While there are moments on this album where Benjamin Francis Leftwich's positivity is genuinely very nice to hear, all in all Gratitude is musically beige and lyrically clichéd. Leftwich would be better to stick to what he does best: playing his acoustic guitar and singing about 1904.

Breakin' Point feels like a pop record designed by a committee.

This is the least inventive product you could have expected from a bunch of varyingly inventive songwriters. Which is to say, it’s not much good at all.

Craft’s nutcracker vocals and lyrical self-exposure never quite as endearing as they threaten to be.

Morrissey can alienate fans with outlandish outbursts or with decidedly average new music, but both at the same time is surely too much for even the most forgiving fan.

Thought Rock Fish Scale arrives wholesome and homely rather than exciting or challenging, as if missing the lights of the big city.

Wuthering Dream all too frequently gets lost in its own subtleties.

For an indie record, Open Book does what it does well, and with charm, but there’s an unshakeable sense of wasted potential here.

Tense synth riffs drive [the track Animals] forward and give it an energy absent from the rest of the album. It is that energy, that immedicacy that made Fuck Buttons such an exhilarating listen, which is so sorely missed on this album.

The duo commit to a kind of 90s-coded insouciance: lethargic vocals draped over a club-ready chassis and an occasionally unconvincing refusal to try too hard. For a band sold as the city’s next great party-starters, a lot of 'Ö' feels oddly undercooked.

Vocal highlights aside, the band's simplistic metal techniques fail to materialise the "Catholic sex dungeon" vibes Mahony hoped to summon.

In•ter a•li•a instead sounds vapid and empty, like it's blowing hot air around the room; the band sound like a parody of themselves.

An album with a few moments of sweetness, but which ultimately feels like a pleasant collection of background music.

While her captivating vocals remain, Donnelly’s lack of bark and bite from the debut means this record, as the name suggests, mostly washes over you.

The production of this record is flawless, but when so many talented writers are trying their hands at precisely this kind of pop music, substance is paramount, with style a distant second. Sadly, the opposite is true here.

To be sure, it's a crazed, nihilistic rollercoaster and like all rollercoaster rides it has its ups and downs, its moments of exhilaration and its dizzying plunges into horror.

It’s a record filled with trite sentiments and well-trodden musical ideas (or in some cases, badly-trodden).

Over 14 tracks, repetitive funk riffs and chatty, conversationalist lyrics start to wear a little thin, and a lack of diversity makes for such comfortable listening that you risk all-too-comfortably tuning out.

More often than not, United Crushers settles into a groove and gets comfy.

Compared to their past work, the album lacks intensity and seems to rely on a heterogeneity of unrefined styles, making it seem more like an album of covers that flirts too closely to the tired hip-hop trope of a single, aimless verse.

PJ Harvey's least beautiful record by some distance, The Hope Street Demolition Project's intentions are admirable and inarguable. But weighed against the expectations raised by the overwhelming invention of her stout back catalogue, it falls uncomfortably short.

Yeasayer constantly threaten to come out with a startling album; alas, Amen and Goodbye isn’t it.

The RATM members still manage to stir genuine, potentially powerful emotions, but the tracks never get too far before ruinous effects, puerile 'all right' choruses, and chiming end rhymes cause them to collapse.

Ultimately, ONDA is an interesting but forgettable experience despite its origins.

K. Flay is definitely a Marmite artist and her alternative take on electro-pop/rock is likely to appeal to a lot of people, but unfortunately for some it will be quite difficult to stomach.

Musically, the good ideas are palpable; a shame, then, that the lyrical ones take such banal centre stage.

Wildly inconsistent album.

While this isn’t a bad album, it does feel like a safe one (which is perhaps even worse).

The best tracks here are those which delve into the power ballads that we know Lavigne can produce so effectively. But other than the album's self-titled lead single and It Was In Me, with soaring orchestrals and subtle keys paving the way for her lung-bursting croons, it feels much like a lost Lavigne seeking a sound that’ll just keep her afloat.

Unfortunately, for all but the hardcore, Free seems to baffle as much as it bewitches.

At one extreme, you sense Anathema want to be taken seriously (in the way that, say, the aforementioned Mogwai are taken seriously); unfortunately, however, there are times they can sound a bit like Deacon Blue or Tom Odell, which is not to be wished for.

Lead track The Love Within opens the record and remains a bizarre mess; Kele Okereke's distinct vocal parting for a mostly one-note synth line that causes a genuine flinch. All is perhaps not lost: Fortress is a somewhat pretty, minimal electro ballad while Different Drugs speaks for the entire record; flirting with a series of ideas before simply fading out of sight and mind. We expected so much more.

The baggy mid-section gives over to pared back singer-songwriter fare that reigns it all in, the record’s bright flame burning out rather too fast.

While it's absolutely fine that he's not interested in making punk music anymore (or at least for the time being), hearing him run through the blues and rock repertoire of the 60s and 70s offers absolutely nothing that can't be achieved by just going and listening to all those great, original, records.

