Wolf's mix of retro soul, moody synths and backwards beats doesn't add up to his masterpiece, but the fan-stalker narrative "Colossus/The Bridge of Love" is his own "Stan".

Nothing revolutionary about From Zero, then. But certainly a re-energised return to business for a band that has been sorely missed.

Brilliant and bittersweet, Shoot For the Stars Aim For the Moon is the work of someone whose success should have been stratospheric.

Pray For The Wicked is as sinfully good as anything Panic! have done before.

There’s not quite as intense a contrast between the sweetness of the melodies and the antagonistic howls of guitar feedback on this first album in 18 years, which allows the swaggering pop charm of tracks like “Songs For A Secret” and “All Things Pass” to work their magic in less edgy manner.

It’s genuinely enjoyable. Fairly forgettable. A pleasant enough middle-lane trip down what Mayer – with knowing cliché – calls “the highway of dreams”.

For this latest incarnation of The Go! Team, bandleader Ian Parton has doubled down on the street-beat cheerleader mash-up mode of earlier albums like Proof Of Youth by searching out an actual youth choir from Detroit to accompany the marching-band-style brass that drives Semicircle. This works brilliantly on “Mayday”, an anthemic lament for love signals ignored, with the ebullient brass and chanted vocals evoking street parades, and “Semicircle Song”, in which the staccato brass lines interlace like a proper New Orleans marching band.

It's a pleasant enough ride which reveals some of Panda's tastes.

For the most part, an album of rock songs to cherish in the Pixies oeuvre, united by an eerie thread that’s hard to shake off.

Where Black America Again was notable for its sharp, observational urgency, Let Love feels far more personal, and softer in tone. Common’s optimistic nature gives it an uplifting vibe.

Summer Camp's long-awaited debut album seethes with updated teen angst set to engaging electropop grooves.

There are a few irritations--I hate the ghastly synthetic-strings sound used on “Da Next Day”, and I hate Adam Levine’s hook on “Mic Jack”, no matter how impressively Patton piles rhyme upon rhyme. The hit cuts, though, are quirky novelties.

Pink Friday 2 shows flashes of the inventive brilliance that made Nicki such an undeniable superstar, but like so many legacy sequels, it mostly just makes you wish you were listening to the original.

The arrangements are pleasurable enough, less rootsy than before, with some skilled use of orchestration; but it's a shame to find such a gifted songwriter sounding so gullible.

Norah and fellow vocalist Richard Julian bring a warm, smoky charm to their harmonies, while lead guitarist Jim Campilongo stitches together songs.

It’s not a bad album, but you still get the feeling that, as Ryder notes elsewhere, “someone who looks like me is living in my skin”.

Cropper's needle-sharp guitar fills best demonstrate the immense debt the MGs man owes to the 5 Royales songwriter and guitarist Lowman Pauling.

Instead of a too-many-cooks situation, which this easily could’ve been, Dessner and Howard find cozy nooks for everyone. The singer’s reedy voice is the drawstring that ties it all together.

Finn has a nice line in sardonic, declamatory assessments – "Certain things get hard to do when you're living in a rented room"; "I'm alive, except for the inside" – but there's little comparable imagination to the arrangements, which lean towards ironic country-rock and dispirited blues-rock.

I doubt many listeners would be able to identify these as Tomlinson songs. But this is a likable, grounded collection of sunny-side-up pop from a likeable, grounded guy.

Save for a couple of uptempo trotters like the jaunty kiss-off “It’s Goodbye And So Long To You”, it’s mostly melancholy fare.

["When It's All Over"] itself is one of the worst here, mercifully outnumbered by the merely adequate and the few standout songs.

The brittle garage-punk of this debut positively seethes with trebly guitars, reedy organs, waspish fuzzboxes and urgent drums, with singer Mike Brandon exploring the ramifications of titles like “What Happens When You Turn The Devil Down” and “Flowers In My Hair, Demons In My Head” in tortuous, passionate manner.

These songs are as limp as long-lost lettuce, several of them barely meriting the appellation “song” at all.

A benchmark DCFC record and, barring a surprise drop from The National, the most immersive alt-rock album you’ll hear all year.

It’s a delight, full of rich textures and subtle touches, from the harpsichord, hi-hats and horns of “Apollo’s Mood” to the sumptuous opener “Sirens Of Jupiter.”

The 10 songs of this debut album are all about character, change and companionship, from various angles.

Has the dense, occasionally cluttered manner of the obsessive bedroom producer.