Unlikely to win over any feminists, or win any literary prizes, Here We Stand’s main problem is being overlong and under-chorused.

A streamlined slab of silky, soul-soaked rock music, Seeing Sounds succeeds in capturing the best experiments on their first two albums while injecting new-school sequences into the mix.

While the dancehall-inflected 'Dirty Disco Dub' suffers from cheesy vocal samples, the second half of the record settles down into better but still well-trod territory reminiscent of better Aphex Twin and Brian Eno.

The result isn’t quite on a par with their best work, but it’s nothing to scoff at either.

If you thought no one made albums like this any more, they don’t so enjoy The Hard Way.

Wading through almost an hour of smoky-voiced lonely-heart ballads like You Only Call Me When You're Drunk, Late Night Partner and Until Tomorrow Then is a yawn-inducing exercise that makes you question whether Harcourt's really this sad or if he's just putting on a lugubrious front.

Takes’ boldest move and its artistic centrepiece must be the mashing up of Aphex Twin’s positively scary To Cure A Weakling Child and Boy/Girl Song into a melodious lullaby.

Both are on point throughout, making Velocifero a solid album, maybe too solid. I wish they’d crack the mould a little.

Aside from a few missteps like 'Everybody Get Dangerous,' there really isn’t anything to get all pissy about here because it’s an older Weezer willing to take a few chances and still doing what they want to do.

While it’s not a bad debut, it’s nothing special either.

Ashanti’s still got a decent voice, but she’s badly in need of a better songwriting and production team.

Although Lay It Down is initially appealing because it has the super­ficial sound of Green’s classic Hi material, you soon discover that Green has nothing terribly deep to offer lyrically, and his vocals are locked on cruise control throughout.

Spiritualized always had that out-of-body, walk-toward-the-light quality; Pierce just seems to be doing it better now than on the last two albums.

There is some filler here and there, but the record is fun and catchy.

There is a fair amount of Bowie-esque schmaltz in Vincenzi Vendetta’s vocals, which make Dystopia a little harder to swallow than its instantly catchy cousin, Cut Copy’s "In Ghost Colours."

Totally cohesive and thoroughly bangin’.

Same Old Man isn’t Hiatt’s finest hour but it’s still far from his worst.

He’s much better at showing off his record collection on the well-chilled "Ice Castles," which purports to be a James Pants mix disc.

It’s not a complete washout; there are indeed some promising moments. Unfortunately, none of them get developed enough to compensate for the bland­ness of the rest of the album.

Sitek attempts to do Johansson (and us) a favour by burying her monotonous voice deep in the mix, but unfortunately, the musical support isn’t interesting enough to carry the album. Skip it.

The title track and opener has a huge sound, but it’s the simple yet infectious guitar riff that keeps it together.

Hopefully, the band will release new material soon, but No, Virginia is a good snack before the next meal.

Unfortunately Summers’s voice and persona just don’t suit this material.

At times the Crosby, Stills & Nash-­inspired harmony bits come off slightly overbaked, but if Oldham is angling for a summery feel-good sound that will go down well with Americana fans without alienating his sad sack indie rock fans, I’d say he knocked it out of the park.

At this point, however, the movement of white UK female artists using 60s nostalgia to reinvent pop music is not all that original, but at least it’s a welcome break from the previous trends.

Not the rock assault Gibbard thinks it is, but certainly more hard-hitting than ever.

The disc has plenty of amped-up, distortion-filled moments (Ride, The Easy Way), but the band throws in more than few twangy, laid-back tracks (She Loves The Sunset, The Beautiful Thing). Infectious tunes and, most important, variety, make this another great disc in the band’s solid career.

This “mix­tape album” decently whets the appetite.

Beautifully spooky.

Its darker, brooding electro, like the mesmerizing distortion-filled Round The Hairpin, represents a newer, grown-up force for the Sheffielders that’s even more seductive than lip gloss and vintage heels.

This might be news to the Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, but for every artist there’s a point where aspiration exceeds ability. The Last Shadow Puppets, his new studio dalliance with pal Miles Kane, have way overshot it on The Age Of The Understatement.

Definitely on the arty end of the post-rock gradient, No Age manage to channel elements of other great bands who have woken up drunk on the lo-fi line between pretty and noisy.

Much of their bubbly futuristic synth music goes no deeper than what you’d hear in old TV Ontario science shows. Cute but disposable.

This second album for Lost Highway isn’t radically different from 2004’s return to sneering form The Delivery Man, only the rockin’ tracks sound slightly less raucous and the ballads not quite as bitter. So he’s back in Attractions mode, sans the old piss and vinegar.

