It reveals a broader musical and emotional palette than they've exposed before.

This debut album proper fails to develop or change-up his formula of predatory sexuality expressed in tremulous tones.

The singer has matched Bernie Taupin's best crop of lyrics for years with his own most emotively apt melodies to produce a collection that both harks back to the intrigues and interests of his earliest recordings, yet manages to break new ground, quite an achievement for an artist in his sixth decade.

Bill Callahan's follow-up to 2011's gorgeous Apocalypse finds him in the company of a small, discreet band, whose gentle shuffles are coloured mostly by guitar, fiddle and flute, as his muse flits haphazardly about him. [The Independent scored this a 3/5 in the actual printed edition not 5/5 as seen on its online edition]

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

Another dilettante excursion with little to recommend it. [The Independent scored this a 2/5 in the actual printed edition not 5/5 as seen on its online edition]

The care and attention pays dividends on If You Wait.

It’s one dizzying burst of energy after another.

The delicate guitar and piano figures and the sombre languor of strings behind Alison Goldfrapp’s breathy vocals create something akin to a cross between the dreamlike mythopoeism of old folk tales and the lush cinematic arrangements of Michel Legrand.

She’s uniquely gifted--one’s only reservation concerns her inclination to pack everything into each track.

A significant improvement on both Humbug and Suck It and See, suggesting they’ve found a more satisfying rapprochement with the classic rock that tends to come with the territory over there.

The bawled slur that passes for Doherty's vocals is less agreeable the older he gets, while the flaccid grunge plaints and raggedy punk thrashes have diminishing appeal.

Through 14 tracks, Jordan and Harley offer a fast-talking, witty and well-meaning account of day-to-day life for sharp-eyed British youth.

With their lyrical focus on teen sex, money and the misplaced glamour of crime, at times it's like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, for boys.

The result is a set of gripping, euphoric grooves carrying raps that indicate a new-found maturity.

A nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here.

Not an easy listen, but a satisfying one.

Finally, maverick genius Sly Stone receives due respect in this four-disc retrospective, as the leader of rock's first multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-genre band.

While the Bootleg Series cupboard appears as well-stocked as ever, the value of outtakes from a notoriously weak album (Self Portrait) is debatable, though there are gems among the oddments.

The cult-like enthusiasm of The Magnetic Zeros is best experienced live, where their massed forces translate into a somewhat muddy morass.

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

With the hindsight afforded by this monumental 17-disc career retrospective, he seems somewhat less than The One, an idiosyncratic talent undermined by MOR inclinations.

The only failure is the routine indie chugger "Children of the Future".

It manages to grip the imagination for a while but ultimately, not knowing the root cause of the action, leaves one adrift in amorphous emotional distress. But there's much to admire here.

With Warp and Weft, Laura Veirs delivers her most satisfying set of songs since Carbon Glacier, but here, the arrangements devised by Veirs and her partner/producer Tucker Martine are so much more expansive and illuminating, creating a rich tapestry of ideas and idioms.

There's no denying the power of a set stuffed with riffs like “Honky Tonk Women”, “Brown Sugar” and “Jumpin' Jack Flash”, played with that inimitable loose/tight dialectic that characterises the Stones at their best.

Drenge brothers Rory and Eoin Loveless exhibit virtually no overt blues influences, relying instead on the heavily distorted guitar riffs common to grunge and garage-band psychedelia.

"Moving" apes the shameless anthemic yearning of Coldplay, and "A Different Room" has the windy bluster of U2. But it's the tiredness of the songwriting that cripples Where You Stand.