There are collaborations with Bobby Womack, Sheila E and George Clinton. All driven by the heavy funk bass of Collins. Which is never a bad thing.

It isn't long before their second album goes sour, settling into a pattern of either doctrinaire psych-rock or alt-country which recalls the Dandy Warhols in their more meandering moods.

He's not breaking any moulds--it's solid, guitar led, pop-rock--but then Marr is the man for that job.

So Long’s strenuously busy patchwork leaves you wondering how something so superficially impressive ends up making so little impact. The answer lies in the way the Bicycle Clubbers rarely deliver these gap-year reports with decisive force enough to thrill, or dwell on an idea for long enough to fulfill its promise.

Everything's turned up to 11 but content is absolute zero. If the Cribs were any more landfill, they'd have seagulls following them around.

Back to Forever moves things into the 1980s--all fist-pumping verses and “Kids-in-America”-like big choruses.

The main signifier is Peyroux's sound, now as downhome as a chicken shack and artfully haunted as a Cassandra Wilson session. Tasteful.

Sadly, the Showgirls star is no Alicia Keys (who contributes three songs), and while she unquestionably has a voice, the material's nothing you'll want to remember.

It's about time he delivered something of substance. YCTAODNT fits the bill, kinda. It's long on heartbreak and short on yee-haw affectations.

For the most part it works well, provided you can live with Dawn's butter-wouldn't-melt ingenue phrasing and tone.

If H&LA's 2008 debut was an ideal accompaniment to the clubland chaos, then Blue Songs is the gentlest of comedowns.

Some might call it Kylie for hipsters, but it's quite lovely for that.

Tracks such as "Boiling Water" wouldn't sound out of place in a naff holiday resort. There are notable exceptions, though, such as "Fire" feat Ms Dynamite.

A genuinely empathetic production, then, which does not pull up many trees.

As always, Ladytron make the world feel a more haunted, evocative, romantic place. Faultless.

Unless you have a natural predisposition towards the enjoyment of self-consciously nerdy vocals and jangling harmonic songs taking a 'sideways looks' at life, Sky Full Of Holes will leave you completely unmoved.

This feels like a wearisome exercise in reasserting his market appeal.

What's revealed is what's often been outshone by the originals: the sheer quality of the songwriting and vocals.

Ice on the Dune is a seamless suite of elegiac synthpop, with fairydust-flecked melodies, a perpetually peaking bass end, chord changes that reach into your heart, and fantasising falsetto vocals.

Most of disc one consists of ponderous, blustering nonsense, with a black chandelier used as a metaphor for depression. Disc two shows more promise.

Their command of "neeeooow" noises suggests a schooling in retro rave, and their cover of the Jets' "Crush" turns the sugary original into something superbly sinister and stalker-ish.

Touching and strangely beautiful.

It sees Golightly staking her claim once again as the Brenda Lee of the Medway scene.

The upbeat tracks are as catchy as conjunctivitis.

[Four] sees them rediscovering guitars with a vengeance – and many tracks here come with the sort of epic quality that has helped Muse filled arenas.

Difficult to fault, [yet] it's equally difficult to get excited about.

Pervaded by children's laughter, this is a lovely departure from the Mambazo norm, as befits the quest it reflects.

New project HDBA (a translation of the German name for the board game Frustration) sees him actually having fun, after a fashion.