With the multifarious tributaries flowing effortlessly into the whole, I Thought I Was Over That has a diverse coherence that is hard to define and establishes itself as a distinct entity in its own right.

All of the bands calling cards are present—they’re just scribbled down on the back of a phone bill, rather than printed out professionally then laminated.

Building on his unassuming alternative icon status, this great debut (under his own name) is sure to bring him that bit nearer to the awareness of the mainstream.

It doesn’t always succeed, but it most definitely exceeds expectations.

Has only a slightly spottier ratio of hits to misses than their best albums.

Easily Strait’s worst album in over a decade.

Kano has spent the last several years making “grime” records, but for better or worse, Home Sweet Home isn’t one of them.

Sometimes it does sound like The First Ever Country Record On Matador, too tied down to ideas of what country records are supposed to sound like.... And then Laura looks you in the eyes and you realise that really, you’re being a bit of a twit. She’s still there, the same as she ever was. Her surroundings have just got a bit grander.

What The Future Embrace lacks in terms of consistency, it makes up for with the feeling that Corgan has turned a corner, that his return to musical credibility is well underway, and isn’t nearly as inconceivable as it was one year ago.

Songwriting necessarily takes a backseat here most of the time, but it’s hardly missed when there’s so much gorgeous, woozy texture to loll in.

These songs stay stuck with you like a lump in your throat.

A big confused mess.

Chavez Ravine drags occasionally, the result of too many serious narratives, but the stories that do work are jaw-droppingly simple and painfully familiar.

Another Day On Earth is more blank than frank, a journey through a hollow land, more discreet than it needs to be. Imagine a recording in which every human error has been scrubbed, like coffee grounds off a formica counter.

Discover A Lovelier You is as good an album as any in Joe Pernice’s discography.

The handful of slower songs drag more than they have a right to, and fail to hint at any depth or versatility that’s missing from the straight-ahead rockers.

Whereas before Embrace always harboured that tendency to fuss over minutiae, to pore over every detail with such attention that betrayed self-consciousness, their fourth studio album, Out Of Nothing, finally sees them free of their own fastidiousness.

And the thing is, an over-reliance on pastiche wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that a) they’re running in grooves created by the wheels of the bandwagon they’ve arrived too late to jump on and b) they tackle it all in the most hopeless, hapless, school talent show cover band style of derivation imaginable.

If you come expecting a great album full of hit singles, you won’t get it. If you come with an open mind, what will greet you is the opening chapter of a tale about a girl living through music, remembering through music, exploring her art and herself, starting out to create something special and different.

The basic songwriting on show here is essentially the same as ever; mid-paced, desperately sincere and earnestly simple, decorated with piano and passionless falsetto, only now with more detours into maximalist, synth-soaked modern rock epics cut from the same cloth as “Clocks.”

Man-Made is, to be sure, the least immediate record Teenage Fanclub has made since Thirteen, but at a compact and finely-tuned forty-two minutes it avoids the flaws of that under-edited and under-cooked record and nestles itself softly into the heart of every TFC fan as another low-key modern classic.

The finest album of the White Stripes’ career.

Thrills hits upon a unique and confident path that doesn’t seem forced or contrived.

The first disc actually suggests the band is capable of making a live album worth your time even if you didn't like Bring It On and Liquid Skin, but its welcome is worn out and its charms are fatally undercut by the turgid, unnecessary second disc.

It’s obvious that Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler have not lost a bit of the touch that made them famous in the early 1990s.

The genius of Wearemonster is that Mueller takes the clarity and mobility of house and synergizes it with the overabundance of melodies, textures, theories, and arrangement schemes found in IDM.

The subtle backing musicians never overshadow Callahan’s reedy baritone and direct lyrics; they merely add subtle shading and light in the appropriate spots--a restraint reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s use of studio musicians on laid-back classics like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline.

Don’t Believe The Truth is simply Oasis being Oasis with maximum efficiency. Which is to say that if you’re a committed acolyte of the church of Oasis, you’ll love it.