It’s safely on-brand. It’s just smoother, and slower, and sloppier than before.

A new punk classic.

Like Comedy features their ebullient charm in large dollops.

Hubcap Music finds Seasick Steve back on form, with an album steeped in gritty boogie and even grittier attitude.

They just sound like desperate grasps for something--anything--before the latter stages of the album slump into terminal dullness.

It feels like the throwing down of a gauntlet, Cabello determined to wear her heart on her sleeve in the studio as well as in paparazzi photos.

It’s their most accomplished clawing-back so far of the basic dark rock’n’roll street-smarts that were lost as they cast fruitlessly around for new directions with projects like the acoustic album Howl and the awful noise-scape effort The Effects Of 333 (their very own Metal Machine Music).

Save for a shaky cover of “Send in the Clowns”, Ferry remains as calm and collected as ever at the eye of these emotional storms.

Comeback albums, it seems, are not just for other bands to do.

In between, there’s nimble bluegrass picking on the chipper two-step “The Wind” Less welcome are Caribbean incursions like the tourist-reggae drivel that is “Island Song”.

Equally interesting are undeveloped outtakes such as the exquisite heartbreak miniature “Marigold”, and two songs deliberately written to meet Elektra’s demand for a hit single, “Once Upon A Time” and “Lady, Give Me Your Key”, on which Buckley’s genial charm and outlandish vocal gymnastics--not to mention the latter track’s clumsy drug-pun metaphor--trump any unfeasible commercial considerations.

Smoke Fairies’ fourth album finds the English duo taking a tangent from their folk/blues approach with the help of a young producer, Kristofer Harris, who gives them a textured sound.

Wonderful Wonderful is an album that doesn’t let the listener look forward to the next track, because the album is restlessly glancing backwards over its shoulder, haunted by past successes of The Killers, and the great artists who came before them.

Just when you think it's done, it finds another gear through the ingenious addition of a subtle offbeat that kicks the groove up a notch--the kind of sly, brilliant touch that suggests Rudimental are worthy heirs to the likes of Soul II Soul and Basement Jaxx.

It’s all a bit stiff: the methodical chording of “All This Way” lacks swing or swagger, as if too tightly corsetted, and “Take Care” displays similar restrictions applied to their keyboard-led material: the plonking piano and falsetto refrain suggest someone’s trying for Brian Wilson magic, but falling well short.

It's all delivered with customary warmth and swing from Miller's home studio.

Throughout Synthetica, an undertow of dystopian unease drags the music away from standard pop territory into darker areas.

The more often she changes, and the broader she spreads her net musically, the less distinctive her art becomes.

A sense of awestruck wonder permeates tracks such as "Swallowed by the Night", though when Barthmus tries to deal in more human terms, with the inverse "Ebony & Ivory" schtick of "Shared Piano", the results are less successful.

This debut album is awash in buzzsaw guitar riffs and splashy cymbals, while the wild-child vocals of Arrow De Wilde channel the jaded disdain of Courtney Love (minus the rage), occasionally peaking in a Lene Lovish-like squawk. It’s a formula which works best on “Love’s Gone Again”, which has something of the elemental primitivism of Pink Flag-era Wire as it treats perverse carnal urges to a dose of distortion.

Although this album loses some of his distinctive sound – and has none of the cool experiments of Beyoncé’s record – it also showcases his undeniable song-crafting chops.

In a year already host to some brilliant albums, it seems tired and dated.

It’s an odd selection, including Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” as a pallid piano ballad, and Keren Ann’s “Strange Weather” as a desolate but oddly comforting duet with David Byrne.

It all comes together more fruitfully on the ensuing "Hey, Shooter." [...] From there, it gets more fecund than ever.

Sadly, the decision to tell Feltrinelli's story in the same period technopop music as Stainless Style sabotages its impact.

There's a bruised strength to Spx's voice, and her melodies have the stark, fatalistic tone of chain-gang moans.

Felice fails to animate them in the manner of comparable storytellers like Johnny Dowd and Richmond Fontaine's Willy Vlautin, and thus leaves one's interest unignited.

It’s Vance’s sepia growl of a voice that grips most on The Wild Swan, bringing raw conviction especially to the opener “Noam Chomsky Is A Soft Revolution.”