Before The Dawn Heals Us is a very twilight album, a very urban record. It never quite achieves the variegated subtlety of Dead Cities..., but it doesn’t reach for the same frosty rural pastures as that record either.

Wilderness is Prewitt’s most accomplished solo effort to date. He has craftily corralled the large scale orchestral sweep of White Sky, but kept the intimacy of the guitar/voice confessionalism of Gerroa Songs.

While their sounds are pleasant enough, where Lemon Jelly fall short most often is in their unimaginative arrangements.

It doesn’t feel right to be beating Will Oldham down for doing something that is so distinctly his own, even though he is doing it again and again to a greater or lesser extent.

If he cut the middle out and made it an EP, Kenny Chesney’s Be As You Are would be a classic.

Valende is really a more significant album than a lot of people seem to be giving it credit for being, and one hopes that it will be remembered as such.

The impeccably crafted Different Days is at its best when it exploits the vocal strengths of Anderson and Costa.

If all you’re looking for is more Tobin material, then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re expecting anything more, you’d best look elsewhere.

All Years Leaving collects plenty of derivative (but enjoyable) music with a few bright moments of originality.

A record for the creeping darkness of a hot summer night in which the night seems to last forever and the heat, the same.

It’s not about reinterpretations of songs or giving the fans something to listen to until the next record comes out. It’s a definitive marker, a turning point for one of our finest songwriters.

For something so obviously and deeply grounded in marketing, it’s still an outstandingly solid and enjoyable debut.

Uncovering the strands that make up Black Mountain’s debut album helps describe what the album sounds like. What it doesn’t help describe is how well the pastiche is constructed and how enjoyable the proceedings are.

Sure, there are minor ways in which Wratten moves his brainchild away from a punishing sameness, but it’s more than fair to say that the formula that Wratten has built into a veritable cottage industry of crystal clear guitar lines, staid drumming, and a bass tuned to the key of depression is as predictable as the bombastic riffage of AC/DC.

Purple Haze is such a twisted take on gangsta that it has to be heard to be believed.

Nothing’s Lost is a more stately affair, flaunting van Petegum’s growth as a producer without losing his child-like talent for awkward emulation.

Street’s Disciple reveals Nas at a new peak, finally comfortable in the post-millennial hip-hop world.

A one-paced affair, enamoured with drawn-out ambient intros, crystalline guitars layered with reverb, four-note rumbles for basslines, choruses that go on forever and occasional, half-hearted stabs at “groove”. Meaning that it sounds EXACTLY as you would expect U2 to sound.

The fascinating thing about Gwen Stefani’s record is not how different it sounds from No Doubt, but how similar it sounds to the producers that she works with and how their collaborations usually fall flat because of the rehashing of tired ideas and plodding predictability of her arrangements.

There isn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that this collection plays it way too safe to satisfy the über-devoted.

Unlike many R&B artists, Destiny's Child are actively bad at singing ballads, which mostly turn out mawkish, aimless and dull.

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.

Certainly Want Two is the weaker and less tuneful of the siblings, strings, horns, pipes and choirs distracting attention from the occasionally dirgey and indulgent (but still grandiose) melodies.

His beefs have become so infinitesimal that he’s started to unconsciously parody our LiveJournal culture, a minor event or misunderstanding generating reams of dialogue, running commentary and painstaking minutiae. In short, he’s no more compelling than one of those non-famous drama queens in your life you already find insufferable, just another loser who blows up non-events, and it’s transformed the long-running Eminem Show into the most myopic, hand-wringing, self-reflexive stuck-in-the-mud soap opera of our time.

Paul and Dan, knowing that the Dating Game skits sandwiching the album were just a poor shadow of the 3 Feet High And Rising game show, had to up the Wacky Factor within the songs themselves. “More guests! More cray-zee guests!"

Neko possesses one of the most terrifically powerful voices in music today.

Even if this album perhaps only has one hope for a hit single, the album is much stronger and reflects that unlike many of her contemporaries, Carlton is moving forwards and towards something.

It’s a highly idiosyncratic album that very few will appreciate every facet of. However, even with a very minimal knowledge of the source material, there’s much to love.