Moments of band interplay showcase their collective ear for the nervously romantic-sounding post-punk that's helped inspire the group's sound.

For those quick to claim that guitar music is dead, Cadenza is a sharp reminder that the genre still has plenty of life left in it yet.

With keyboard and drum machine-led swirls, higher-pitched and echoed vocals, and an embrace for what could be called art-pop-not-rock, Moonface's Organ Music is very much in the right place for 2011.

They've rediscovered what made them vital.

She's never been more as completely herself on record as she is here.

Darwin Deez is a guy who has clearly created a persona to deliver his material, but that doesn't disguise the fact he has a lot of talent and has a made an album that proves he's a 21st century indie pop prodigy with a promising future.

If summery and slick, no-frills pop-punk is what you crave, look no further.

The sheer ballast of [Jack] White's vision can be exhausting, the individual elements clanking chaotically and never quite gelling. Jackson gives as strong as a performance as she can, tearing into the oldies with ease and valiantly attempting the new songs, but she sounds most at ease with the quieter moments.

Builds on the loose and raw sound of Wold's earlier records, but [the album] is also an extension of them, pulling in strains of folk and country and adding them to his signature trance blues sound. The result is a powerfully good record.

An intimate and emotive affair which manages to pursue a slightly mellower direction while still retaining their trademark oddball sensibilities.

While the New York Dolls struggled to balance past and present on their previous reunion albums, Dancing Backward in High Heels is a product of the here and now as defined by two guys following their muse in their own way, which is just what they should be doing at this stage of the game.

Brilliant! Tragic! is a little uneven in its mix of new and familiar ideas, but for a band as clearly defined -- and sometimes confined -- by its approach as Art Brut is, to start changing the formula is a big step forward.

Head of the class, leader of the pack good, and you won't hear many rock & roll records better than this in 2011.

Ottewell isn't the first Gomez bandmate to pursue interests outside the band, but Shapes & Shadows is the most accessible solo effort to appear from that group.

The Fall winds up a little ephemeral, its pleasures as fleeting as the scenery passing outside the windows of a tour bus.

Vedder never has been ashamed of his bleeding heart... it's refreshing to have a record where that heart is pushed toward the center, beating fully and proudly on his lightest, sweetest album yet.

This album perhaps best shows the duo able to capture the sense of drone as exaltation, something derived from the choice of instruments used, whether old keyboards, guitars, effects pedals, or further combinations and extrapolations as desired.

Heavy on atmosphere and hooks alike, Pleasure comes one bounding step closer in the eternal quest to marry refined song craft and ungovernable noise.

At this point, EDD will probably never get the recognition they deserve, but those in the know are sure glad they're still at it.

Based on the theme of technology and the power it holds over modern life, its 14 tracks showcase Skinner's trademark hip-hop witticisms.

Adhering to the old-school MC/producer approach, Well-Done is a promising and cohesive affair which proves Bronson has the raw talent to match his much talked about appetite.

In Case You Didn't Know is assuredly going to help Murs become one of Britain's finest national male pop stars for the next little while.

Live at the South Bank is an artfully and spiritually satisfying coda to a long and criminally underappreciated career.

The end result of this is an album that'll come as a blast from the past for the band's fans and should easily get heads nodding with its affably introspective lyrics and huge choruses.

There are times throughout its ten tracks when Lloyd does appear to be testing the patience of even her most ardent fans.

200 Years is as subtle as they come and makes for excellent background music, especially if you're feeling fragile.

Music for Confluence may lack the usual highs and lows associated with film scores, but it more than compensates for them with its sad, yet lovely strangeness.

Produced by Rancid member and Hellcat Records owner Tim Armstrong, Jimmy Cliff's Sacred Fire EP is a wonderful jumble of time and place that ends much too soon.