It's high-class karaoke, covering the Chi-Lites, Dorothy Moore, The Dells, Womack & Womack.

Hot Cakes is a rock-solid home win from the band who still do feelgood hard rock better than anyone alive.

"Anastasis" is the Greek word for "resurrection", but stasis is closer to the truth.

[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.

Their 12th album covers all points from brutality to beauty in pursuit of epiphanies.

The overall theme is utopia defiled. Until, that is, Deacon – ever the optimist – brings it all together on "Manifest", the big rapturous finale.

Morissette is the sort of woman who does yoga to ensure she can still gaze at her navel... Self-obsessed.

Fragrant Word has killer synthpop tunes buried within it, but too often you wonder how much better a record this would have been if they quit dicking around and just gave you the song.

You might even argue that this and its predecessors, My Name Is Buddy (2007) and Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011), represent the most cogent work of his long career.

The more you listen, the less the album reveals; her vocals fall between sultry and sterile, and you wish, to take two of her professed influences, that she was a little less Sade, and a little more Chaka Khan.

For all the virtuosity in his fingers, Jerry is no singer, and this collection of tasteful exhibits needs faces [guest singers]. The faces save the record.

Jamal sounds close to his 1950s Chess Records best.

Her talent and pain are equally raw and equally audible.

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

One day, maybe the Lips will play nice again. Until then, they and their Fwends have given us plenty to get our heads around.

He wins you over, eventually.

Never, whose song titles are nearly all one word, isn't as daunting as the avant-garde approach might suggest.

The wisdom expressed is crusty but benign, poetic and sometimes witty.

While there's perhaps a surfeit of synth-washes, the beautiful "Winter Elegy" superbly fulfils the opening promise.

Gossamer is hard to fault, besides the fact that it's more of the same.

This is one of the most exhilarating albums of the year.

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.

"I wanted", Ocean wrote, "to create worlds that were rosier than mine. I tried to channel overwhelming emotions." Mission accomplished, and then some.

Thankfully, the Knife have remained true to their essential principles.

On record, this is a joyous burst of blissed-out world pop.

[Life is Good] proves once again that Nas is one of the smartest and most skilled players in the game.

This is a belting return to form by the best vocal artist in jazz.

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.