In places, Vanderslice’s more abstruse, jazzier ideas grate with the material--notably the clarinet discords closing the old departing-soldier-boy tale “When The Roses Bloom Again”--but he’s usually on the money with things like the elegiac strings accompanying “Betty’s Eulogy” and the lachrymose pedal steel, vibes and shaker underscoring “Wreck”, a heartfelt plea for a lover who’s “a worker, not a volunteer”.

Though less ambitious than 2009's The Liberty of Norton Folgate, Madness's Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da confirms the benefits of spreading songwriting chores among the entire band.

Peace or Love, their first album in 12 years, is perfectly pleasant and familiar, the tracks tracing the well-trodden vicissitudes of love in tones so subdued that they’d seem hushed even when played at maximum volume.

Oddly appealing overall, when not tending too much toward the twisted.

We have to wait for the final, title track for the end of suffering. That Carter’s young daughter Mercy is on the recording ramps up the emotion and hopeful vibe of this acoustic ballad. It’s a much-needed resolution to an album of full-throttle catharsis.

Not to everyone’s taste, but at its best Gamel fizzes with sonic imagination.

Although she’s got the makings of a great songwriter, she needs to push the sounds into sharper corners to give her narratives more distinctive definition. Because this album delivers many shades of grey but never the promised punch of black.

Much else here settles into comfort-zone turf.

Tracks like the reggae-tinged “Right Moves”--which feels like it was supposed to be an ANTI cut--and “Pipe” come off as monotonous. But there is a lot of Aguilera’s sincere authenticity that is weaved throughout Liberation. It may not be a pop record, a hip hop record or a soul record, but it’s certainly an Xtina record.

Garth here sensibly celebrates simple good times in songs like the twangsome “Honky Tonk Somewhere” and its cutting-loose continuation “Weekend”, where copious location namechecks enthuse that “it’s weekend all over the world”. Elsewhere, “Baby, Let’s Lay Down And Dance” tacks its cheeky proposition onto a “Long Train Running” groove, while the chugging boogie of “Pure Adrenaline” suggests how ZZ Top might sound if they were country.

Policy is enjoyable enough, but one hopes that for its follow-up, Butler takes time to find the most accomplished realisations of his material.

Too much of this album purrs by, forgettably and disengaged. Banks really needs to bring herself into focus.

No wheels have been reinvented on Rushmere. But it’s a solidly crafted and comforting addition to the band's earthy, fraternal oeuvre.

The slimmed-down Yuck's sound seems svelte of style, having lost most of its rougher edges and lo-fi feistiness. What's left builds on their Teenage Fanclub-style guitars'n'harmonies approach, but takes it in a less intriguing direction.

It’s a break-up album that’s perhaps a touch too unremittingly bleak for the closing resolution of “Another Train” (“I’m moving on, through the past, through the pain, waiting on another train”) to completely convince.

For the most part, the mood here is pensive, the ballads plentiful and the pace glacial, with little evidence of the wild abandon that the singer supposedly longs for. It’s to Smith’s credit, but also their undoing, that they are just too damned nice.

"Every Song's the Same" offers a charming series of lessons in emotional empathy; while the conceit underlying the piano ballad "Into a Pearl" seems so clear you can't quite believe nobody else thought of it first.

This six-track soundtrack EP of songs by Alex Turner finds the Arctic Monkey in appropriately reflective, wistful mood, as befits the hero's fanciful view of himself as a bit of a thinker.

A couple of tracks feature delicate tracery of classical guitar, but the most baffling feature of the album is the inclusion of three old tracks by Can, which possess a lightness, and dynamic character somewhat absent in the rest of the score.

“Shine On Me” sounds like a George Harrison out-take, while the kitschy-corny “Livin’ In Sin” (“Your touch is electrical/I’m so susceptible”) recalls The Beach Boys circa 15 Big Ones. But there are threads of sly invention woven throughout, most notably the unusual alliance of dobro slide and Bacharach horns that lifts “Wildest Dreams”.

Tracks like the delinquent reminiscence "How Life Changed" and the mea culpa duet with Chris Brown, "Get Back Up", teeter queasily on the cusp of boast and apology. But you have to admire the gall of a repeat offender brazen enough to feature a quote from Helen Keller in his lyric booklet.

This isn’t so much a barnstormer of an album as a reassuringly earthy rock-out among the hay bales.

This alliance with The Orb is positive for both parties, Perry providing a tighter rein on their tendency to meander, while they furnish him with a different terrain to his usual dub skanks.

Henry's stubbled delivery pitched somewhere between Randy Newman and Tom Waits as he negotiates the galumphing waltz "Strung" and the ramshackle cakewalk groove "Sticks & Stones", which best exemplifies the album's mythopoeic blues mode.

Although it is largely the entirely predictable modern dance-pop creation you might expect from production-line hit maestros Max Martin and Dr Luke, Katy Perry deserves some credit for injecting a modicum of originality into Prism.

It's all warmly wrought and pretty, if a trifle insubstantial at times.

Produced in understated manner by Tucker Martine, the songs' clean pop lines are revealed with the minimum of decorative detail.

His own sepia baritone summons some of that warmth on versions of “Solitaire”, “Autumn Leaves” and “You Only Live Twice”.