Emphasizing rhythm more than melody, the songs throb along on funky bass lines, repetitive drumbeats, spacey sci-fi synths and hushed, whispered vocals.

While this is an atmospheric record, it's also upbeat and poppy enough to encourage dancing or at least vigorous head-nodding.

Impressive, then, that this boy-army, one-girl team was able to pull off a contemporary R&B album so feminine, breezy and thankfully low on ballads.

There's plenty here to compare to his unfairly criticized Rock N Roll record: new wave influences, contemporary alt-rock. The difference is that Adams sounds comfortable rather than out to prove a point.

Producer Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Interpol) helps them cautiously move into industrial territory, as on Turn The Bells. But if McVeigh's methods irked you before, they only get worse on Ritual.

Recorded, like their last album, without guitarist Bruce Gilbert, it contains many other ingredients that will sound familiar to long-time fans, namely an emphasis on erudite, sometimes snotty lyrics and big, heavy riffs.

Written and recorded on the road during a long North American tour supporting his recent full-length, The Wild Hunt, the five tracks maintain a consistently downtrodden tone.

While it's clear that Last Train's combination of electro and house with hip-hop and R&B is Combs's baby, it's the group format that makes it work as an album.

If you still have a stomach for violent, vulgar content, this is recommended.

Let's face it, outside of the obvious singles, it's filler town.

Artists who put out album sequels are often criticized for trying to capitalize on a classic work. No one will accuse G-Unit lieutenant Lloyd Banks of that with the second instalment of his uneven debut.

Frances McKee and Eugene Kelly had randy sides to them back in the 80s, and that hasn't abated.

The songs are still simple, but they're delivered with a sophistication only hinted at on her debut.

Like his debut album, the sequel suffers and shines due to inconsistency. Cudi's strong creative streak leads him to follow through on every idea that crosses his mind, resulting in brilliantly unique moments and lots of stoner stumbles.

He delivers a tour de force on each track, solidifying his rep as one of the most dynamic performers in pop.

Unlike the many psychedelic loop-crazy Panda Bears popping up these days, Twin Shadow skilfully crafts structured songs that stand out and are full of soul and mournfulness.

The patient, thoughtful strokes here are sometimes interesting but rarely exciting.

Cutesy lyrics with insipid rhymes like "You can count on me like one, two, three" abound on songs that play out less like a cohesive album and more like no-brainer radio references to Coldplay, U2, Michael Jackson, Sade, Feist and so on.

Strangely, a distinct analogue warmth still shines through. Think Enya filtered through chillwave.

Things pick up in the second half, when the lyrics become more surprising and the beats less radio-friendly. Despite some perplexing moments, there's a lot to like.

Those who go to genuine underground parties every weekend will find it a bit lame, but considering the work of his fellow chart-topping populists, you could do a lot worse.

The album is stylistically restless, jumping from power pop to 60s-inspired ballads, with dashes of disco, 80s dance music and klezmer squeezed in.

Shad's delivery and enunciation are impeccable. The only rewinds necessary are to catch lines like "hustle on the level of Barney Rubble on Red Bull." TSOL will no doubt give Shad the recognition he deserves.

Like the Double Down monstrosity, the first bite is an odd mix of tasty and disgusting, but by the end of it you just feel ill and ashamed.

Lyrics are heavy-handed (especially on the Papa Don't Preach rip-off Keeping My Baby), melodies are forgettable, and her voice has little charm or personality. Disappointing.

All Day is a more complicated mix than Girl Talk's previous albums, with more to notice on repeat listens. And just like everything else he's done, it's an exhausting experience.

Despite the nostalgia-brightened compositions, a rawness adds a tinge of melancholy to the proceedings. Here's hoping they keep this up.

While curiosities and lost tracks usually only appeal to the fan who has everything, this album stands as a perfect complement to Springsteen's mid-70s work.

if her music, which sounds like it was created using a supercomputer analyzing months of market-research-driven algorithms determined by the texting and internet search habits of suburban females aged 12 to 18, sets out to be catchy, slick, radio junk food--mission accompli$hed.

Robyn takes a range of styles from dancehall and rap to house and disco and melds them with her big pop sound featuring four-to-the-floor beats and thoughtful, unsentimental lyrics about love and loneliness.

Musically, Ne-Yo spends most of his time here worshipping the throne of Michael Jackson ballads, which suits his falsetto crooning quite well. However, it's the handful of upbeat techno-influenced speaker-thumpers that stand out most, revealing his potential to be a much more versatile artist.

He celebrates his contradictions with such musical flair, it's a thrilling listen from beginning to end.

