record.

This compilation isn’t anywhere near as enlightening or engrossing as its source material, but if you’ve seen the film, read the think-pieces and are now determined to buy the album, there’s just enough here to make it worth your while.

‘Trip The Mains’, perhaps Webb’s finest composition yet, appears to share its electrifying opening riff with Donna Summer’s disco classic ‘Hot Stuff’, before diving headfirst into a seismic chorus that’d shatter Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’. Elsewhere, the haunting ‘Scream Whole’ begins as a soothing lullaby, before unravelling itself into a doomy slice of noir-pop. This momentum is intermittent though, disappointingly.

At times, ‘I’m Only F**king Myself’ feels a little all over the place – though, cramming so many interesting and surprising spins on pop into one record, and largely pulling it off, is still commendable.

Frustratingly, flashes of the wired energy that got them noticed in the first place are few and far between.

Shopping’s sound is minimal, and almost every song kicks off with a Spaghetti Western guitar riff before being met by a steady beat and chanting vocals by various members.

The main problem with '...Thunder Canyon' though is it's long - 72 minutes long - which suggests when Banhart let his muse fly free, he forgot to keep a check on his ego, too. At its best, this is subtle, touching, beautiful. At its worst, it's meandering and smug. You're entertained, but unsettled.

Ultimately, the record doesn’t feel wholly complete. By the final rotation of this imperfect kaleidoscope, there are inconsistencies that only highlight the fractures that underlie Ephyra. But Woman’s Hour have a knack for communicating this feeling so gracefully.

Coheed have picked up more prog nuances so it fits that this, the last in the sequence, is their most ambitious yet, best embodied in the eight-minute 'The End Complete.'

Breakfast turns out to be a reasonably hearty meal, definitely sausage and waffles rather than the aural porridge that "alternative hip-hop" summons up.

Thankfully, closer ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ is a sumptuous country swoon capable of wiping clean the record’s hoarier moments, and we end embedded once more in LaMontagne’s misty mystique.

Breakfast, for all its modest attractions, never quite transcends its talented-journeyman origins.

There's something missing here, and that something is soul.

Turn it off halfway through and it’s brilliant.

For five songs, it's the best album ever, rattling along on post-punk guitar flourishes and Cale's auto-tuned vocal. After that it descends into an enjoyable weirdathon.

Completists can tick a box, but it'd be a shame if this was really the original New Order's last word.

It's odd that parts of it sound too careful.