Andrew Hozier-Byrne’s second album Wasteland, Baby! is still stuck mid-sermon, albeit emaciated from surviving solely on stale communion wafers.

Many of these songs are hip hop-lite, incorporating bland trap beats as Levine delivers lyrics in the kind of stutter pioneered by early Soundcloud rappers.

Listening to The Heavy Entertainment Show is a bit like watching EastEnders--a constant barrage of snarling, strutting chippiness passed off as authentic British geezerism.

There's precious little of the experimentation or variety you might expect.

Her dance-pop here is identical to everyone else’s, which leaves Perry clutching at the single-entendre raciness of “Bon Appetit” (“Got me spread like a buffet / Bon appetit, boy”) and curdled imagery like “my love’s the bullet with your name on it” to secure a soupcon of bogus outrage.

Horan is impossible to dislike, forever existing on the right side of cheesy, but the result is a record almost entirely stuck on safe mode. You can only hope its stronger moments hint at better things to come.

The homegrown characteristics of her distinctive style have been all but washed away in a flood of R&B clichés on All of Me, a routine blend of fidgety grooves and tiresome ruminations on life and love.

Williams veers all too often from the kind of whimsy and cheese that’s acceptable at Christmastime, to a level of saccharine that actually makes your teeth hurt.

They've certainly lost much of their vocal character to the dreaded auto-tune, without gaining much by recompense.

There are glosses on former glories--“Jamaica Moon” is a patois adaptation of “Havana Moon”, while “Lady B. Goode” involves gender-realignment of Chuck’s signature song--but they’re vastly outweighed by tranches of sloppy filler.

Away from his favourite theme, Wiley struggles to bring interest or insight to his workaday observations, and while many of his grimey "eskibeat" grooves have an infectious, spartan quality about them, it's likely that in future they'll be more profitably employed behind other wordsmiths.

It just feels tedious and predictable. Portentous twangs of guitar? Tick. Shivery percussion? Tick. Screeches of feedback? Tick. A frontman who delivers lyrics (rambling prose) in a croaky, squawking gasp that recalls Mark E Smith? Tick.

Originally recorded on a home four-track machine, the songs were subsequently re-done with Trevor Horn at the helm, which has applied a little polish to what still sound like under-written sketches rather than compelling pop material.

Simulation Theory seems to fall into two territories--songs are either half-hearted nods to the best of their heavier rock-opera back catalogue, or futuristic, electronic pop-heavy tracks that borrow from bands more adept at that particular sound, and the vast majority of which are burdened with Bellamy’s political paranoia. For a new listener, it’s baffling. For a former, diehard fan, it’s disappointing.

Essentially, this is yet another album of formulaic EDM pop and Latino R&B dancefloor grinders, more market tester than art.

Latest Record Project Volume 1 might be a grievance-heavy sprawl, but if you’re a Morrison die-hard it’ll be a worthy, timely addition to his catalogue.

While Fridmann (best known for his work with Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips) weaves his usual psychedelic magic, the accentuation of purely sonic elements--glitchy loops, textural effects, the miasmic tone--is at the expense of Finn’s core songwriting strengths.

The main problem is that overall, the aptly-titled By Default just lacks excitement and panache.

Only occasionally does the survey of this interpersonal battlefield afford an optimistic light.

The raw indie-punk grinds and krautrock pulses have a brutish drive and determination, though lingering this long among a cast of "wasted people in a wasted world" leaves a grim aftertaste.

Sadly, this is about as deep as their politics go on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, the more articulate sentiments of To the 5 Boroughs having been largely abandoned in favour of fairly standard bring-the-noise, boast'n'diss hip-hop pablum.

This collection of re-recorded hits and newer material lacks both that album's imaginative approach and its understated nobility.

There’s a frustrating disjunction between intention and execution on Green Day’s Revolution Radio.

The Editors here step backwards into the crepuscular netherworld of Eighties new wave from whence they took their original inspiration.

Friendly Fires' follow-up to their Mercury-nominated debut is a huge disappointment.

Wig Out at Jagbags finds him reverting to type, with willfully obtuse sonic strategies that strive to wrong-foot even the most devoted listener.

Having spent so long exploring the intensely personal, she struggles here to find the right tone for more public matters.

“I Never Learn” is a gorgeous opener, its fulsome strum of acoustic guitars graced by strings and backing-vocal cooings in anthemic manner; but from there it’s emotional pain writ large, with wan piano lines supplanted by grand, melodramatic resolutions.