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

This album is a great one, and proof that the band are able and willing to develop and grow their music.

It feels like they've been doing this for years, and while they quite literally all have, the way they have formed and moulded that sum of past experience into one new entity is nothing but impressive.

This album then delivers anger, honesty and arrogance, all in sporadic scatter-gun fashion: the overriding feeling is confused, uncertain, often unreasonable, but ultimately well intentioned.

While Palomo advances his songwriting by attempting a concept album, he fails to vary the songs enough to allow their inner essence to shine, to glow, to hook inside the listener, to haunt them.

More than anything, Big Talk reflects the Vegas background of its middling maestro.

Richmond Fontaine should be commended for bucking the singles trend and crafting an album that functions best, possibly only, as a whole, especially amid rumors of the album's impending demise.

Not once does this record manage to clamber out of its self-imposed constraints of mediocrity; and for a band genuinely capable of blissful set piece tracks, that makes it mostly a somewhat distressing token.

Bondy trudges along without much to believe in, but his instilled confidence tells otherwise.

here isn't enough variation on here to retain its limited intrigue, as Lortz relies too much on his consistently unremarkable songwriting; ultimately, it's a forgettable record.

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.

Beachy summer party/winter bummer wallpaper for your Bohemian café-bar and for the hipsters that frequent it, who like their pop music perfectly pleasant and non-threatening.

They've deftly struck the balance between breaking new ground and retaining their sound while making a record that has – bold statement alert – NO bad songs on it.

It's a mediocre album, and I'm only being hard on you because I sincerely wanted more. Like a pissy parent, I'm not mad at you... I'm disappointed.

Simply put, it's far too repetitive, especially considering its short length, and even on repeated listens tracks seem impossible to tell apart--particularly, after the strong opening provided by Welcome, the run of Apart, Motion and Expect all sound pretty much the same.

With Junk of the Heart, the Kooks are completely discarding level-headedness in favor of offbeat trial tests that fail to give any of the tracks any added gravitas.

Sound Kapital, with its concise length and sound quality (omit none of these songs), should be the flagship for such a shift. Spencer Krug should take note.

Most of all, the music is a nostalgic trip to a time that most of its listeners have never actually experienced. That concept makes Out Of Love enchanting, but it's one of those albums that mood, time, place and company all have to line up correctly to capture the intended experience.

I'm With You is the sound of a band that continues to coast off past achievements.

There are some nice moments in the mess, and sometimes I'm almost tempted to look past the annoyances before they build up--but sometimes, that's frankly just not possible.

If you're not a fan of gangster rap, BlackenedWhite is unlikely to change your attitude towards the genre. But for fans, this album is definitely worth checking out.

Lenses Alien is a thick, abundantly ornate listen that overawes as much as it enthralls.

Fever Dream may not be the most revolutionary electronic album of the year but as a whole, it's strong, and will prove an enjoyable journey for fans of instrumental hip-hop, triphop and chillwave, as well as anyone who is partial to the occasional moment of dreamy, psychedelic dance.

Ultimately, Our Blood must be graded on what it is (rather than what it could have been), and it is quite good.

All that being said, every track has at least something of interest about it, and with Obscurities managing to squeeze in fourteen of them in less than forty minutes, even the worst never outstay their welcome.

And, though, theirs is not the only voice of dissent, they continue to provide an argument against convention. And, it's very convincing.

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.

So in spite of the complacency of the later tracks, there are enough stellar moments here to make it worth keeping an eye out for I Break Horses.