If you're looking for choice picks that suit your current standing (single / taken / stuck in lockdown lusting) then you'll find what you need - a relatable nature is served up on a silver platter - but a greater understanding of anything other than the above shall not be found.

It’s an aimless, winding record that occasionally stumbles upon greatness, but with the amount of mediocrity, you can’t help feel that the high points are mere accidents.

Jessica Rabbit is the work of a band in stasis, but also one who sound desperate to pull themselves out of it.

The Monsanto Years is another inessential and underpowered Neil Young album to file alongside the likes of 2003's ecological garage rock opera Greendale: good ideas and inspiring ideals grounded by half-baked presentation and paucity of substantial songcraft.

While their sound might indicate that the Icky Blossoms walk the streets at night in search of fresh blood, the overall affect is quite a bit less dramatic.

Sean Carey could really do with pushing himself further than he does at any point on this laurel-resting stopgap release.

We get the usual fan service on discs two and three of this new version. The second CD is a largely charmless collection of odds and ends.

It doesn’t as a whole compete with its first offerings.

Despite strong results in the past, this time these elements have ultimately combined to make a sort of erratic psychedelic porridge; boring in more than a few places, and a bit much for anyone other than the genre's keenest fans.

Too much of Stay Together sounds like it could be an ill-conceived Ricky Wilson solo record.

Constantly waiting for that ever-impending explosion of mind-expanding neo-psychedelic glory, Comfort dissipates feeling hackneyed and burdened by lacklustre platitudes despite the rare flicker of hesitant brilliance.

The key problem with Sing Into My Mouth, though, is that this willingness to go against the grain of the cosy sonic identity that the pair have carved out for themselves is all too rare, and inevitably, more often than not the covers sound uninspiring in that form at best and plain wrong at worst.

Emmanuel and Malay spend so much time creating a sense of space that most of the music is consumed by the vacuum; floating with nowhere to resonate.

Tonally, it falls somewhere between the shoegazey aggression of I Will Be and Only in Dreams’ hazy hooks, but it’s lacking the former’s force of character and the latter’s infectious melodies.

All in all, Imaginary Man is a bit like an early afternoon festival set: a perfectly pleasant, though ultimately forgettable, prelude to something better best enjoyed while lubricating for the headliners with beer.

It’s nice to hear the pair experimenting with their sound and trying to do something new, but it’s unfortunate that the quality of the song writing has seemed to suffer as a result.

While it satisfies the need to move around and proclomate, the end result of V proves hapless as well as frustrating to see because the Bronx have an immeasurable amount of talent--it’s just too bad that this far in, they haven’t managed to harness it entirely and create something more monumental.

New Moon is at times quite captivating and as rowdy as you need it to be, but its weaker moments consistently outshine its brighter ones, leaving the listener with an album half-full of both indelible sonic fury and equally forgettable missteps.

It would appear that the desire to remain in stasis has left it to stagnate somewhat, which is a shame, as Kompakt remains one of the most invigorating labels in electronic music.

Donna deserves more than this--don’t remember her this way.

And The Wave Has Two Sides may be severely front-loaded, but it sees ON AN ON offer up a handful of songs that appear to be a genuine attempt to take a stride towards some sort of commercial success. Currently however, the misses outnumber the hits.

Whether or not Joan of Arc are intentionally pulling back from some of the density of He’s Got the Whole, a bit too much space leaves stretches of 1984 less than solid in the process.

The LP is constructed, played and sung with acute skill, but all done without a hint of pizzazz, little colour, vibrancy or peculiarities--it's all a lackadaisical tumble of synth and guitar.

Love Frequency isn’t a terrible album, but at times it does feel terribly unimaginative.

It at least proves that Trail of Dead are by no means a spent creative force, but they’re going to have to try harder to recapture the genuinely visceral energy of their classic records if they’re ever going to reach beyond their own fanbase again.

It’s playful, dark, and produced well enough to settle the most pedantic of audiophiles. It’s clear, however, that putting meaning to Matmos’ sounds here only rehashes tired ideas of neotribalism and criticisms of late-capitalism.

Something Shines is a continuation of that frustration: so many wonderful moments let down by times where it sounds like Laetitia Sadier just isn’t completely focused, meaning it’s a record that’s okay, but one that could have been great.

It takes the form of a vanity project rather than a perceptive communication between artist and listener.

It’s hard to judge if the album has simply missed its mark or, as I suspect, he appears to have lost the enthusiasm and imagination with which he approached his first, vastly superior effort.

Her world beats obvious veneer while her crack at electronica too half-baked to portray as much more than Pro Tools tinkering, even with her ballyhooed use of Clams Casino behind the board.

This feels somehow lower-key (less in-your-face) than the other two, and it feels much more cohesive as a result. ... The main problem with Doom Days: the more you put into it, the less you get out.

The album’s been in gestation for two years, and yet with a few exceptions the ten songs here sound like offcuts. It’s not that Fuse is actually that bad – but it feels like a futile exercise, a series of turns down paths which don’t go anywhere.

