Although pretty catchy, this album is a tad too monotonous.

This is Pearl Jam, it's down to you whether that means anything or not.

This is classic timeless pop.

The album is closer to the thrash end of their style then the folk, and the music reflects the anger in the songs brilliantly.

This is hip-hop - experimental, brave, and weird, just like it's supposed to be.

While there is a fair fetter of kook in here – it’s hard to sing histrionically and American and have a wirbly organ thing without sounding a little trite - this desire to geek out is mixed with a warm and thoughtful structural progression that, while never breaking the gasp-o-meter, makes for a pleasing enough debut.

Yes, it's eclectic and he hasn't just slapped together a ragbag of Ibeefa anfums, but this record essentially suffers from a lack of ambition.

As with most such collections you're going to get good, bad and extremely ugly, and this is no exception. The fact it spans three CDs seems a bit indulgent considering some of the material should be consigned to an incinerator never to be heard again.

If there's a snag it's not that the album exactly dips - it's just there's a lack of variation of pace, meaning it can be difficult to consume in its entirety at just one sitting. But, with a little patience, it comes alive.

Muse's magnificent powerhouse that is new album 'Black Holes And Revelations' rectifies - almost - everything that once was wrong.

There's precious little here not to like, and it's as satisfying an experience as any of the ambient survivors have produced in years.

A techno electro smart-ass punky rap thing that'll detonate in your living room.

To be honest this album has been down the pub all day; it doesn't care that you have to go to work in three hours time; it has just burst into your room and demanded the keys to your car and that bottle of Bombay Saphire you were saving for your birthday.

It's not quite the second coming or even the first for that matter, but 'Food & Liquor' should leave you feeling sated and occasionally elated.

'The King Of Nothing Hill' manages to effortlessly stir a Trans Atlantic cauldron of retro flavours, sleazy soul, avant-garde darkness, soundtrack cool, breaks, head nodding jazz sophistication and electronica sus.

Home recording gives 'In Case We Die' an apathetic politeness that lacks any real grrrrr, which is a shame.

'One Bedroom' is an infinitely pleasurable listen, and one that (very gently) blows away any post-rock preconceptions.

If Simple Kid is too simple for you, if you always liked Supergrass but never thought they pushed their material to its astral conclusion and felt their retro musings were a little too close to the original blueprint, then this baby, is for you.

We don't dislike anything on here, and each time we listen, we like what we hear even more.

Totally inessential, utterly inoffensive, yet truly beguiling, 'Son Of Evil Reindeer' remains a charmingly radiant record.

So, while this might not be Tricky at his total best, it may well be the best you're likely going to get out of him.

'Black Cherry' is a record that, like Lemon Jelly's sophomore effort, 'Lost Horizons', consolidates rather than defines but, when Alison gets her honeyed tonsils into the warm duvet-textures of the title track, the world can happily stand still for 5 minutes and we'll gladly give them another bite.

The good news is that despite the excess verbiage (which at least is hardly a shock), this is a Good Album.

With 'Ten New Messages' The Rakes have pulled off the knack of being able to deliver a series of songs that are longer and deeper but equally as memorable as the spiky missives spat on their debut.

Compared to their offerings to date 'Amber' has the hardest edges, but it wouldn't be Clearlake if it wasn't soft in the centre.

Even if this was an instrumental album it'd be thoroughly charming.

Their brilliance lies in writing the crassest, most obvious, lowbrow hooks.

His best album in over ten years.

It's a lot less dangerous than we've been led to expect.

'Hey People!' dashes past in such a whippy blur that it's far from immediately apparent what on earth to make of it, although if you suspect it'd be fun going back to find out we wouldn't argue.

'Everything Last Winter' is a record by a band blithely unconcerned about any perceptions of cool.

There are no real surprises here but then in the land of pop-punk surprise is not high on the agenda.

So, his best album since 'Scary Monsters' (ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!).

Despite the handful of duff tracks and a couple of absolute howlers, 'Here Come The Tears' is a fine album - certainly not the best they've made together, nor even apart, but accomplished, ambitious and often highly impressive.

