They rekindle some of that fiery passion with The Doomed, a stunning example of grand, orchestral rock with some majestic touches. But for every explosive, curtain-closing exit there's the lifeless anthem.

It’s difficult to qualify Somewhere Else as middling because it proposes a whole new set of exciting challenges for Shapiro, but it also brings about a befuddling, poorly sequenced effort that crosses out songwriting ingenuity with across-the-board dancehall padding.

For whatever reason, though, the voices in her own head aren't strong enough to out-sway input from others, leading to a few unimpressive moments in the LP.

Schnauss' sheen unifies it as, bare minimum, a pleasant journey through the haze. Just don't expect to see anything too clearly.

How long this approach will remain fresh or whether Hoiberg can maintain the quality of his productions after the novelty wears off are questions for later records. For now, enjoy Wedding Bells. It was made for no other purpose.

Whilst it might not be the powerful, dark electro that some fans had been hoping for, there's no denying that the more matured Justice is pretty damn good.

Young & Old is a more mature release which demonstrates that Tennis possess both the wisdom and guile to evolve.

This album has failings and successes; it all adds up to a highly commendable record, there's no doubt in that.

This is considerably more poppy than what you'd expect from Cursive, and it's clear: Kasher has never been content with playing it safe.

This may be no grand revelation, but it has its moments, and overall it’s a thoroughly satisfying sit.

Inspired by B&S leader Stuart Murdoch’s read of the novel, the soundtrack thankfully veers more towards the bibliophile than the head-banger. Two B&S classics are re-worked, including a spritely updating of the perfect fitting I Know Where The Summer Goes as well as more of a straight read of Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying.

It’s true that a band can only write about the same topics for so long, and it is nice to see Bonnette taking his lyrical approach in a new direction, but the lack of that intensely personal touch unfortunately makes the songs on Christmas Island far less relatable than the band's past catalogue.

If Moaning could unshackle their melodic sound and avoid building their walls of sound so high on their second record, they will be another certified gem in the Sub Pop crown.

Please don't let any negative first impressions put you off though, as it just might be the album that Ladytron have been working towards for a decade.

Grohl and Co. have celebrated the veins of American rock music from coast to coast, but their fear of over-administering each city’s sonic roots into their own blueprint has hindered the progression of Sonic Highways into a cohesive unit, and instead resulted in a challenging listen.

It’s an album without the excitement of the first Digital Shades without the correct tones and instruments to recall those pioneers, and in terms of quality, Junk is still a little better.

Sky Full of Holes, the band's fifth release, doesn't stray from their foundation of fitting rhymed schemes amidst archetypical power pop chords.

At 50 minutes, there is the overriding feeling that the album outstays its welcome, with the blueprint lacking the dynamism for it to maintain its focus.

There's a weird combination of influences at work here.

Spend The Night With... offers some impressive diversity without sounding tossed off or smashed together, and for all of the sloppiness it's a surprisingly cohesive album.

It's terrific fun while it lasts, and Moon's knowingly gawky charms just about manage to stave off any lingering Jimmy Ray (remember him?) related doubts, but the general lack of content does offer fairly compromised value for money, and raises questions as to if he'll be able to think of ways to expand his repertoire without ruining the central conceit, or just end up being an oddball one trick pony.

If only Jones would also add some color to his verbatim accounts to match his minimal pop songs, then we would have a real contender in our hands.

Ukulele Songs can aptly be summed up as Vedder's pensive doppelganger which has been peeking out sporadically over the past decade or so, with none of his Pearl Jam-rage presenting itself here.

All We Are has potential, but it's squandered on their debut in an attempt to make a spacey, moody soundtrack.

Freak Puke is at its very core a Melvins album: strange and abrasive, muck-borne and jagged.

The "effluxion" between records has taught Lerner to evolve while sticking to what he knows best, and though some of his approaches don't work, they also push him to find the subtleties within his richer compositions.

With a combination of new and old faces, the new iteration of Art Brut is rhythmically tighter and more robust, less ramshackle, as Argos embraces middle-aged malaise with his charmingly lyrical bluster.

Too much of Weathervanes is unnecessary fluff. Of the album's 13 tracks, three are wordless moments of focus-less, meaningless noise and at least three other songs could have been trimmed down by a few minutes.

M.I.A. has now made a trilogy of inventive, engrossing records, but for the sake of music we'd all better hope that MAYA isn't the beginning of the end.

A "more accessible, less-noisy Jesus and Mary Chain".

Mythomania’s level of sophistication is not hard to achieve and it certainly does nothing to elevate Cohen’s abilities, his contributions to Deerhoof being markedly superior.

While flawed, this is still a very worthy record; a majestic realization of the promise shown by Chapel Club over the past two years and one equally suggestive of the what may be to come.

The relentless energy expended throughout the album will no doubt also make the album appeal to fans of Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Pendulum or the Prodigy. But listeners with a broader appreciation of dance and electronic music would be well advised to source their dubstep fix from elsewhere.