Yet another must-have for Animal Collective fans.

Truthfully, it's a mellow Sunday afternoon after a hard night's clubbing: perfectly pleasant, but quite forgettable.

This is understated folk pop, and as a result, some may be disappointed by the lack of big pop hooks. However, for those of us who always found Diamond overwrought and too extroverted, this restraint is refreshing and welcome.

It’s a fairly light album and doesn’t do anything new musically, but it’s solid; you don’t feel like it needs to be anything else.

Even though not every twisted move they make on Third pays dividends, considering the stakes, consciously fucking with their formula is a bold gamble for which they should be saluted.

If "Tournament Of Hearts" lacked consistency and focus, Heights feels like a fully realized artistic statement. Welcome back, Constantines.

Thankfully, this is more about Otis, Marvin and Stevie, which Lidell does amazingly well for a British experimental techno brat.

Overall, Hard Candy sounds a bit too much like Madonna’s trying to catch up with the American R&B princesses. Having said that, she holds her own for the most part, and when her own voice shines through, she reminds us why she’s outlasted so many.

This time, the Mos Def/Common/Talib triumvirate contribution is expectedly solid. Saigon proves his debut's delay is criminal. Malik B shows how much he needs to be the permanent Prince Po to Thought's Pharoahe Monch. And Kamal, Hubbard and ?uestlove flesh out a series of sonically stunning numbers midway through.

Near the album’s close, the psychedelic insanity of Ka Re Ha Te Ta Sa Ki is a whirlwind of pounding drums, circular chanting, spasmodic guitar noise and violent soloing that perfectly exemplifies Smile’s fusion of panicky, heavy abrasiveness and lush, melodic and dreamy sprawls.

While they must know they won’t be reinventing the wheel any time soon, Sparkle Lounge is their most upbeat music in a while.

No, the sound isn’t all that different from what Petty does with the Heartbreakers, but the Mudcrutch album has the looser feel you get from old buddies jamming for kicks.

9th Wonder can now give the BDI Emcee his top-batch beats since being disowned by Little Brother, so a multitude of satisfying soul-inflected thumpers grace The Formula.

This record finds Winwood on a clichéd existential journey into jazzy world music territory, which should play well with the over-50 soft cock rock set, who for some inexplicable reason don’t seem to mind six-minute sax solos.

What sets Heloise, et al., apart from others mining the same sonic epoch are consistent hooks, guest vocals by Debbie Harry and catchy-as-hell disco bass lines courtesy of a rhythm section that’s tight­er than Williams’s neon spandex unitard.

The combo of ethereal prog rock and lead singer Guy Garvey’s hushed, careworn words couldn’t be finer than on mournful, horn-laden 'Weather To Fly,' while sing-along stadium-ready cliche 'One Day Like This' is the only discernible reminder of why I avoided them in the first place.

He’s still expanding his vocal range, but this hour of soulful, sugary funk will accompany your summer parties quite well.

Billy Bragg’s studio return finds him in his comfort zone provided by the Blokes and producer Grant Showbiz under yet another title copped from novelist Colin MacInnes.

TPC keep their songs taut and mostly under three minutes, so Elephant Shell whips by in a charging whirl of indie rock urgency but skips on substance.

No matter how glossy the production, it’s impossible not to notice that Simpson can’t sing well enough to carry an album, while her peppy, Avril-lite personality comes off as contrived and as obnoxious as Lavigne’s.

Lends itself to numerous repeat listens and laughs.

There is some insubstantial filler here, but more often than not, E = MC2 hits the mark.

Surprisingly, the least pop-based tracks stand out most.

The Kooks seem unable to get beyond the Brit-rock blueprint.

Everything on My Bloody Underground suffers from Newcombe’s chronic lack of focus, leaving the entire mess sounding like half-assed sonic sketches farted out in a friend’s basement over a woozy weekend.

It’s not surprising, then, that a number of the tunes on Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! sound familiar. Besides the ones that sound like rewrites of Iggy Pop and Leonard Cohen rewrites, Cave and crew aren’t above recycling their own work--'More News From Nowhere' is just a riff on 'Deanna.'

At 36 tracks, Ghosts is as impressively ambitious as it is uneven and stunted.

The end product, however, is an album easy to admire yet tough to love.

The whole idea of Philly fruitcakes Man Man releasing an album that sounds like a dusted deconstruction of Tom Waits’s Swordfishtrombones--complete with grumbling old man affectations--on the same label that releases albums by Waits is too much of a nutty coincidence not to be a cockeyed po-mo parody.

For diehards only.

