It comes across as unimaginative and rather needy when applied to the singer Johnny Lloyd;s wistful inbetweeen reminiscences of fumbled romance and aimlessly anthemic pleas for decisive direction.

Solar Power finds Lorde swapping her trademark directness for tuneless detachment.

A fond indulgence, perhaps, but there’s nothing on Déjà Vu that will take your breath away like “I Feel Love.”

Eugene Hutz’s gypsy-punk combo--a sort of Balkan-American Pogues--functions best here on galloping grooves of fiddle and accordion like the opening “Did It All” and “Break Into Your Higher Self”. But the latter, in which discontent prompts the search for a more transcendent purpose, hints at the cod-philosophising which damages Seekers And Finders.

The Courteeners are still pretty much mired in Mancunian mores on this latest album.

Too much of the album is drably formulaic, a series of gambits shuffled into passable shapes rather than memorable songs.

Track after track follows the same formula, with Newman’s subdued introductory verse swallowed by a huge, anthemic refrain that never lets up, his voice drowned in a tide of orchestra and chorus, all dialled up to 11. It’s quite frustrating.

Mostly this standard boyband fare, reheated, and topped with modern pop sprinkles. It just feels so unnecessary.

In song after song, she offers variants on the same theme, in infatuated erotic reveries of submission to bad-boy or sugar-daddy lovers with fast cars and lots of money.

"Irish" and "Jetplane" bring a late flicker of focus to the proceedings, but the band's resolute primitivism works to their detriment.

While the music has the spindly, junkie-skeletal manner of earlier releases. But the way that songs relentlessly mythologise their past is frankly wearisome at this late stage.

Arthur grossly overdoes the emotional groaning that passes for vocal expression in the album's more overwrought corners.

Polari is brash and bold on the surface, but Alexander flails when searching for something truly profound to say.

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.

The unambitious nature of Given to the Wild is all the more disappointing for the intriguing glimmers of inspiration furnished by their collaboration with Roots Manuva.

Steinman’s sonic fingerprints are all over the album--the furiously arpeggiating piano riffs (one “borrowed” from Randy Newman), the brusque guitars, the Wagnerian pomp--though it is Loaf’s stagey delivery, with that juddering vibrato, which dominates songs.

Rather than imitating 2011, Inflorescent instead brings to mind the summer of 2013, overwhelmed as it is by a neutered disco-funk sound reminiscent of Daft Punk’s inescapable “Get Lucky”. Only rarely as catchy.

The occasional cut slices through the general blandness--the lilting “Shades Of Blue” is a winsome folk-pop lollop, and the Neu! motorik groove gives “For You Too” a rare drive--but overall this seems more escapist than reactive, not much help at all.

There are moments on Degeneration Street that suggest Dears' creative mainspring Murray Lightburn is hoping to effect an Arcade Fire-style vault from indie saltmines to popularity; but it's all too little, and at five albums into their career, too late for that.

F.A.M.E. is equal parts bubblebath boudoir soul and more bullish beat-driven floor-fillers, tricked out with familiar guests like Timbaland and Justin Bieber, the most lively of which is Busta Rhymes's babble-rap over the Clangers-style bleeps of "Look at Me Now".

[Lead singer] Justin Young assert[s] that he's "too self-absorbed" to be the voice of a generation. This wouldn't be so bad if the music didn't follow suit, with lumpen punk-rock grinds and spartan guitar-rock trudges.

There's an awful lot of music crammed into Plumb's 35 minutes, but it's rarely organized into the most attractive shapes - and on the few occasions it is, they alter course within seconds and head off in some less appealing direction.

The spiky guitars and stiff, jerky rhythms signal a dedication to his old band’s sound that is commendably faithful, if ultimately tiresome.

Watch the Throne is more notable for its general lack of impact. Neither as compulsively neurotic as Eminem, as languidly characterful as Snoop Dogg, nor as furiously articulate as Nas, the raps here represent a pretty mediocre, cardboard kind of throne, truth be told.

Overall: must try harder. Or appear to.

Kelly Jones seems particularly bereft of inspiration on Keep the Village Alive, with insipid lyric clichés harnessed to settings that resemble a swift rummage through an arena-rock record collection.

Rothrock does a decent job of pumping life into Blunt's material, building a song such as "Bonfire Heart" from fingerstyle guitar opening to big, exultant conclusion by way of subtle accretions. Not that he has much to play with.