Dig Out Your Soul might not be the sound of envelopes being pushed, but its mix of kitchen-sink production and too many vague songs mark a deviation from business as usual that ultimately fails to deliver.
Back In Back it ain't, but it's certainly a real return to form.
Smilers is a masterpiece from a songwriter who's quietly chronicling the blanched last days of a sunshine empire.
Un Dia is if anything, even more challenging, a set of songs that demand interpretation even as they beautifully defy it.
Imperial Wax Solvent is a swift two-finger rejoinder [to middle aged mellowing].
A lush and trippy affair with shades of Edward Lear-like surrealism and John Winston Lennon amid Strawberry Fields.
Street Horrrsing is a six-track, 50-minute melange of iridescent synths, psychedelic drone, distorted vocals and tribal rhythm, peaking with the deftly layered counter-melodies and blissed -out propulsion of epic single 'Bright Tomorrow.'
Welcome to Mali celebrates its artificiality, flaunts its illegitimacy and waggles its infidelities in your face. Amadou & Mariam have just damned authenticite to an eternity in caducite.
So does the pairing work? The answer, from the first, strutting beats of Modern Guilt's opener, 'Orphans,' is a gleaming Yes.
There's still some beautifully glacial music ... but now, occasionally, the Arctic exploration party becomes simply a party.
NuAmerykah is her boldest and best yet, brilliantly eccentric but repaying every indulgence.
Third shows Portishead in the tradition of, say, Fairpoint Convention as much as Massive Attack, and though it might not convert sceptics it is convincing, and occasionally thrilling, demonstration that the wilderness can be a great place to cook up new ideas.
In these crop-to-fit times, omnivorous, visionary pop is at a premium, and there's all the more reason to prize an omnivorous visionary pop record like The Week That Was.
Stay Positive has consistently stronger material than its preecessors and, perhaps more importantly, is sequenced to maximum efficacy.
There are great albums that are nose-to-tail singles, but 22 Dreams is not one of them. Settle in for the duration, however, and expect a genuine trip.