Lovely.

Their most mature set to date.

A brave, if samey, affair, System is undoubtedly sincere.

For the most part, the lyrics are so reliant on stock phrases - 'feel your touch', 'hold me', 'shoulda known', etc--that you could read anything you like into them without them carrying any personal feeling at all. If you can listen to that fluting, fierce, clear, dirty, magnificent voice while simultaneously shutting out the banality of what it's expressing, you'll have hours of pleasure from this gorgeously melodic, curiously old-fashioned album.

Their most rigorously conceived and focused [album] for years.

Here, as on 2004's Where the Humans Eat, he posits himself as a man of the road whose sole possessions are a handful of albums, all of which were made in the mid-to-late Sixties. Pleasingly, however, he abides by his own rules.

Vernon is great at seizing on something simple and spinning it out to reveal its innner beauty and this EP shows that there's more than just heartbreak to the 27-year-old. The title track, however, does sound like something by Coldplay.

Often harrowing, although Williams's emotional odyssey finds resolution on the title track.

Previous albums never quite lived up to the band's facility for knockout singles, but this one holds the attention.

Ghostface is in typically brutal form.

All the songs here are fully realised and often the equal of those on their parent album.

Surprisingly, the album's blend of Mitteleuropean melody and American eccentricity is diverting enough to overcome any misgivings.

Ta-Dah is easy to like but hard to love.

Bleak and evocative.

The band's favouring of big brass accompaniments and enthusiastic vocals gives this album momentum, but it's their preference for substance over style that ensures Tired... puts their modish peers to shame.

There are exceptions, notably Tortoise, Aphex Twin and Björk songs, while Lisa Germano's 'Slide' is magnificent, mainly thanks to Adem's eerie, cracked delivery.

Though rather generic--grainy emoting; overwrought lyrics; crisp guitar-driven pop--at least Mould can claim that he virtually invented this stuff.

As its title implies, though, Strawberry Jam is strange: luxurious and fractious, wistful and atonal.

The band's contributions are low points on this 16-track epic, but Oberst proves as iconoclastic as ever.

Eight years later, no longer so wide-eyed, the Norwegian duo sound more pedestrian, though 'Royksopp Forever' proves they haven't lost their sense of fun.

The Grammy-winner has a worthy reputation--and, yes, songs namecheck Katrina, Obama et al--but there's also a playful, reflective quality as Chapman looks back at the way music has shaped her life.

Embryonic is certainly not without charm, but its title gives the game away. Largely, it's the sound of a band seeking inspiration rather than finding it.

Their second LP is all candy-coloured dreamscapes. Lily remains a spikier proposition.

There's a fine songwriter somewhere inside frontman Liam Fray--but first he has to bust his way out of a genre that the world has long ago left behind.

There's no stand-out to match 'Tiny Tears' or 'Marbles' but Stuart Staples's crumpled voice and the distinctively intricate arrangements summon Lee Hazlewood's tear-flecked, bruised spirit.

The first LP for nigh on a decade from Tjinder Singh and co feels like rummaging through rock's dressing-up box on a wet afternoon.

An eclectic, at times explicit, exploration of love, loss and lust, it's the work of a skilled songwriter comfortable in his own skin and canon.

He and producer Rick Rubin deliver a well-judged acoustic set whose songs mix war weariness with hope and loss.