'Imperial' is an evolving and ever-involving shard of artistry by a true original on his 'Victorialand'-era form nonetheless, and that's got to be cause for celebration.

There's nothing quite as immediate or fantastic as 'Disposable Teens' here, but the album on the whole is a triumph.

Yes, there is a lot in the way of failing relationship therapy on here, but when it's done with such eloquence and downright elegance it'd be churlish to treat it with the disrespect more easily afforded to music's legions of professional disenchanteds.

An astonishingly cheeky affair, and arguably less stylistically cohesive than any Orbital album since their underrated debut

It's an obvious comparison given the company they keep, but, this time around, Aereogramme really are Mogwai and The Delgados on the same record.

'Elevator' is not as instant as 'Make Up The Breakdown', though it has adequate catchy tunes in the style of XTC and Joe Jackson to retain most of the interest from those who enjoyed them last time.

She might not quite have made it through the wilderness just yet, but she's chosen the most glittering road to resurrection she could find, and it's one she walks with no small smattering of style.

Like scoffing a King sized Mars Bar, the instant gratification and sugar rush is soon superseded with nausea, whining and guilt.

This album is just a purer distillation, a more joyous exaggeration of the smaller, more tasteful thrills offered by every posturing indie rock band out there.

If there's a main criticism of this record then it's the fact that it's not entirely cohesive.

Aside from track sequencing issues... and dodgy indie geezers, 'The Outsider' is a great album and well worth the wait.

More than anything else, 'Cripple Crow' is an album that it sounds like it was born amidst a fun, exuberant creative process.

Alas, it's not as consistently satisfying as 'Born To Run' or 'Born In The USA', and Springsteen's voice, always gravely at the best of times, has taken on an increasingly wizened air that sometimes renders it frustratingly impenetrable.

'Come With Us' sounds immediately familiar, but this is often problematic, redolent of prior work by both themselves and others.

There's a decidedly reigned-in grandeur to the orchestrally-focused Silent League. The strings and things are never allowed to get overly carried away in their stratospherics, the slide guitar and saw are supplied in delicate veins rather than employed in over-styled extravagance.

If you're bored of 'Danger! High Voltage' like us, there's plenty to plunder, though ultimately you'll be filing this album away in your "don't play anymore" library after Echobelly and before Electric Soft Parade.

This could be Modest Mouse's finest hour were it not a little long - the nuances are occasionally rather swamped by the effort of listening to the hour-long record through.

'Earthquake Glue' once again posits Pollard as purveyor of stupidly breezy tunes.

An ultra sleek and, it has to be said, generally impressive, 80s-inspired party record.

Summer Sun is a compelling, enthralling and gorgeous album that gets better with each listen.

Anyone expecting a return to the spiky garage rock of 'I Should Coco' may again be disappointed by Gaz & co's refusal to whole heartedly revisit the three-chord bluster of their debut, but with 'Life On Other Planets' Supergrass have come closer than ever to the psychedelic pop-punk masterpiece of their dreams.

Minor aesthetic gripes aside though, ‘Winchester Cathedral’ is how you and I want Clinic to be.

They have a habit of getting it very right and very wrong.

Far from flawless it may be, but this is a fundamentally fabulous experience.

'Love Is Here' actually manages to deliver on all that early promise and, more than any of the singles that preceded it, completely conjures up the giant-hearted beauty they're capable of live.

Too much of 'Geogaddi' just rests on the Boards' well established tricks.

It's not all pleasant.... However, there are some total gems, as you'd expect.

It's inevitable having enjoyed their partnership for so long, that you occasionally feel the lack of Moffat's brutal honesty, but Middleton grows more interesting with each solo release.

The overall mood (so spot-on is the title that the whole thing feels like a big chilled-out dance doughnut with stardust for sugar, heh heh) saves it, along with the occasional staggering moment of beauty.

A beguiling marriage of the electronic and the organic that, while perhaps short on tunes per se, bristles with engagement.

[A] weird, angry, frustrating album.

The Birmingham band's finest hour yet.

This is a record stuffed with fun and joy and magic for all the family.

No, it's probably not going to remap the musical landscape this time, and, arguably, it doesn't sound as ahead of its time as, say, 'Computerworld' did. BUT! 'Tour de France Soundtracks' also sounds joyously, shamelessly like no-one else at all.

