As ever, their relentless chirpiness can grate, but the orchestral indulgence has been pared back, giving ringleader Tim DeLaughter’s songwriting room to breathe.

Fly Yellow Moon sounds like Guillemots with all the wonky bits weeded out.

"Relapse" should have been the end of his career, but by admitting his mistakes as well as trumpeting his successes, Shady's given himself one last stand.

This album sees him rising from the hordes of spider-black hoodies, becoming a musical force beyond the Download ticket-holders.

Produced by metal guru Ross Robinson, There Is A Way is a slicker beast than the Danan of yore, yet that rickety collision of a million ideas remains.

The Earth, Wind & Fire-sampling ‘It’s Sunny’ is too cheesy, and ‘Aye Muthaf***a’ slips in some Rihanna-style dancehall beats, but elsewhere TLC offers a familiar mix of breezy R&B tunes and folky self-acceptance jams.

So, yes, it’s a tougher collection than the first, lacking the merciless hilarity you’d expect. But it’s also a strong step forward and one that proves they won’t disappear in the changing breeze of fashion.

If you don't mind flicking the fast-forward, there's enough hot shizzle to keep you returning for more. [20 Nov 2004, p.57]

Immersion is less fun, harder work than In Silico. It feels like Pendulum are trying to be more than an anonymous CD you put on at a party when everyone's too boxed to DJ any more. They shouldn't.

From thunderous Mafioso fable 'Live To Die' to A$AP Rocky-starring calypso riot 'I Got Money' via Snoop Dogg collab '1,2 1,2', the Chef's steely signature East Coast flow has seldom sounded more imperious.

This is Tom Morello: Unfiltered, the work of a rap-rock renegade who answers to no-one, exploring new terrain well into the third decade of his career, an artist unwilling to rest on his legacy.

There’s a clarity here, a sense of maturity in the lyrics too – something that was often missing in his previous work. ‘Nobody is Listening’ has its flaws, but Zayn is clearly working out a few chinks in his armour, and this comes across as a step in a new and fresh direction for the enigmatic artist.

The Nextwave Sessions EP careers wildly between moods and atmospheres, and sounds like a band happy to let go and experiment because they’re comfortable with who they are.

Not their best, but still more consistent than any British indie album released this year.

After two albums treading water in the tricky oceans of landfill indie, the tides are turning.

These five tracks climax with ‘Hypnotised’, a solemn country swooner resembling John Lennon’s ‘Mother’, easily their best barnstorming ballad since ‘Fix You’. It’s heartening evidence that Coldplay haven’t entirely been sucked into the machinery while trying to subvert pop music from within.

‘Heartbreak Weather’ pads its way through every different phase of relationship-based grief, inevitably letting some moments of catharsis feel more impactful than others. It isn’t an entirely lost cause, but one to build upon for a more inspiring future all the same.

For the most part The Constant boils down to a thin chart gruel, too lumpenly pitched between the Carling Academies and the cattle-grid nightclubs to leave a mark.

Oddly for an album so big in scope... it's very intimate and confessional. [3 Jul 2004, p.64]

Skinner has consolidated everything he’s done before, chucked in where his head’s at now and come up with an album that, while lacking the visceral thrill of ‘Original Pirate Material’, is a minor masterpiece that will mean a lot to a more select bunch of people.

It’s about as exotic as a cocktail umbrella.

Too much of Not Your Kind Of People is pedestrian, anodyne and utterly unremarkable.

Far from being terrifying, it sounds like Smith is actually having fun.

There’s the occasional peak, like ‘Clown’ or ‘Destroy Me’, but Candy For The Clowns feels more like an act of stubbornness than defiance.

'Pocket Symphony' sure does drift over you like a duvet of mood-stabilising drugs.

No song is quite right: a lyric about angels or elephants here, a trip-hop beat there, and even the Milky Way would blush.

They've proved themselves to be a band who defy convention with an album stuffed full of subtle invention and an emotional intensity that you really wouldn't expect from a band still too young to grow a beard between them.

Not, by any means, a disaster. More a cruel glimpse of a talent that occasionally blazes but is frustratingly inconsistent.