To make listeners' hearts melt, there's a lullaby for Joel's daughter, Harlow, a bit of a cynical move when most of the album is about sleeping with other radio stars, getting wasted like it's your birthday and getting wasted, sleeping with someone, blacking out and thinking it was the best night of your life.

The tracks are long, grinding and relentlessly angry about the state of the world.

Sometimes a sequel can out do the original. That's the case with Curren$y's follow-up to Pilot Talk, thanks largely to stepped-up production by Ski Beatz, whose beats sound like a minute hasn't passed since he worked on Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt.

Diamond's song selection will hardly shake anyone's world – two each by the Beatles and Randy Newman – but he has the vocal power to make many cuts his own.

The record's best moments aim low rather than loud, with spacious, skittery beats that let loose Rihanna's Caribbean cadence.

Despite a few tripped-out pop gems, the album is largely what you'd expect to hear after gazing into Moss's glassy eyes: a classic sound but not a classic record.

Ultimately, though, the comp is uneven, and it's difficult to determine the intended audience; fans likely already own these songs.

You'd be hard pressed to find an album as varied as Elvis Costello's National Ransom (his 26th, give or take).

Celebrity aside, Speak Now is as hooky as its predecessors but differs in its often angry, spiteful tone.

The album is overly long, but there's a straightforwardness to the live-and-loose party vibe that's hard to resist.

The real triumphs come when beats make unexpected appearances, bringing to mind the left-field electronic music that his new label, Warp, was once revered for. Makes you wonder what Eno would come up with if he ventured into techno.

While The Fool has clear focus and crafts a particular sound, the music fails to resonate emotionally.

This first album in five years from aural collage artists Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong is immensely listenable, as serene as it is unclassifiable.

The interchanging players fit beautifully into B&S's repertoire of unrequited pop anthems and introspective acoustic ballads.

The album also hints at bossa nova and jazz but never abandons the post-rock sounds that are the band's forte. The most inviting Mice Parade effort to date.

With its haunting risks that resonate, Love Remains is a perfect fall record.

The Followill boys were experimenting and started leading us somewhere. The fact that Come Around Sundown falls short, then, is all the more disappointing.

In some ways the change in direction makes you feel closer to him than ever – especially if you can digest Impossible Soul, a 25-minute dissection of failed love at the end of this already lofty 75-minute charmer.

Swanlights is curiously one-note, occasionally self-indulgent and fails to leave a strong impression. Or perhaps Hegarty's simply raised the bar impossibly high for himself.

The results are exactly what fans of either act would hope for and a pleasant surprise for those who'd given up on both of them.

What makes this work so beautifully is that the sound is completely unique and modern and yet couldn't be confused for anyone else.

Public Strain is front-loaded with some of the more patience-testing tunes, but stick with it to discover some astonishing beauties.

Ronson approaches pop almost like a hip-hop producer. He's assembled a cavalcade of guest collaborators too numerous to name, but for the most part his focus keeps Record Collection from feeling overcooked.

This time around, the lo-fi quality is less abrasive but still dirty and intimate enough to stop anyone from yelling Sell out!

With every album, Deerhunter strip away more layers of textural ambience and reveal what some fans knew all along: that they're a pop band.

A Swedish Love Story's brevity is basically a kind of pop tease, but the upbeat (or "posi," as he put it in a press release) vibes make for a stirring and enjoyable listen.

He sticks so closely to the original arrangements that his shortcomings as a vocalist are painfully evident. Had he tried to reinterpret the classics even a little bit, we wouldn't be so quick to compare his singing to the originals.

It's an accomplished record for singer Adam Levine and his faceless group, even if the whole affair sometimes sounds clinical in its approach.

The Roots aren't averse to a good cover song, so it's not surprising to see them team up with R&B crooner John Legend for a set of throwback soul tunes.

If David Browne's Sonic Youth bio was to be believed, Swans, who emerged from the same noise-filled no wave scene in New York's early 80s as Thurston Moore, had a rotating cast of nasty-tempered psychotic rockers, with multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira at its centre. Listening to Swans' new album, the first in 14 years, you get the sense that some of that malevolence remains.

Arriving ahead of a full-length, this five-song EP confirms our suspicion of the duo's pop genius.

Some might lament the increased accessibility and decreased experimentation, but it doesn't take long to realize that these tracks do as much in four minutes as the 18-minute epics in Black Mountain's past.

This time Karl Hyde and Rick Smith team up with a revolving cast of dance producers (Appleblim, Al Tourettes, High Contrast), hoping one of the many approaches to rock-meets-techno will again produce a bankable hit. Surprise! That doesn't happen.

Like most eccentric geniuses, Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes is as frustrating as he is brilliant.

