Lynchian undercoat aside...it's basically just a good old massive pop album, which can be a scary thing in its own right: the air of soulless, monolithic power and the unseen presence of shadowy string-pullers etc.

Ersatz GB still trumps most records released this year as, one suspects, The Fall always will.

While we often expect clarity of thought from our favourite lyricists, Wolf's admission that he doesn't hold all the answers makes these songs all the more relatable and poignant.

There's strange stuff here even by the none-stranger Black Dice's standards. But again it's more purposeful and propulsive than that appearing on their previous albums.

Chances are that after the initial thrill has gone, you'll be reaching for Indie Cindy less frequently than Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, more than Trompe Le Monde and about the same as Bossanova and that's not a bad return to the fray by any measure.

Almost to a man (there's the odd fail, but they're near misses not massive stinkers) the remix team delivers, transforming the borrowed materials into something not better, but of equal merit.

All too often Paralytic Stalks feels like an attempt to assume the role of indie-pop's Steve Vai by competitively crushing structural formats underfoot until there's nothing left but dusty granules.

Good intentions, interesting sounds, and a handful of great songs; compromised by an inflexible house style. It makes listening to the album from start to finish an experience that is occasionally rewarding – especially with a decent set of headphones – but ultimately, well … trying.

There are moments when Soft Hills' sound slight; even middle-of-the-road bland. But there's a beguiling soulfulness and a darkness to this record that will seep into your heart if you give it a chance.

Musically the album is on-point and lyrically it's prone to Kelly's customary laugh-out-loud clunkiness. Despite all that, though, Kelly has made another really great album.

Oneida are really good at this stuff, always managing to ensure that no matter how frazzled they get the whole package packs a hard punch that can only be rock and roll.

Meteorites is still, on initial blush, like all those other albums from Evergreen onward, "the new album from," a reliable entry but not a jawdropper.

It’s dark, unrelenting. ‘Almost Loved’ showcases the fictional Void Pacific Choir chanting like an Omen soundtrack, a song of regret becoming a pounding mantra. The “perfect lie” of ‘And It Hurts’, the “dying sun” of the Killers synth-pop of ‘Are You Lost In The World Like Me?’, the falling sky of ‘Don’t Leave Me’ – Moby’s worldview feels unremittingly bleak. It's not all spit and thunder, not quite.

Is Walking On A Dream the sound of things to come then? Clearly not. Empire Of The Sun's grand ambitions are certainly worth applauding, but unfortunately they amount to nothing more than a cold and pale facsimile of the superior conquests of others who have trod these lands before.

Lissy's insouciant delivery and impressive range, which scales the heavens one minute and fills her boots the next, marks her out as a singer of some considerable talent, and her voice is always engaging and likable.

Neon Icon is that rare product of a rapper in the modern world--an album that perfectly encompasses everything they became loved for on their come up, amplified to the glorious maximum, aiming confidently into the future.

There are moments where she reminds us that she can still do wonderful things, but for the most part, Artpop shows us an artist who is trying to do too much all at once.

With occasional flashes of their previous excellence, Spine Hits has too many drab moments to make this anything other than their weakest work yet by far.

Not only are the concepts themselves reductive and half-baked and the lyrics risibly clumsy, but the songs appear to have been composed in less time than it actually takes to perform them.

There’s humour present in the exuberant ‘Let There Be Shred’. This is Megadeth at their most Spinal Tap, and that is in no way a criticism. There are some mid-paced, albeit melodically snarled, numbers in the centre. For the Risk fans, perhaps? The aggression and guitar solo heroism re-erupt in the second half when Mustaine revisits his preoccupations with warfare.

Nicki Minaj's second album is pop postmodernity in an advanced state of hollow, banal meaningless, and the first causality is Minaj herself.

From its funereal ballads to its hook-infused jams, Innocents is uniformly satisfying and catchy as hell, suggesting a fascinating possibility--if this is the album that he has waited his entire life to make, then at the grizzled age of forty-seven, Moby is only now entering his prime.

Future This is a coherent, uniform proposition, a proper album, rather than a melange of posturing and botched experimentation, as was the case with A Brief History Of Love.

What really makes Sheezus so frustrating, though, is that among the dross there are some genuinely interesting tracks here.

‘Out Of These Blues’ adds a country twang to the formula. ‘Live With Hope’ uses a gospel choir. A couple of others are more stripped back and equally forgettable.

RZA does his fair share of huffing and puffing on A Better Tomorrow (see hooks to 'Hold The Heater' and 'Crushed Egos'), but the widescreen production lacks the intensity to motivate a jaded clan.

It's clear that this is easily Har Mar's best album. Sure, the lyrics are still hamfisted, but they're not as bad as they were in the past.

