Capable punk rock with a slightly skuzzy, yet unmistakably pop edge.

Apropa’t’s biggest flaw could be the use of Eva Puyuelo Muns’ vocals. Perhaps I’m accustomed primarily to Herren’s music as instrumental, but the use of Eva feels painfully forced at times.

To understand why the album is disappointing, you must consider the different perspectives. The fresh listener sees an EP's worth of quality songs and a six-minute skit roadblock. Someone who heard the leak is confused as to why more wasn't done to circumvent the lack of newness inherent in early disclosure. Diehard MFers will retain respect in spite of reused beats, but won't be able to avoid comparing it to the solid-but-sparse King Geedorah record.

While Barnes' lyrics don't indulge in apocalyptic imagery or read like autopsy reports, the lyrical subjects range from death, to low culture, to existentialism. When combined with such inexplicitly peppy music, the somber nature of Barnes' lyrics welcomes hesitant laughter.

Tellingly, the consistently likable Guilt Show falters only when The Get Up Kids overextend their grasp and depart from their nearly infallible pop formula, as on the “experimental” claptrap of the album’s last two tracks.

Little new or exciting is added to the mix that can’t be found in different forms on their previous two albums. Instead, the album works as a consolidation of strengths from earlier works.

Like a leather whip encased in a spun sugar cage, it is simultaneously deeply sexy yet innocent. And it’s that push-pull tension that keeps this album yanked together tighter than a PVC miniskirt.

The psychedelic underpinnings of old are cleaned up a bit and the anger and bile that lay beneath the surface of the earlier material has been calmed, but there is still much to be enjoyed.

A good and often great debut.

An underdeveloped and frail album.

A set of saccharine sweet songs which occasionally dissolve spectacularly in a haze of whirring electronic mist.

The songs are immediately accessible, with a classic rock/modern pop delivery that’s every bit as lively and exciting as the very first disc this band released.

Altogether, Ratatat is a great album, taking the sound Daft Punk constructed on Discovery and transforming it into a remarkably intricate, painstaking work of instrumental genius.

It's good in its own right, but perhaps you're better off listening to it in isolation from the rest of their canon. It's not quite there, but it is definitely a good record.

Fanfare aside, even though the naked version is an improvement, Let It Be remains the Beatles’ worst album.

I’d imagine Thunder Lightning Strike will not age well nor reward a thousand listens, but for what it attempts to do, and succeeds, it’s worthy of attention.

Falls a few yards short of essential listening.

The whole album is put together so oddly, almost haphazardly, that this works better as a collection of moments than as a whole.

While Blue Album doesn’t break any moulds, match their best records from the mid 90s or (quite) end their career on a triumphant high, it will almost certainly find favour with old fans because it’s an undeniably good record, certainly their best since The Middle Of Nowhere and possibly even since In Sides.

With such a pitch-perfect sonic backdrop, RJ makes it almost impossible for 'Print to fail, each track equipped with all the genetic material an emcee needs to deliver either a sage-solemn message or a quick-witted punchline.

While traditional rock fans may have a difficult time swallowing Cake’s meticulously produced, pop-obsessed, genre-bending concoction, fans of Moby, Beck and The Flaming Lips might make for easy converts.

Now Here Is Nowhere stands as a very good album, delivering on most of September 000’s promises and proving that music not only existed in the early and mid 70s, but it rocked too.

Burn Piano Island, Burn was something approaching a masterpiece and Crimes doesn’t live up to its lofty standard.

They sound like little else you’ve heard before.

As rap, this hardly registers. As political commentary, it’s too obtuse to make much impact. But as eclectic, genre-bending music with an ear for interesting sounds and a knack for making ambiguous lyrics memorable, cLOUDDEAD’s second effort is uniquely promising and satisfying.

Like David Bowie’s Station to Station or Peter Gabriel’s So, TV on the Radio make music that demands to be listened to actively, as for the listener to absorb the lethal amounts of heartbreak, dignity, and mystery in the human voice.

They touch greatness at several points, if never truly digging their nails in and grabbing hold.

The production's sanitary feel plays a large role in the album's conservative nature, as it scrubs away any potential raucousness.