What's on the Evening Times' playlist this week? Here are Stef Lach's latest album reviews...

Pet Shop Boys - Electric (X2) ***

There are points on the Pet Shop Boys' 12th studio album where you would swear you're listening to one of the countless modern dance artists who churn out hit after hit, while never quite managing to create anything that's likely to outlive the summer.

But thankfully, there are also moments on Electric where that classic Pet Shop Boys sound returns in all its glory, and it's when they do what they do best that this album comes to life.

Axis is a thoroughly modern affair - all atmospheric in its build up before a throbbing bass drum takes over. It's decent, but no more than that.

On Bolshy, things improve rapidly. This sounds like the duo at their finest, with a chorus that is unmistakably Pet Shop Boys.

Love Is a Bourgeois Construct is every bit as catchy as some of their bigger hits, such as Go West, while Fluorescent manages to blend the modern with the classic rather brilliantly.

Album highlight is the excellent cover of Bruce Springsteen's  Last To Die, a soaring effort that is surely a hit in waiting....again.

And the best of the rest is Shouting In The Evening. A superb, garage-style verse builds to a dreamy chorus that showcases a band trying to move with the times and, on this occasion at least, nailing it.

Sick Puppies - Connect (Capitol) ***

Australian rockers Sick Puppies have a knack for penning choruses that find their way into your brain and steadfastly refuse to leave.

And when they're as good as that on Gunfight, they are by no means unwelcome guests. "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight, you lose..." sings Shimon Moore, and so will you once you hear it for yourself.

Walking Away is another superb slice of punk rock, served up with a memorable riff and another chorus you'll chant along to with gay abandon.

Having upped sticks from Oz and taken up residence in America, the three-piece made no secret of their love of the US rock scene as early as their first album. And on Connect they have embraced it like never before. The results are quite impressive.

Not least on single There's No Going Back. Its epic verse invites audiences to chant along and you can easily imagine a stadium full of fans doing exactly that. And again, the chorus is unforgettable.

Good work from a band surely destined for very big things.

Ace Hood - Trials & Tribulations (Young Money Entertainment) ***

Rapper Ace Hood is back with his fourth album and it seems he's as self-reflective and angry as ever.

On the record's title track he raps about a tough childhood - no father, no money and no future ... so far, so typically hip hop.

But when he complains about a lack of air conditioning in the childhood home, you have to wonder whether he's taking the micky.

Another Statistic is more of the same, but a creepy, sampled piano line and distorted backing vocals give this an edge that brings to mind Cypress Hill's Temples of Boom.

"Don't wanna be another statistic," Hood raps ... a much more poignant statement than his apparent misery at the hands of a faulty air conditioning unit.

Hope could have been a Tupac single, so captivating is its rhythm and so heartfelt are Hood's lyrics.

There's plenty on here to make this album relevant, even if it does lose the plot in places.