Robbie Williams is in a quandary. Reality Killed the Video Star is his putative comeback album. That’s how he’s been talking it up. Only it’s not – as he acknowledges quite explicitly (“don’t call it a comeback”) on the wan, sub-Depeche Mode Violator-era Last Days of Disco.

Williams is also making amends for his poorly received, and admittedly poorly conceived, written and executed Rudebox in 2006 by turning in a dozen songs that try to balance his early millennium stadium juggernaut and well, growing old. But Williams still lives in the world where a £20m fall in his fortunes not only warrants media attention but is not considered fatal. And where joke marriage proposals on idiot radio stations is considered a classy promotional tactic. He wants to be taken seriously. He doesn’t want to be taken seriously. He wonders what people in the next century will think about him (Superblind). But he’s just havin’ a larf, right? He’s a scamp, puncturing his public persona and mucking about with the media. Give over. This would be furtive ground in other hands, where flights of fancy are matched equally with incisive wit and genuine soul searching; not here though. Williams is so bloody ham-fisted. Reality... doesn’t feel like a glimpse inside the muddled mind of a charming and skilled entertainer. It’s buffoonery being passed off as pop music. The only thing Robbie Williams continues to skewer is the last vestiges of his talent.

From the opening few records alone, you can tell that Emerson Todd is an extremely experienced audio engineer, his bio impressively lauding that he has previously twiddled knobs for marquee Aussie groups The Presets and Pnau to name drop but a few. His other day job is as an internationally successful techno DJ/Producer and the latest in the famed Balance series is a fitting platform for him to display a seamless progression of deep sounds which welcome you like a warm fireplace and frothy cocoa.

Electric 05 is one of those true journey albums that will have you staring in disbelief at the LCD panel on your stereo wondering how it is that the mix has progressed through five tracks without you noticing a thing.

The lush opening of the album is smoother than Larry Emdur at an old peoples home, with killer records like Doomwork - Fresh and Oxia & Nicolas Masseyeff - Trying Out really setting a great foundation for the latter half. Here, Emerson uses one of his own productions (Jacob) as a fork in the road, guiding the mix down a techier path from that point, with bouncy numbers from Guy Gerber and Gavin Herlihy injecting a bit of much needed ‘jack’ into its veins. Fans of minimal (and I mean MINIMAL) will enjoy the journey, although I guess I could compare this CD to Canberra. It is beautiful in parts but there really isn’t that much happening.

It is not always the case that a live album adds a great deal to the catalogue of any band unless an unexplored dimension is revealed. With this in mind, there is nothing particularly revelatory on this major label recording of Nirvana tearing it up at the 1992 Reading Festival, but it sure is one hell of a good summation of a focused body of work, and serves to remind that at its heart, Nirvana was all about no-frills punk rock of a somewhat awesome kind.

The Reading gig was performed when the band was at its musical peak. Grunge was all over the place in 1992, and the rapturously received Nevermind album released the previous year had revealed a band that enjoyed The Beatles as much as 1980s hardcore.

This album opens with a blistering attempt at Nevermind track Breed, and the pace never slackens. It also becomes clear that the crowd love every minute of it. What I particularly like about the album is the sheer confidence on display which strengthens the sound, and also genuine engagement with the audience in the best punk tradition.

Sound quality is good, and Kurt Cobain gives his vocal chords a thorough shredding to match the whirlwind distortion and frenetic pace on intense tracks like Lithium and Negative Creep. This album is also a valuable historical document of a time when first-rate punk rock oozed onto the charts.

Those of you with elephantine memories may well remember Norway’s Wig Wam from their triumphant Eurovision Song Contest entry from 2005, the fabulous Bon Jovi pastiche In My Dreams; but it matters not one whit if you don’t – the words Eurovision, Bon and Jovi tell you everything you need to know.

Actually they don’t. Well, not entirely. Walls Come Down, the album’s second track, actually brings to mind the superbly classy, heavy melodic rock of Swedes Europe, especially the fine, full-throated vocals of singer Glam, whilst the title track does a good job of replicating the gods of this kinda mullarkey, the ever huge Whitesnake; and in Chasing Rainbows the band attempts, largely successfully, to join the musical dots between Queen, Aerosmith, Judas Priest and Tesla in under four minutes flat – no mean feat.

It’s not all barefaced tributing, of course, though the name of the game with WW is undoubtedly eighties nostalgia; You need to be supremely talented to even get in the same post code as Edward Van Halen (and there are a lot of nods to the man from guitarist Teeny throughout the album), and the band give just enough vent to these talents over and beyond mere apeage to warrant repeated listens – not just to spot the influence, but to enjoy the show as a whole. Enjoy this for what it is and you’ll have an absolute ball.

The girl on the cover says it all, really. The epitome of Upper West Side; young, pretty, inoffensive, and wearing Ralph Lauren. Contra fits the mould she sets perfectly. An incredibly smooth transition from debut to sophmore, it’s like they’ve minded their p’s and q’s, and ensured as not to offend anyone along the way, keeping their polite, preppy reps in tact, yet still keeping you hooked for the next track.

Contra is one of the few albums of late that really sits on the fence. If you out and out hate it, there’s plenty of ammunition for your argument. White Sky is possibly the most blatant Paul Simon rip off they’ve made so far; but if you love it, there are moments like Run, which offer glimmerings of a Vampire Weekend that have graduated from Columbia and put down the encyclopedias they surely have lying around in the recording studio. It’s in its intricacies that their sound becomes more than Gossip Girl music and stands up once again, on its own. One sound is always clashing against another, Koenig’s delightfully woven lyrics hit their head against calypso, reggaeton, synth-pop, afro-pop, and all the sounds we never thought we’d hear preps embracing. Their sampling and borrowing from all genres is what separates them from the pack as thoughtful musicians, not unoriginal. It’s why their debut worked, why Discovery and The Very Best worked, and why Contra will gradually melt you and work brilliantly as well.

Not straying too far from their sophomoric landmark The Trials of Van Occupanther may have seemed like a smart choice, once more giving tribute to the old Americana style Fleetwood Mac sound. Somehow, though, Midlake’s third LP already feels outdated. Had this been my first listen to Midlake I may have loved it. But as a fan it comes as a disappointment. Many songs start out promisingly but fall into mediocrity. For one thing (and this is perhaps my biggest gripe), Children of the Ground sounds way too much like Roscoe. In other songs beautiful instrumentation is brief and drowned out by capricious electric guitar and monotone vocals. What’s the go, Midlake? I know you’re all sad this time but are you bored too?

A return to their more Flaming Lips-like debut may have proven more satisfying. In the past, whenever Midlake has focussed on percussion or experimentation they have produced lasting and unique material (see earlier songs Bandits, Young Bride and Kingfish Pies). This is noticeably absent on The Courage of Others like two front teeth missing from the mouth of a kid named Keith.

Nonetheless, we are still provided pop folk which seems to have fallen off many radars of late. Songs like Fortune recall Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter and Rulers, Ruling All Things is almost Grateful Deadian. This is a quiet retreat from the spotlight.