Beneath the bluster it's pretty dull fare, the brittle rock-funk beats and brusque guitar riffs carrying songs that pay eager lip-service to energy and activity but actually offer a series of fairly empty experiences.

It's Wretch's determination to find success by finding his own voice that's most impressive here.

The Old Magic is stuffed with the kind of retro-styled standards that will doubtless be mined by generations of Nashville crooners to come, performed here in unassuming arrangements that try not to get in the way of the songs.

The result is a series of half-formed, indifferently performed tracks on which even gifted guitarist Hugh Harris struggles to locate the inspired touches that made Konk so impressive.

For her third album as St. Vincent, Annie Clark has jettisoned the baroque string and woodwind arrangements that marked 2009's Actor, in favour of more direct, guitar-based settings.

Laura Marling continues to impress on her third outing, though the transatlantic influences are becoming more apparent.

It's a relief to report that Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down is his best effort by far since Chavez Ravine.

It's all tastefully arranged.

The cycling, Wendy Carlos-style synth figures of "Searching For Heaven" offer brief respite, but hardly enough to rescue an album promising far more than it delivers.

["A Little Bit Of Everything"] is a thoughtful, mature conclusion to an album that seems to summarise one of the more welcoming trends in American rock

The skirling electric guitars have been replaced by acoustic instruments which, allied to the ageless, weary but unbowed character of Ibrahim Ag Alhabib's voice, enhances further the bluesy nature of their music.

It's business as usual, but with diminishing returns, on I'm With You--the result, perhaps, of sticking with the producer Rick Rubin for six albums.

There's a profound valedictory tone about it, as songwriters such as Jakob Dylan and Paul Westerberg craft material custom-built for Campbell's situation.

The engaging mood is further enhanced by Condon's baffling but beautiful lyrics.

They now dart in yet another direction, devising a shuffling indie-dance style that recalls variously the infectious syncopations of Talking Heads, the baggy grooves of Happy Mondays and the campfire psychedelia of Animal Collective, but somehow manages to sound homogenously all of a piece.

The ponderous rocker "How Long Can These Streets Be Empty?" shows up the limitations of a voice better suited to pop and soul.

CSS's La Liberacion offers a much more serviceable blend of their original X-Ray Spex-style doughty amateurism with their slicker, sleeker electropop self.

These are some of the most engaging songs he's written, with beguiling melodies wrapped around typically gnomic lyrics, and little undue instrumental indulgence.

It's pleasant enough, but sometimes the words do rather get in the way.

Thea Gilmore's 70th birthday tribute takes the form of re-recording her favourite Dylan album in its entirety, triggered by her acclaimed 2002 cover of "I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine", which sustains its solemnity despite the inclusion of congas.

The Shjips' mesmeric approach reaches its apogee on "Flight", whose rolling groove is streaked with cascading contrails of echoey, double-tracked space-guitar.

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.

Thankfully, the further Wilson gets from his heroes, the better he gets.

Alongside some so-so newer material, this latest set revisits earlier triumphs in JD's new style, which owes more to MOR jazz than rock or country. It's not as successful as his 2009 comeback If The World Was You, being something of a halfway house.

The UK edition of their debut has three extra tracks recorded in a church, which damps things even further. But there is still much to enjoy here.

With Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys co-producing, Olive has captured the flavour of 1960s Brit-blues on the cusp of spreading into druggier, more exploratory areas.

His symphonic-soul innovations here would map out the course of much 1970s soul music, while his use of multi-layered vocals – the happy result of an engineer accidentally running two vocal takes in the same mix – added an extra element to Gaye's vocal armoury which he would use extensively throughout the rest of his career.

The most pungent aroma rising from Juju's avant-jazz dub-trance grooves is that of a funkier Mahavishnu Orchestra.