Morrison, Spector, Doherty, Cobain; The Orwells know their roots and they know how that story plays out.

It's a soulful, romantic album about what happens when the lights come up at the end of the night and life smacks you in the face.

Sheeran hasn’t committed as wholeheartedly to the genre-hopping bit as he did on ‘÷’. There are an awful lot of those sickly ballads, some of which are better than others: ‘Old Phone’, inspired by seeing an old text from Edwards, is genuinely moving.

Too gloopily uniform. [16 Jul 2005, p.50]

Throw in the tinny synth on 'Fish In The Sky' and this album couldn't get any more late-'70s if it tried. If it was a TV programme, it'd be Starsky & Hutch--a dubious honour to say the least.

On ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2’, the producer meshes a wistful grab-bag of influences – nu-disco, funk, boogie, soul – with his skill for creating a mega-watt pop-hit, taking listeners on a journey on a psychedelic trip you won’t want to end.

Grey Oceans is CocoRosie's most beautiful and, more importantly, least bloody irritating record to date.

Clinical and precise rather than mind-blowing, Temper Temper will keep BFMV as a band with one foot in metal and the other in the mainstream, which is exactly where they want to be.

In the end, Ritual is not a bad album. But neither is it the album it would like to think it is.

This, then, is AOR: Adult Orientated Rap. Luckily, though, Jay-Z still turns out work of impressive authority.

Brandy is on fine form throughout, purring pillow talk and murmuring sweet nothings to anyone insane enough to listen. Now she loves him, now she doesn't. Really, it's too much.

In short Tha Carter IV flops not because it's straight-up bad, but because it's boring.

Sonic developments in the form of style, delivery and arrangement (an experimental approach no doubt encouraged by Mogwai producer Tony Doogan, who recorded the album in Glasgow earlier this year) are marred by disappointingly dumb and predictable lyrics, and where the quintet once made it sound so easy to come up with killer choruses, this second effort finds them slumping into forgettable filler territory on more than one occasion.

Ducktails have been labeled ‘chillwave’ and ‘hypnagogic pop’ due to their naval-gazing appeal. Sadly that appeal is lacking from this release, as is any sense of urgency, leaving Wish Hotel languishing in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe it’s because the whole sex-food thing is so overdone that the 18 tracks never drag, and it’s not often you can say that about a hip hop or R’n’B album.

Excruciating fret wankery... appalling metal funk... and Chris Cornell 'singing' like a castrated gibbon throughout. [2 Sep 2006, p.21]

A thoroughly modern, almost Byronic, solo album that updates past excesses in the context of the present, and ignores Californian darkness in favour of a polished, summery outlook.

All perfectly good stuff, technically excellent. But 'American Life' also feels like an unnecessary sequel, a 'Men In Black II', made because hell, if it ain't broke...

It's neither exhilarating nor challenging, but it is a solid and energetic work, imbued with an unambiguous love of old-time rock.

If A Head Full of Dreams really is to be Coldplay’s last hurrah, then they’ve gone out with a flashbang of colour and catharsis.

Taken on its own merits, there are more than enough moments on Back On My BS to stop the world from forgetting his name. The pity is that, given he’s one of rap’s most distinctive voices, right now Busta seems to have no idea who he is.

Perhaps it was the pressure of following breakthrough hit ‘C’mon C’mon’, or some serious Jack White payback voodoo, but now, where should have roared a gutsy, triumphant comeback squeaks a patchy, mediocre-in-places record.

Jamaica Plain is inessential stuff.

The 12-song album’s first five tracks are passable, if not actually quite enjoyable. Beyond this point, though, only the most hardened Moz fan should dare to venture. ‘The Girl From Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel’ is an unbearable cha-cha-cha; ‘Who Will Protect Us From The Police?’ is lumpen electro; and least listenable track ‘Israel’ sees him deliver political polemic via the dubious medium of a piano ballad.

The Loudest Engine punches for psychedelia and falls flat in a puddle of MOR.

Musically it’s akin to the recent Neon Neon album, but Kilfoyle’s musings on romance and class are all his own.

For the most part, Peace have made their 'difficult' second album look surprisingly straightforward.

[The songs on Majenta] confirm Edgar's inimitable creative talents.