Sure, Graham’s voice is powerful; not Levi Stubbs powerful, perhaps, but muscular and versatile nonetheless. It’s a shame, though, that even its most melismatic hints of adventure feel carefully rehearsed; slickly produced beyond any sense of risk or catharsis.

Overall, there's a real sense that La Roux is on autopilot, resulting in a ‘samey’ sound that struggles to hold the listener’s attention.

The charm of Bleached's earlier, scattier records (Ride Your Heart, Welcome to the Worms) are nowhere to be seen, replaced by a glossy pop-rock sound that would have been fashionable a few years ago, but has surely passed its prime.

The record is resolute in its pacing, maintaining a continuous bpm between songs but never gaining driving force from the bass as the best disco does. Nothing ever feels like it’s at risk.

Nothing is broken with their sound, but the album feels like an extension of their previous work rather than a progression of it.

There’s still too much filler here to warrant an unqualified thumbs up.

It’s just a shame their debut feels muddied, rather than fuelled, by glimpses of their potential.

Unable to elicit more than a shrug for most of its runtime, the record is just one more passable pop album in a year that really didn’t need another.

The band took all the wrong lessons from the success of their last album, and doubled down on the syrup. Turns out too much sugar really can make you sick.

While there are certainly some decent enough ideas to be enjoyed here, this is ultimately a rather flat listen that doesn't challenge anywhere near enough as it appears to intend to; a real wasted opportunity.

Like a horror flick that looks good but never really scares, The Capsule remains a concept crying out for a narrative.

It's actually not a terrible record, really, but it's frustratingly complacent after two outstanding albums.

Unfortunately, Olly Alexander’s first solo outing as Years & Years doesn’t quite hit the mark, but even though they may be few and far between, there are still some glimmers of potential on Night Call.

Savior seems suffocated by the very strict parameters that have been drawn for her, by herself and others.

If creating something uncomfortable was what Butler was hoping to achieve with In Amber, then it certainly succeeds in its mission. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t achieve much else.

We’ve seen more than enough spark between the two on previous efforts to know that there’s a future for them; it’s just a shame they chose to rail against their best instincts this time round.

She pirouettes into the upper echelons of her register during Rooting for You, conveying the affection and apprehension contained in the line 'you’re the only thing I’ve ever truly known'. The low scoops on Hell to the Liars are another, as if Reid’s digging in her heels to stand firmly against 'the righteous ones'. But these are rare instances of genuine feeling amongst what otherwise feels like palatable but empty theatrics.

Alter Ego should make meteoric impact. Instead, it lands with a dull thud. The album doesn’t feel like an artistic statement so much as lab-assembled and A&R-curated; sterile and unwilling to take risks.

TMBG’s 20th album, I LIke Fun, doesn’t mess with the template too much. If you come to this record knowing only the TMBG song used as the soundtrack to Malcolm in the Middle, you’ll get a hearty helping of everything there is to like--and, yes dislike.

Stiff is better when it's slower, but it still feels like riding a rollercoaster that's all climb and no twist.

The beats are the only thing going anywhere on Stranger, while the vocals seem as drunk and rambling as ever, devoid of memorable similes or even coherent subject matter.

Blossom's debut record isn't short on marketable material, but its impact could certainly have been enhanced by a more ruthless pruning.

Their problem is there are other bands doing this kind of thing better (Black Angels, we’re looking at you).

Too many of the tracks dissolve into an atmosphere-for-the-sake-of-it sludge, yanking you into consciousness only every once in a while.

Overall, Black Hole Superette contains a number of fun and novel songs delivered with a remarkably detailed writing style. What really lets the project down is a lack of variety across an overly long tracklist.

There's a nod to Brexitannia in the shape of Dark Days Are Here Again but much of Office Politics feels like old jokes, filler songs in wobbly theatre productions and laboured punning.

Much of The Possum... feels like an echo of earlier, better work.

As a whole the experience lacks the nuance and multiple textures required to make such guitar-centric endeavours a real delight.

A lingering suspicion remains that there’s little that’s new or groundbreaking to the bouncy vigour encountered on tracks such as Severed Estates or A Change in Course; even the blissed-out motorcade of highlight Fugue States fails to have all its sirens sounding.

Aimless and fussy, Heartworms sounds like the kind of album a person with slightly too much money, their own studio and a massive ego would make. Crushingly disappointing, this is, alas, no return to form.

d. If you’ve followed either Moore or Falkner, it’s certainly a curio. Everyone else--life is way too short.

Dead Magic, though, is utterly derivative of the very few albums in this genre ever to succeed, and lacks all of their spark and life. Above all else it is unbearably, irredeemably boring.

With Red Pill Blues Levine and co have managed to produce an album that is uninteresting and unexciting; at best this is background music, to be listened to on very, very low volume, or even better, not at all.