The songwriting has come into focus and the hooks get under your skin.

Delicious.

Spalding tries to breathe new life into the dead form of smooth jazz-fusion. And nearly succeeds.

Restlessness and drive applauded, but oh for the sound of those demons.

It's broodingly impactful stuff, only hampered by the kind of self-parodically indie-kid vocals that remain in a permanent state of posturing ennui.

Madonna may have done this stuff first, but nowadays Lady Gaga does it better. MDNA? Meh-DNA.

This is a band for fans of Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker and Nick Cave who wondered where their next great love was coming from...it's already here.

It's the very definition of "not bad", but surely there's some urgent paint you need to watch drying instead?

His most enjoyable LP since Our Favourite Shop.

It does just enough to bring "happy" to you, and you've gotta love the black humour of any band who'd call a song "God Help This Divorce".

[An] exceptionally artful debut.

The material is all Mehldau's and quality varies from the standing ovations of the opening and closing tunes to lesser tricked-up vamps, but bass and drums groove superbly throughout.

It's nevertheless a hugely enjoyable ride, Clarke and Gore's duelling synths creating an entirely instrumental soundtrack to the sci-fi movie playing inside your own head.

It's mostly a thing of pleasing lonesome grooves--but there are moments where it sounds like the Mahavishnu Orchestra tuning up.

Home Again is sweet, inoffensive, well-intentioned and gently, grainily melancholic, and it operates most fluently at the slow temperature which offends some while delighting others.

Touching and strangely beautiful.

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]

It's a shame the God-bothering pomp of John Legend collaboration "The Believer" spoils it all at the end.

It is a glossy thing that entwines her Californian folky yin around his Southern gothic yang.

Songs typically travel from the spindly to the epic, and extol the virtues of living life to the full.

High on saccharine and low on fidelity, LATBOTS has one foot in the recent 8-bit scene, the other in Merritt's own back catalogue.

If you like smart pop and are not familiar, hearing Bird for the first time will feel like discovering a new planet.

Wrecking Ball is as surgical as a ball of pig-iron on a swinging chain.

As is conventional with contract filler, this is not going to be a go-to album in the canon.

Tracks such as "Epilogue to a Marriage" here, serve as a reminder that there's always room for the real thing, and you'll know it when it hits you.

Pianist Matthew Bourne goes all English-pastoral in this largely lovely solo suite.

Always may well be the Californians' finest yet.

This is an album that deserves at least to reacquaint the Ting Tings with the outskirts of Somewheresville.