Experimental it ain't, but this summer in a shiny flat box it is.

A patchy, flawed effort.

As a whole, the album feels less definite, less driven, than the 'Want…' albums, which is both a strength and a weakness.

While there’s no denying that Metallica have produced a huge – and welcome – blast from the past, it also represents a monolithic slab of noise that stretched over 11 songs and 75 minutes is just too dense and daunting to be truly enjoyable.

It's all hugely ridiculous, of course, but executed with a surprising amount of passion.

this is pretty much all good stuff. So why does it feel like there's something missing? Haven's problem is their chosen genre - epic, ball busting indie, guitars that jangle, then jangle harder, vocals that ride melody like diseases might pterodactyls.

The question is: do you actually need another disc like this, given that it doesn't quite have that sense of otherness that Boards of Canada have in spades, or that sound-as-texture that Aphex Twin utilised so sumptiously on 'Richard D James', or Amon Tobin's truly forward looking drum programming.

'Exciter' stakes a hell of a claim on bringing Depeche Mode into the 21st century.

When they're good, they're alright, but when they're bad, they're unstoppable and Dirty Vegas' biggest mistake so far is that, sometimes, they're not nearly filthy enough.

A sprawling beast that's unexpectedly heavy on the instrumental front.

Offers the sound of Stereolab doing what they do best. Love it or hate it, it won't alter the world, it just is.

Not, perhaps, the hugest of leaps from 'The Noise Made By People', granted, but that album, fine though it was, was very much parking on specific continental territory; 'Ha Ha Sound', by contrast, feels like it wants to explore somewhere more bearingless.

'Lovebox' doesn't quite scale Vertigo's dizzy heights, but it'll be perfectly at home both in clubs and in your lounge.

It's crude, certainly, but Ludacris has enough wit and chutzpah to elevate this above the dross.

Despite its many wondrous moments, 'Feels' is not a record for everyone.

The whole experience becomes rather draining after a few listens.

While the record lacks any of [Queens of the Stone Age's] belligerent twisted rock weirdness they have definitely pumped up the Good Charlotte-style teen anthem choruses.

'Silence Is Easy' is non-challenging "pretty pretty" music for early-ageing types who might recoil at anything without an acoustic guitar and tomtoms.

It's a bloody nice record, which may be damning them with faint praise but it's an area they've stalked out for themselves immensely likably.

There are some fillers on 'Shootenanny!' like 'Rock Hard Times', which means it's never going to be an absolute classic, but it's good to hear E is suffering a little less despair than he's been forced to tolerate in the past.

There's an abundance of softly slashing guitar, an air of sophistication writ indelibly large by its orchestration (with the string-laden weepie 'Epitaph' as probably the outstanding example), and, wrapped in Arnar's strong tones, there's more moodyness than you can shake a particularly angsty stick at.

Musically there's nothing on 'Stars of CCTV' that stands out as particularly innovative or imaginative[;] it's above average modern indie fare made with gusto by people who want to make records that sound like the records they like: The Clash, The Specials, The Verve and a bunch of other bygone Britpoppers.

On a first listen it sounds very long. On a second listen it sounds just like the eponymous debut, with the odd anthem missing. On a third listen we have to concede there are some fine moments.

The album suffers from serious momentum problems. You get something that hammers in a good and interesting way and then a few minutes later it's like the tap of a blue tit's beak on a milk bottle top.

This is a rather stronger record than [Daft Punk's] on the whole, even if it likewise suffers from flaws in execution.

More often than not displays a penchant for melody and tension which would shame many of the new millennium's pop pups.

It's hard to truly love a band that are so chameleonic that they sacrifice signature definition for adventurousness.

Whereas their debut album 'Good Health' saw the unlikely and frankly scary collision of Fuzazi and Rocket From The Crypt, 'The New Romance' leans resolutely on the emo-punk side.

This might be quality above innovation, but it’s also maturity above cliché, and above all, passion over cynicism.

It's slinky, suave chill-out music, gently exotic, best listened to lounging on throws amongst cushions.