It's exactly what everyone expected this much hyped album to be like. We all guessed the Jay-Z appearance and a Wu-Tang member outshining the other acts on show. We all expected insane feats of arrogance... But don't get me wrong, it's a good album.

Naomi is a decent album, not a good one.

theyesandeye is charming, and even throws in a cover of The xx’s Angels, but is lacking the dimension required to make it anything more than a polite and pleasant affair.

The album suffers some of the worst adjectives any musician can hear: boring, forgettable, and embarrassing.

She misses the mark slightly, and though her take on sweeping and haunting art-pop isn't always the most distinct--especially when compared to some of her like minded peers--it is in the end a truer and more consistent statement of her abilities, and one that also offers a lot more promise.

This is such a charming little band, such a charming little album that one wants to like it more than it deserves.

If more is to come, it should bring with it a great deal of anticipation - Colour Trip has a great deal of promise about it, and that, it seems, is hard to miss, even through all the noise.

The album finds Peter, Bjorn and John settling into a comfort zone that, while hardly groundbreaking, makes for intriguing listening.

If Small Craft on a Milk Sea was an installation piece in the museum of Brian Eno's career, requiring rapt attention to find meaning, Drums Between the Bells is modern art that immediately captures those witnessing it in a state of aesthetic arrest.

You have never heard these songs like they are presented here, and there's a chance you have never heard them better, either.

Sushi's main strength is the way it draws from so many strands of contemporary electronic music, but sounds like something else in its own right.

They play directly to the people willing to get swept up in a communal euphoria, and they do that very, very well.

It doesn't feel forced in any way and actually can seem a little lacklustre at times due to this.

Most bands are simply prolonging the genre’s decline by playing insensibly catchy pop under the sonic crust we’ve come to know it for. Failing either, we’re left with the dull ad nauseums of the musical record. And that, in a sentence, is Born Again Revisited.

13 songs in 36 minutes is a constrictive ratio for a record with so many proposed ideas, and its brevity makes Rustie’s ideas sound especially half-hearted. It’s bad enough that he doesn’t give the more physical tracks enough time to flex their muscles, but the tracks which suffer most are the briefer, more innocuous pieces.

Though it often oversteps its own ability a few too many times, The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion is clear in aggression and ambition, rarely annoying listeners with undue hubris.

Crawling Up The Stairs has strong riptides that have no qualms over carrying you away, but if you embrace them you may be pleasurably surprised.

So the bottom line is this album turns out to be about half good, is probably not going to mean much to people who don't remember them, and while it hits all the right notes in places, it doesn't quite deliver any moments of pure pop perfection the way they used to.

It’s too flabby to listen to as a whole, and unless the label decides to re-release 'Stuck On Repeat' (which isn’t a bad idea actually) there’s nothing here strong enough to force a mainstream breakthrough.

As promising as its initial concentration of songs foretells, The Century Of Self suffers from careless sequencing, its tempos haphazardly spooned together and flung like high school portions of mashed potatoes and gravy, slopped into sections of the tray with no real purpose or benefit.

Hurley sums up like a consumer guide of all the musical directions Weezer has explored throughout the years.

Unfortunately, her constant insistence on being so ham-fistedly quirky and zany soon becomes wearing, and simultaneously rescues and spoils the whole album.

Cotillions does have its fair share of bloat, though—at 17 tracks and clocking in over an hour, its instrumental parallels can often feel redundant once it concludes. Nevertheless, his recent "unplugged" projects suggest he’s found fulfillment carving his own path rather than overthinking how to capture the spirit of our times.

Ratworld wears its influences brazenly on its sleeves, but its execution is impressive, presenting an odd bird view of a world that is ostensibly its own.

Skilled Mechanics is an intelligent, pertinent piece of work that shows just how fresh the ideas of Thaws remain.

Eat Skull’s impressive new album is a healthy reminder of what can happen when these two opposing halves converge into one beautiful whole.

Admittedly, iii flirts dangerously with its commercial sound, to the displeasure of fans used to Miike Snow’s earlier work. But there is no denying the creepy genius of Genghis Khan, the frenzied fun of For U (a collaboration with Charli XCX, no less), or the unapologetic bounce of The Heart of Me.

While it won’t be for everyone, and won’t be an album for all occasions, Life on Earth is a stark, devastating achievement.

Just like the band itself, it presents something of an ongoing identity crisis for the band, one that hasn’t figured out how to advance their sound except to put more meat on the bones.

As it is, Big Black Delta offers more than its fair share of thrills, but there’s the sense it could be so much better if Bates didn’t feel the need to draw the line quite so clearly between his various projects.

The EP works much better as a B-side companion to Furr, because neither the energy nor the ratio of good songs to so-so songs is high enough for the record to stand on its own.

Though Owens takes precise measures to avoid it, the downfall of Lysandre ultimately comes down to this same-y-ness, as the majority of the album's tracks do very little to truly grab the listeners attention.

