The result is a sort of mannered, formalist rusticity that only occasionally develops a convincing momentum.

Few musicians ever achieve such complete dominance and superiority on their instrument as Jerry Douglas: not a single voice is raised in challenge to Douglas's mastery of the dobro. This latest, guest-laden album shows why.

The tone here is more robust than [Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down's] thoughtful reflections on history and poverty, taking its cue rather from the ribald pillorying of conservatives in tracks like "No Banker Left Behind" and "I Want My Crown".

A frustrating experience overall.

The resulting extended instrumental palette has brought a new depth to the arrangements but has added little transparency to Yorkston's often bewildering lyrics.

This is actually one of the Lips' more coherent efforts, despite its wild diversity and devil-may-care attitude.

Overall: must try harder. Or appear to.

Plan B acquits himself remarkably well here.

Grasscut push the electropop envelope in intriguing new directions with Unearth, its songs inspired by alliances of people, poetry and places.

Stone delivers what may be his masterpiece in Broken Brights, an album that seamlessly inhabits the resurgent Laurel Canyon sound.

Like Comedy features their ebullient charm in large dollops.

Along with the anger and regret comes the usual hip-hop baggage of aggrandisement, recrimination and old-school reminiscence.

The results here are surprisingly congenial, their sparkle only slightly subdued by the breathy reverb that swathes everything in a sonic dust entirely appropriate to the 1970s source.

The album plays to her strengths, as befits a woman who has sustained a career as producer of, among others, Joss Stone's breakthrough sessions.

However bleak, there's no denying the delicate mood created by [Kozelek's] charm.

Andre Williams is a renegade R'n B spirit who remains, in his seventies, as scurrilous as ever.

"Whistle", takes a sidestep with its acoustic guitar and tedious single-entendre hook, but there are plenty more brutal stompers to spare on Wild Ones.

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

The duo have devised a series of fascinating improvisations.

The fascination with sonic texture over tune tends to make everything sound like everything else, as if the tracks were leaking into one another.

For all his production skills, he remains first and foremost a vocal stylist of considerable ability.

It's a lovely, warm-hearted gem.

Maroon 5's sudden decline with the Mutt Lange-produced Hands All Over seems unlikely to be significantly overturned by the lacklustre Overexposed.

Imaginative and innovative in equal measure.

Mutual Friends, a loose song-cycle, is entirely winning.

It's more of a return to her roots in the feisty Eighties punk-jazz outfit Rip, Rig + Panic.

Despite restlessly exploring hitherto untrodden musical terrain, there are precious few wasted seconds in these three hours.

The blandness of the R&B pop-soul arrangements simply throws attention on to the repetitive narrowness of Bieber's delivery.