Shaking The Habitual is full of thrillingly percussive highs and brilliantly deranged vocals, but overall its anti-pop move is more typical than radical.

On Overgrown, the chord progressions are more complex and the lyrics less abstracted, but it’s still the James Blake we love.

These are understated, heartfelt tunes carried by lovely acoustic guitar work.

it’s unfair to expect him to suddenly modernize now. He does, however, explore some unexpectedly psychedelic terrain here, which he handles impressively.

It works best when the overpowering synth lines let up and make room for experimental noises and Iwanusa’s tender voice.

The music sounds slightly repetitive on its own, so he’s smart to collaborate with vocalists.

Vile’s laconic drawl and laid-back guitar heroics are so addictively blissful that eight or nine minutes don’t feel like enough.

He seems bent on making a career out of his adolescent emotional turmoil, resulting in a thematically stagnant, myopic and ultimately immature record.

They have returned to (non-mariachi) form and then some.

It isn’t his most groundbreaking work, but he’s earned the right to relax, and there are far worse albums you could spend a lazy Sunday afternoon with.

The contrast between the adrenaline rushes and nihilistic machismo and the score’s cold serenity is strangely intoxicating.

Hard-hitting drum rolls, reverb and hooky guitar refrains are all over the album, so it’s a shame that it still grows stale by the end.

Temperance might dull his inspiration, but it can’t shake his confidence. Unfortunately, that smugness is also his undoing: there’s no quality control here.

The band can still come up with strong hooks, and some of the 80s guitar rock references hit their mark, but the results are sabotaged by singer Julian Casablancas, who sounds like he’s conserving all his energy and passion for his next solo record.

Depeche Mode have dropped the best album of their career.

The album is rich in texture but light on memorable melodies.

Surprisingly, the least punk moments are the most adventurous.

It sounds like FutureSex, so you’ll desperately listen over and over hoping to replicate how that album made you feel and end up surrendering to its pleasant, sanitized soundscape. But you’ll feel nothing.

Bloodsports is exactly what a Suede fan wants, and it also sounds remarkably less dated than anything their old rivals Oasis are up to these days.

[Drummer Mimi Parker's] songs, like the uncharacteristically jaunty, slowly swelling Just Make It Stop, are the highlights.

These songs, short and sparsely arranged, are more fragile. Crutchfield’s hardly beautiful, unadorned singing helps this idea along, and the ways she uses her voice introduce a complicating factor: confidence.

The album is laden with a nostalgic longing that’s never as compelling as the cinematic leanings.

Pop music is never a purely cerebral exercise, and despite its intriguing concept, The Next Day is woefully short on anything to sing along to.

A vigorous 11-song collection that keeps the lyrics and melodies straightforward, allowing the complexity and uniqueness of his guitar-playing to burst through.

While the songwriting is more varied here than on previous LPs (Shapiro sometimes causes rather than experiences heartbreak), the pop hooks don’t always ascend to the maximal sound they aim for.

His vocals do the job, even as his lyrics will probably keep the majority of ears fixed on the instrumentation.

A few tracks ease into each other too easily and are forgettable, but there’s still an overall sense of growth and fruition.

While the album could’ve benefited from the trim of a song or two, it successfully avoids the dreaded career stagnation.