Many of the tracks on Dos! are merely soulless specters of previous work from Green Day's "golden-age."

Purposefully ridiculous but brilliant.

Certain songs try to recapture their old glory, while others feel like an embarrassing pop ploy—but the most consistent feeling is pure disappointment. Even when Green Day is supposedly having fun here, they sound tired and overworked at best.

If there's any downside, it's that their sophomore album doesn't do anything to distinguish itself from its predecessor. But you know what? When you write songs that are just as strong as your past work, evolution is less of a necessity. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

Challenging and proudly disjointed, Innocence Reaches showcases a deranged songwriter whose fickle character knows no bounds.

With Valentina, [Gedge] has created another fine love album, full of clever, relatable, fine love songs.

Rhyton simply play their music, unfettered by the constraints of tradition, structure or expectation, and it's that quality that makes their album such a thrilling experience.

So while Jagjaguwar may well release a below par record in 2008, Shots is not that record.

It just feels like all the wacky studio noise takes away from what could have been a really fun album.

G I R L sounds like the work of a much less interesting artist. But if Pharrell’s goal was to bring happiness to his listeners and vibrant tunes to the charts, then by all means he’s fulfilled his goal.

The third chapter in She & Him’s discography won’t convert those who dislike the genre and it won’t alienate fans of it either.

Though charmingly lo-fi and sure to satisfy any enamoured female fan, most of these tracks drag on too long without any payoff.

Asleep at Heaven’s Gate is strangely flawed because the warmth of the first two albums has been exchanged for grandeur and detached shellac. By no means is this a fall from grace for Rogue Wave, but it is the band’s first significant stumble.

How these twee-approved embellishments help the record are hard to prove, seeing as none of them give it the edge it sorely needs. Yet, in the least, the gentle sighs render Mister Pop as intermittently pretty as it is prosaic, and point toward a new, if unstable, direction for the band.

Next to the realized space of OM's previous albums, which has always contributed greatly to the spiritual and meditative focus they convey, Advaitic Songs sounds flat, a detriment to the album which might otherwise be, next to their grandest, OM's most accomplished.

While Ghost B.C. could certainly use a little added variety, both musically and lyrically (maybe Satan could sit out as lyricist for like five songs on their next record), there’s plenty here to admire.

There are areas, in the likes of Instrument, where the creeping grooves are compelling and the tension is perfectly poised, but time and time again these moments are lost amongst reverb bursts and toxic swells that go past the point of creating a metronomic cue to something sinister, and instead appear vexatious in their oppression.

Imperium is more homage than innovation, and while it further preserves the integrity of early indie rock, it only hints that Blouse is more than a revival act.

The whole thing mostly works, though, thanks to the generous application of a Blue Album power-pop filter. I Need Some of That channels The Cars (like much of Weezer’s finest work) and is the clear standout here, but there’s plenty more to raise a smile.

Krug is a songwriter whose craft is best when met with the editing of other musicians--left to himself, however, we are left with a very forgettable retreat into his very OMD-obsessed psyche.

In all this album won't be world changing. The Vaccines are not "the saviours of British rock and roll" but What Did You... doesn't need to be. Instead it's inviting and well observed more than anything, a triumph typified by Post Break-Up Sex--a sublime sketch of that insensitively cute idiom, all guilt-ridden and relatable.

They have made a marked improvement from their 2009 EP, sounding more assured and confident. Every song is played with enthusiasm, and it makes for a blissful, hazy experience.

Bell House covers many musical facets, both old and new, but what it truly showcases is Shy Boys' growth and malleability as songwriters.

Stuck in his salad days, the problem isn't so much what Wiley is doing, it's what everyone else has done in the interim.

While Season High has its showstopping moments, as a whole it tries to cram in too many ideas into a variety of disjointed themes.

For an album steeped so much in coming to terms with loss and grief, with finding redemption, and with starting anew, it captures Surfer Blood doing something they haven't done in years, and that's have fun making music.

Since the lyrical content now borders on morose and even sadistic, the music also follows the leader with a muck of baseless solos and thrilling codas to compensate for the otherwise linear compositions.

When he does adapt a more modern trap-orientated sound on the final two tracks it doesn’t really work, and this brings down the EP as an entire listen. Crown thrives when he stays close to his classic sound and the flourishes he adds, which today's stripped and skeletal approach to beatmaking actively avoid.

Noah And The Whale would have done better to focus on the more organic sound they became quite good at than become just another forgettable crossover act.

There is a clear aspiration for this album to be ubiquitous, and well, overbearing with tunes. Rather than follow the typical pop formula, Rihanna gives an album specifically catered to where she is now with her career, music, and life. And blaring seems to be the point.

Femme Fatale equips Britney with material which is strong enough to enable the original all-American Pop Princess to hold her own in such an overcrowded context.

These songs just lack that certain oomph to separate Free Energy from the thousands of groups who have sang about girls before.

Too many songs disappoint, though.