Her 11th album is full of potential hits (and not too many boring mid-tempo plodders). Unfortunately, there's nothing quite as catchy here as 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head,' although a few tracks come close.

Los Campesinos! are hyper-literate college kids out to make big statements from microcosmic situations, but the metaphors in the overly abstract lyrics often get away from Gareth and co-vocalist Aleks.

Last Night is a cool idea and a mission almost impossible.

What’s most impressive about Attack & Release is how they’ve raised their vocal and compositional game in accord with the sonic enhancements, bringing an unexpected poignancy to their earthy funkiness. Every track is a stunner.

There are a few jangly throwbacks for nostalgia’s sake interspersed throughout Accelerate, but they’re overshadowed by blustery guitar blather that shouts “anachronism” at every turn.

It’s difficult to hear this as anything but self-parody.

Of course, hilariously outlandish quasi-mystical song titles like 'Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperze­phyerians' probably won’t help their cause, but the progressively regressive arrangements, more skillful riffing and their relentless, groove-conscious attack will go a long way toward endearing them to serious metalheads who’ll appreciate the Sword’s obvious Sabbath, Maiden and Budgie inspiration.

On their seventh disc, the music successfully carries the message, thanks in no small part to Bowie/Morrissey/T. Rex producer extraordinaire Tony Visconti, who pumps even more life into these loud, rousing singalong choruses and driving power chords without sacrificing dynamics or naked emotion.

For the most part, this collection is a great addition to the band’s oeuvre.

So instead of rehashing Cosmic Thing for an ill-fated comeback banking on nostalgia, guitarist Keith Strickland learned Pro Tools, bought some electro records and voila: the B-52’s have a contemporary dance-rock record. Startlingly, this works.

For the most part, this album would sound completely at home on classic rock radio.

It’s a much more musically diverse album than the Raconteurs have done before, but there are many more misses than hits among these 14 tracks.

The 25-year-old Earle may have the false front teeth to show for his hard livin’, but he hasn’t yet figured out how to translate it into unique, memorable songs.

Without a fluke hit single or prime placement in a big-budget Hollywood film, the Heavy’s disc, which easily outclasses The Odd Couple fiasco, may fall between the cracks, but that Swaby character has serious potential.

It sounds grimy enough to suit the lowdown vibe they’re after, but the songwriting is a letdown.

TID is a solid collection of his trademark epic ballads ready to be your summer patio soundtrack.

Everything is worth hearing, but frenetic waltz-meets-hora dance track Comrade Z is a definite standout. This isn’t quite as fun as Gogol’s music, but it’s more thoughtful than DeVotchKa’s Gypsy punk brethren.

His subjects are the standard sex/money/hustler/romance/gangster fantasies, and all the new-millennium fast life references you expect.

If this weren’t such a disingenuous, cynical and generally creepy record, it would be something I could really get behind.

Boring grooves that last a couple of minutes before ending abruptly just don’t cut it. What a letdown.

She writes old-fashioned love songs enhanced by Ward’s expert arrangements and reverberated girl-group harmonies.

His bored delivery and ridiculous lyrics about peanut butter sandwiches and rich kids make his two-minute tunes on this 20-song binge stretch out painfully into what feels like forever.

The album is chock full of solid songs.

Sometimes abruptly but always skilfully, these rhythms drag and push the record to its limit on the existential moaning of the album’s closer, God?

Somewhere along the way he must have forgotten about that--there are a handful of collaborators--but the overall theme of gleeful self-indulgence remains.

Dark, cathartic and hardcore, Del stays true to himself.

Meh. Patti Smith does it better.

Sadly, this is a posthumous offering that sounds half-finished and, considering they must have known this would be their final statement, like a missed opportunity.

Real is a beefy record that plods and dances precariously close to the jam band divider.

When you have to think this hard about music, it becomes a somewhat joyless ride, especially since Booth and Brown deny the listener a single danceable beat until track 10.

Over the course of an 11-track album like Red, Yellow And Blue, all the unison way-hoo-hay-oohing gets very annoying, especially when it comes bracketed by earnest yelping and long strummy passages that go nowhere in particular.

The boring beats and throwback rhyme flow (circa 92)--which is weak even by Edmontonian standards--put Afterparty Babies somewhere beneath Don Cash’s home demos and the outtakes from Organized Rhyme’s Huh? Stiffenin’ Against The Wall.

Her fourth album comes as a pleasant surprise, arguably tough country at its finest. Her clear, pristine vocals convey longing, heartbreak and the sexiness of the working class with honesty and grace.

A must for anyone still heavily rotating Moon Safari.