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.