Because the Internet, like Camp before it, fails to bring the sparkle that Glover has displayed in his comedy writing to his music; where his debut was crude, cartoonish and silly, this effort is faux-reflective, misguided and ultimately collapses under the weight of a concept that’s almost impossible to make sense of.

While it’s likely to be the most enthusiastic record you hear all year, Yes, It’s True is probably the band’s weakest album yet.

It’s personal--perhaps too much so--in that it can be inaccessible and/or devoid of meaning outside of the immediacy of her heart. But then it doesn’t feel like a self-indulgent collection; there’s a sincerity to her endeavours that endear you to the album despite it’s abundance of misgivings.

As this band is essentially a bunch of like-minded friends getting together, they clearly don’t have any worries about how this record is going to be received. Perhaps they’re resting on the laurels of legendary past projects, but this record neither breaks new ground nor successfully exploits the flow of an old formula.

He’s still figuring out the transition out of his remix artist phase, but enough works on his debut to show that there’s hope for the future.

It would be easier if this album were bad, which it isn’t: it’s a competent, often fairly enjoyable set of performances. But as neither good Springsteen nor good popular soul, it’s likely to fade out of most listeners’ memories long before the final track drifts off into nothingness.

The renewed cohesion and collaboration may have saved the band during this album’s recording process, airing grievances and settling put-off tensions, but the resulting homogeny of their sound lacks real bite and feels muddied.

Although it's great to hear the forever prodigy in a better headspace, more mature and precise with his words and emotions, it was the youthful messiness echoed in past efforts that made King Krule far more intriguing than what listeners will experience under the lingering gloom of Space Heavy.

The Unsemble is an album that sounds like it was phoned in from a bunch of guys who clearly think they just have to turn up to the studio and the magic will flow instantly from the fingers of these master craftsmen.

Sadly, what should have been a triumphant return ends up being as forgettable as the time of year of its release. It’s a middling album birthed in a middling, gloomy time of year without much joy to offer. Not even a proper chuckle.

As great as the album’s opening four songs might be, they hardly break new ground for the Felices.

For an album which so clearly sells itself as a capital C concept Album, the narrative is indecipherable; each track dropping a handful of new character names, and the final song seems to give up on it completely. Tillman is a fantastic songwriter, and so some of the new material is gold regardless.

This record utilizes straightforward folk-rock with understated string and brass accompaniments, mostly stripped of the whimsical music box quirks of yesteryear.

Make no mistake, this is difficult to listen to. You will not be rewarded for multiple listens. It is what it is. It’s not enough, by a mile. West has clearly made this for himself first, and indulgence is deeply ingrained into the concept.

Ultimately, their third record doesn't show MSTRKRFT to be master craftsmen.

Dense, uneasy psychedelia dominates, and although this isn’t a product of wilfully inaccessible experimentation, neither does it contain much in the way of instant melodies and conventional song structures.

Too often there’s simply a lack of focus to the songs on this album, which would have benefitted from keeping things a lot more simple and in line with The Strokes’ indie rulebook.

So much is happening on Now Or Whenever, but it somehow adds up to even less than the sum of its parts.

On pretty much every track, the instrumentation is formulaic and predictable.

It sometimes feels as though the sun has risen and those attempting to keep the party alive are fighting a losing battle. And a carnival with fighting of any kind is surely missing the point.

Surrender, accordingly, is the sound of a band in the throes of an identity crisis.

Energy is something of a misfire for Disclosure, it is an album that opts to play things safe and the consequence is an unremarkable album that feels at once overthought and simultaneously underdeveloped.

This particular realm of music expands, and you need to expand with it, or remain interesting enough to survive as you are; Courteeners have unfortunately done neither.

Moody. Loveless. One-paced. Monotonous. Dull.

Ultimately, Everyone For Ten Minutes doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from the band’s previous outings. Despite some lovely, refreshing variations sprinkled throughout – like the atmospheric slow burn of opener “Sideways” – this is largely the sound of Antonoff planted firmly in his comfort zone.

Although the songs are largely solid, there’s a recurring sense of deja vu. ... Being Funny in a Foreign Language sees The 1975 lose touch with the reality they are usually so skilled at reflecting. Ever one to over-intellectualise, Healy is wrapped up in so many repeating layers of fame and meaning and memes and buzzwords that any real meaning is out of reach.

The tone of the album is almost suffocating. Just as Cuco’s vocals submerge under the cloying, bolero sensibilities of “Far Away From Home” – as do we, with this all-encompassing misery.

Methyl Ethel have an innate knack for a tune, yet the darker ideas can feel unremittingly earnest.

The result is a collection of futile, brooding songs that tries to encapsulate bigger-than-life emotions but ends up being too afraid to truly delve into them. He could just need a little love from someone, anyone, to get that refined taste back.

Certified Lover Boy is polished, well-executed and yet is completely devoid of ambition or memorable moments.