As endearing as Jorge Garcia's face is, shining warmly from the cover of Weezer's eighth release, the timely pop reference to a Lost character is the perfect symbol for a band on a continued downward spiral into meme-based gimmickry and music with zero staying power.

Cave drops brilliantly funny lines throughout, and his enthusiasm for this project is palpable.

Accented by González's charming harmonies, close-mic'ed guitar work and Winterkorn's hazy, retro synths, the album is a headphones record that reveals new depth with every listen.

It's nice that he's managed to keep things tasteful, but instead of quiet intensity, it comes across more as overly cautious and timid – not exactly what he was aiming for.

Slippin' And Slidin' on Harlem River Blues, probably the 28-year-old's strongest album yet, hints at that tendency. Slippin' And Slidin' on Harlem River Blues, probably the 28-year-old's strongest album yet, hints at that tendency.

Still, while we wait for a pop saviour to take the genre forward, Chromeo provide a nice enough tribute to its past.

Flowers plays it too safe. For a record about Las Vegas, he sure doesn't gamble much.

Everything from the production to the songwriting seems aimed to evoke the 60s, and the album would probably sound killer on a good turntable.

It's a better album than their last, and diehard fans should be satisfied, but it's not going to get the rest of us very excited.

On the first three tracks, she tackles enduring pop-music themes like love, loneliness and friendship with the kind of unsentimental yet empathetic songwriting fans of the Pet Shop Boys might admire. Midway, her worldly confidence morphs into outright cockiness and the beats grow aggressive.

Do too many cooks spoil this classic rock 'n' roll concoction? Hell, no.

These are love songs with sharp edges that keep the sweetness mysterious.

Despite some cliched lyrics and cheesy moments (Bootful Of Beer is pretty goofy, the groovy Wheels is straight out of a steamy 80s-rock-chick video), the album--the Wilsons' first in six years--is both tough and tender, and makes a girl like me dive into the YouTube archives to relish the ass-kicking awesomeness that was and still is Heart.

Maybe the label was hoping to get back some of the Goo Goos' 90s magic, but that doesn't happen.

Selway sounds like a space-age Badly Drawn Boy, only less lovable. His melodies are simplistic, his lyrics amateurish. If he weren't in the band, it'd be easy to write him off as a Radiohead rip-off.

The album's not quite as heavy as its predecessor, but there are enough down-tuned riffs and effects-laden solos to satisfy old fans.

A song like AM/FM is downright uplifting, catchy and groove-heavy which, along with bucking our expectations, is always what lifted this eight-member band above the fray.

The follow-up to Ra Ra Riot's well-received debut album opens with a slow-moving reminder that this romantic indie-styled Syracuse sextet love their violins and cellos.

Ultimately, you sense Powell pushing, giving and breaking through.

Those two qualities [Perry's sex appeal and goofy, self-effacing charm] are out of balance for most of the album, resulting in awkward jams like E.T. (Futuristic Lover) and Peacock.

The hooks are in short supply, and the production, as on "Flashover," overstuffed and claustrophobic. That cat photo almost saves the day, but not quite.

Overall this is a testament to Wilson's endless creativity.

When they do get adventurous and experimental, they execute it with such smoothness that even those moments of danger and excitement sound muted and safe. It's a solid disc, but you can't shake a sense that the Budos Band is capable of more.

It's common for heavily hyped albums to fall flat, but Arcade Fire's long-anticipated third LP hits with the satisfied thud of met potential.

This is much more about capturing their inimitable onstage chemistry with sizzling fuzz guitar solos, unexpected fusions of styles and the kind of relaxed confidence that only comes with this kind of history.

Shards of digital distortion and self-indulgent instrumentals are pretty much gone. What remains is a novel reworking of the California surf punk formula.

While Bun B's weathered voice and lyrical detail add weight to his words, there are a lot of predictable OG conventions on this overlong album.

Unlike Rick Ross, who entertainingly describes his (completely fictitious) exploits in fantastically opulent terms, Joe brags with a dullness that betrays how often he's repeated this story. And the production seems dated all the way down to Kilo, which uses a sample that Ghostface Killah and Raekwon employed to much grimier effect in 2006.

Much of the record is stuck in a good but not great sound from 10 years back.

It's a slow, über-democratic process that, on the band's fourth album, results in sputtering post-rock à la early Flaming Lips that varies wildly from song to song.

Even though the production is immaculate, featuring amazing work by Lex Luger, and the guest list is impressive, the album falls flat. The problem: Ross takes himself too seriously.

Sadly, the vocals thwart this otherwise innovative, frantic danceathon. Those who grind their teeth in the presence of excessive vocoder will have to book a session with their dentist. The record's also too short.