Heavenly.

It breaks very little new ground--which does have the upside of the songs sounding catchy because you feel like you've heard it all before.

Quarantine is less concerned with the tropes of olde world dance music, more fixated on gloopy post-club ambience.

The only problem is they always just come up short when trying to make their own version of FTP's 'Pumped Up Kicks'.

Business-as-usual has rarely sounded this beautiful.

A mixed bag, sure, but there's signs that they are still fighting the good fight for weirdos everywhere.

It might be coming from the cheap seats, but for the most part, this is classy stuff.

This Is PiL is a relatively edgeless makeover, albeit infused with the progressive spirit of '79, and bolstered by what has always served Lydon well.

Urban Turban is more grin-inducing than a piano-playing cat.

Here they're going through the motions, missionary style, with mechanical jangly pop and the wince-inducing triteness of Cosentino's lyrics.

Hope In Dirt City is the most soulful and hazy he's ever sounded.

A brilliantly disquieting debut.

This is an album that rings with the honed precision and craftsmanship of a job thoroughly done.

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

Instead of bashing critics away with brilliant tunes, they find themselves defining faceless bluster-rock.

Their debut album proper quivers and quakes with the cinematic electronics and emotional abandonment of a soundtrack to Armageddon.

Cashback? Pretty close.

Initially it's strange to hear that instantly identifiable baritone clashing with organic, rough-edged guitars, dirty Hammond organ, and delicate strings rather than the cold electronics of the day job, but it soon reveals itself to be a perfect pairing.

While Saint Etienne will always sound like Saint Etienne, these songs are their sharpest in over a decade.

Romancing is full of brash, exciting music that's as fun as doing The Big Shop with headphones in.

The album as a whole saunters and bounces along.

If the focus on 'I Predict A Graceful Expulsion' is sharp then its scope is overly broad, focusing in on vague sentiments that leave you fond, but never in love.

With 'Here Come The Bombs', frontman Gaz Coombes does a surprisingly adept job of retaining [former band, Supergrass's] oddball pop sensibility, but shaping it into something that's, if not mature, then at least slightly less frivolously young and free.

It's a set of two halves whose hands won't hold.

The band are increasingly clever at turning a melody inside out to evoke those moments of dizzy-making clarity.

He excellently lends Coldplay's 'The Scientist' a terse fragility, but less successful is a sanitised, Sheryl Crow-featuring version of Tom Waits' 'Come On Up To The House'.

'Capricornia' and 'Europe' thicken their debut's effervescent jangle to a rich lustre, and Morris' solo uke classic 'Tallulah' makes sending postcards of sausage-eating Germans sound as romantic as dinner on the Danube.

More problematic than the bad lyrics or air of disengagement is Higgins' involvement. Too much of the album sounds washed out and painfully clean.