Despite all of its 33 minutes being recorded in a home built studio that also doubles as a brewery, there’s little to suggest anything particularly wacky rubbed off on the sound.

Smith’ sugary falsetto comes across a tad one dimensional and inexpressive on his solo debut In The Lonely Hour.

Despite the interminably silly nature of Black Moon Spell, there are moments when these retro-rockers get it right.

TRUSTFALL is largely an introspective record – mostly quiet and tepid, breaking out in select moments.

Period sounds like a record trying its best to be happy – the striking highs of something like “Praying” are nowhere to be found on this allegedly unrestrained album.

In short, it’s a bit of a misfire.

It results in a pleasant, but mostly quite forgettable listen.

The 'what if' factor looms large on CHAOS NOW*, but not to the detriment of enjoying the thrilling outsider pop music that Dawson provides both in his overarching messaging and unsteady sound.

We were promised an album of violent thrills, but we just have The Prodigy on auto-pilot here.

If a track is below three minutes, it’ll be a modest barnburner that fizzles too fast, and if it’s above that, then you’re in for Black Francis impersonating a middle school vocal recital. .... When the distortion is flowing like beer on V-E Day, The Night the Zombies Came proves to be a modest party record, beneath the fat.

It’s very hard to understand where the identity of the band will finally settle when it alters its mask so numerously and swiftly across these ten disparate tracks.

Ultimately, there is a place for this kind of music, but it feels horribly dated.

The execution itself often falls frustratingly flat, lacking originality and a clear-cut focus. With its limited scope of musical conceptions, Born Pink, therefore, sounds strangely restricted, as if detained in a confined space wherein it longs to escape.

In short, there’s a sad irony to the title of this album; as a body of work, it derives courage through its commitment to playing it safe.

The album in it’s conventional format may be too limiting for Nisennenmondai here and therefore, this is not their greatest advert.

Mac’s latest release is unremarkable in almost every way, it is powerfully inoffensive in its delivery, instrumentation and intent which makes it hard to engage with and harder still to enjoy.

On her third, La Roux shows that she can write a melody like few others in the business today, but it’s hard to look past how similar each song really is.

It’s an uneven soundtrack to some early morning hotel lobby fever dream where the house-band drown in tight-collared Paul Smith suits and over-wrought orchestral-pop mimicry.

Divisive as they might be, Cudi’s experimental urges are what make him interesting; on Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’, he’s largely drowned them in a sea of unenlightened navel-gazing.

Sadly, these tracks don’t have any of the spontaneity and unexpected surprises that the warmer months bring with them, and instead these songs are plagued with familiar strains and arrangements that we’ve heard done far better in the past combined with overly simplistic, lovelorn lyrics that fail to make you think of anything other than bad middle-school poetry.

This record certainly makes things no clearer, but like standing and observing any great work of art, it’s true intentions and artistic merit might not become immediately clear. Only upon repeat experience may the true extent of its merit reveal itself.

While there are moments of genuine honesty and emotional clarity, these are overshadowed by Halsey’s refusal to let the music breathe.

Overall this record feels like a pocket in time and the breeze of nostalgia is welcome in parts but is wholly unsatisfying.

Try Not To Freak Out is a decent album, but on the whole, there’s really not a great deal to say about it, unfortunately.

This is a frustrating second record, but it does prove that To Kill A King have the potential to be a far better band.

Hardcore fans will likely find things to be affectionate about here, with Pollards knack for sweet melodies with a rough edge still just about shining through, but the safe production and tired performance means Earth Man Blues is ignorable for those outside of the '90s indie sphere.

Law and Order attempts to restore some sort of musical faith, but comes across as sounding like a narscisstic debut that only Jonathan Rado really understands.

Sorry I'm Late is certainly a belated arrival but it shows signs of positive momentum for Mae Muller and will have an emotional impact upon listeners whose path intertwines with hers – it’s just a shame that any sense of sonic bravery wasn’t given the opportunity to carry that influence further.

There’s too much telling and not enough showing across More Light‘s 70 minutes.

Throughout the album, there’s a sense they’re just playing around.

While the album is pleasant enough listening, and certainly doesn’t make you want to block up your ears, it is just too plastic-sounding to yield any lasting substance.

These songs remain uncharacteristically conventional in structure and instrumentation as a disappointing result.

There’s plenty to admire of Swift – her voice, her curiosity, her ability to mine emotional nuance – but that’s been true of every Swift era. What’s missing here is the glue. Similar to Red, some tracks just don’t mesh.

If you can let Pacific Daydream completely envelope you; throw you to the beach that instigated the album, then you’ll find sheer happiness here. If, however, you go in with any expectations of than that, you might find things a bit more difficult.

There's no doubt that Spaceman offers guilt-free pop with a tinge of R&B. Unfortunately, this doesn't make up for the lack of depth and emotion which means, despite being Jonas’ strongest work yet, the album still runs the risk of being forgettable.

While by no means a bad record, Sam Smith’s Gloria is largely hit-or-miss.