What Corazon certainly contains is a brightly recorded, punchy collection of “Latin” beats and melodies, plus some rock, featuring a handful of distinguished guests and the familiar overflying drone of Carlos’s own guitar obbligati.

Despite a version of Earth Wind & Fire's "After The Love Is Gone" that is so good you can play it for days, this dream-team collaboration between jazz singer Elling and big-time weirdo producer Don Was delivers less than it promises.

None of it is clumsy but, equally, none of it truly escapes the originator's gravitational field.

The beats aren't always the best, but Wretch, who lives on the notorious Tiverton Estate and whose "mum's still living in the ends", has a self-awareness lacking in many of his peers.

While newer tracks “My Song 5” and “Let Me Go” snag by throwing surprisingly moody shapes, Martika-esque closer “Running if You Call My Name” sounds like something smoothed for A-list romcom duties.

The Vega songwriting style is hardwearing.

A cloudless orgy of nostalgia.

Chris Thile is the most remarkable mandolinist in the world; fluent, articulate and sometimes just a little too clever to be truly engaging.

Much of the time, it's reheated Madchester. The rest, it's over-literal psychedelia.

Reconvening after a four-year hiatus, the duo have carried on where they left off--meaning the Frankmusik-produced TW is gentle, blissful and devoid of the exuberant electro romps of yesteryear.

This is a sweet, light confection, but insubstantial as whipped cream and too sugary for some tastes.

In place of the suavité we associate with Songbook Rod, we get a whooping, sequenced modernisation of 1970s Guitar-Rock Rod.

At its best, in the opening “All Will Surely Burn” and in a thrilling closing version of “Rivers of Babylon”, this is mesmerising trance music of great power.

Both gently gripping and strangely sinister.

This is a very capable attempt to update that swoonable sound, and the arrangements do offer a few contemporary touches.

It adds up to a shallowly appealing, summery package; glossily produced and personality free.

The treatments range from Schifrin/Morricone atmospherics to full on Prokofiev/Tchaikovsky bombast, with results which are variable, but the scary choral, Omen-style version of "Where's Your Head At" is a hoot.

It is derivative and woebegone and its musical twists are seldom hard to predict, but it is also finely crafted and devoid of the phoniness which can make such works unbearable.

It's all a bit "junior school music project" at times, and there's nothing John Cale wasn't doing half a century ago, but it's nevertheless an impressive work.

For anyone who lived through grunge, this is mere nostalgia. Anyone who didn't is advised to go straight to the source.

He comes on like a Conor Oberst meets Brian Wilson in a ramshackle approach that sounds to these ears like a refreshing burst of honest emotion in an often pallid musical landscape.

Ferguson's smoky tones recall the young Aretha Franklin at her more restrained, [but] it's all ever so slightly boring.

Essential for fans, of course. It is left to the rest of us to look on from a safe distance with our hard hats on and to marvel at the most self-regarding singing voice in post-war popular music.

It's charming enough, but it's as well mannered as a picnic with Cath Kidston accoutrements.

Gimmicks aside, any version of TFIM with a core of "Little Shocks", "Start with Nothing", "When all is Quiet", "Man on Mars" and "Heard it Break" won't go far wrong. [Review of UK release The Future Is Medieval]

Casual bystanders might wish for more memorable songs or some advancement of the form.

Bradley, a 62-year-old ex-plumber and James Brown impersonator, has a raspy, infinitely pained voice but there doesn't appear to be any real interaction between him and the band.

It's two-thirds pretty good, all the same.