Magna Carta offers only a few vivid images but even fewer full songs. The album's relentless spewing of wealth will be enough to repel some listeners, but that's not exactly the problem here, it's that his brags are often unimaginative and humourless.

Each featured artist at the top of their games, masterfully dominating their segments, leagues above Tha Carter IV's comparatively tired host.

Uncanney Valley is an enjoyable and accomplished record.

[A] satisfying compilation with its lugubrious and luxurious electronic introspection created by an artist once again near the height of his powers.

It's not all bad, and sometimes the reverse is true, with the strings the best thing about the track; the opening figure from 'A+E' is very pretty and the violin rising up in 'Cologne' is melodious and elegant, but they both give way to more of the electro-flotsam.

The fact that BE is patchy, and solid rather than surprising in its best spots, you have to put down to a failure of nerve or drive. It's not Different Gear, Still Shit, but it is nowhere near as exciting as it might have been.

It's a sunny, sweet, excitable record, but it doesn't forget a couple of moments of contrast.

It's not that Thicke can't carry a tune. It's that he thinks that having songs that smoulder with sex appeal a la Luther Vandross, Boyz II Men or Barry White means that you have to degrade woman and boast about how your penis is bigger than the next fella's.

Overlook is not her best record, but is an encouraging return to a sensibility marked by deliberation and sensuousness in equal measure.

Ultimately, The Endless River is another Floyd album about the inability to communicate--it doesn't "say anything" or "go anywhere", but maybe that's the point. While it's unlikely to win the band many new admirers, the casual Floyd fan will find much to enjoy here.

Even without the cushy padding of Welcome to: Our House's clutch of Alex da Kid, AraabMuzik, and Hit-Boy beats, No Love Lost predictably sounds an awful lot like everything else on the radio.

It might be better to think of Hotel Sessions as a surviving collection of demos and rarities rather than a planned project. Handled in this way, the album begins to exude at least some charm.

Ten$ion's depiction of modern South Africa is nothing less than thrilling.

The problem here isn't Dr Luke smothering Marina's idiosyncracies so much as Marina/Electra herself crafting them into something paper-thin and paper-cut annoying.

If there's one problem with this pop/rap hybrid it is the skittish way she sometimes departs from the beat, losing her flow in EDM choruses or radio friendly R&B pop hooks. Iggy is strongest when she welds her words to a minimal yet delectable bass boom, spelling out her name with mischievous exaggeration.

The one-paced nature of the album ensures that it fails to hold the attention throughout, with the mind frequently dipping in and out of the record, and the suspicion lingers that I Declare Nothing would work better as a pair of EPs and some judicious pruning.

Most of the songs flatline – ambient, rambling soundscapes that are largely indistinguishable...It's no coincidence that the briefest songs, when Syd really gets down and makes her personality felt, are also some of the best.

For the majority of Hymns' runtime Russell decides to play it safe and prop up Kele's uninspired musings like he's just another programmable component of an increasingly polished, synthetic entity. That the two longstanding partners can still lock together so seamlessly musically is nice and all, but it also highlights the essential ingredient missing from this half-baked album: chaos.

Excuse My French so blatantly plunders rap radio's past and present that once one stops expecting anything original there's little left to do than mentally catalog the references. Yet while French Montana isn't doing anything new, he's also not doing anything wrong.

Recorded last October, and with producer Gil Norton (who produced the band's final three albums) back at the helm, EP2 immediately delivers.

The tracks crackle and shimmer with an abandon not heard since their debut.

Even the most hardcore of Yes fans may forget that this exists in a couple months.

A curious listen, Sounds From Nowheresville is akin to having your memory wiped at exactly the same moment an experience is stored in the brain.

This is Svenonius with just an electric guitar, a microphone, an analogue-sounding drum machine and a tape deck, creating the rawest and most stripped-back manifestation of his singular muse to date.

It feels like he's taking a step back; his covers album is livelier and more creative than this, perhaps because it didn't feel the need to live up to anything.

This is a piece of work in which good-quality ingredients have been handled without a great deal of tact.

Not only is Lulu the worst thing any of the players have been involved in, it's quite possibly a candidate for one of the worst albums ever made.

EP1 was a mixed bag.

The World We Left Behind is, on a purely artistic level, the worst album released under the Nachtmystium banner. The major issue is that it lacks the creativity, the devilish glint, and the poisonous confidence that Judd previously injected (no pun intended) into Nachtmystium, his personal vehicle for experimentation and excess.

Yet for all their bluster of writing anthems for a new generation and saving guitar music, the reality is little more than a damp squib.

Some incredible songs also made it through, and if Minor Wave and Haunting and Daunting sound like perfectly listenable period pieces, then The Burdens of Genius and The Spiders are Getting Bigger are for the ages; timeless encapsulations of youthful frustration and depression, and the outer limits of a drug-warped imagination.