A fine album for autumn.

Throughout, monster riffs abound. Perhaps this monochrome-clad cartoon combo are as great as singer Howlin’ Pelle always said they were.

Burial has concocted a noir-ish sound that’s as powerful as it is atmospheric.

In Rainbows really does present Radiohead at their most full-blooded and confident.

The new album conjures something of Condon’s own imagination, more deftly-etched romantic fiction than dry travelogue, and is all the better for it.

When Cease To Begin rocks out it's euphoric, but there's a mournfulness shadowing each of these insistent melodies that will have you crying even as you smile.

The songs on Comicopera rate amongst his very best--emotionally complex, politically charged but never short of beautiful.

Don't let the seductively pleasant drift of the tunes fool you: this is sharp, dark stuff.

Even by her own unsettling standards, however, her seventh album is disturbing, a collection of smudged and spectral laments that appear to have been written before the invention of penicillin.

The result is a folk album so rich and intricate that, in scope, it's comparable to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks."

it's great to hear Banhart playing outside of type, and the swagger and muscle occasionally at work suit him surprisingly well.

It's a bewildering jumble on first gaze, but Harte's little fingerprint-smudged slivers, so lovingly composed, are precious things, and you'll fast find yourself addicted to his sweet, glum love stories.

Give it a bloody good stereo and your full attention.

An ambitious, filler-free, modernist-sounding beast which laughs in the face of underachievement.

The Go! Team are clearly committed to the lo-fi, DIY aesthetic, but with songs as strong as these it’s rather a shame they didn’t apply a little depth and finesse to their production.

Good Bad, Not Evil delivers 13 testosterone-crazed grooves which mercifully give finicky revivalism the swerve, in favour of fuzz-frazzled sonics and lots of fun.

Experimental yet poppy, awkward yet unforced, Panic Prevention is a minor masterpiece from a truly bar-raising new talent.

M.I.A. and co-producers, including Switch, straddle more styles than you’d find in most music collections, let alone on the same disc.

It's brilliant: Broder's twisted tales are better than ever, this time underpinned by urgent guitar riffs, off-beats and perfect pacing.

Roots And Echoes is an album of songs with all the warmth and familiarity of old leather--and as strangely unexciting as that sounds.

Rather than play catch-up, the Chems are accentuating the difference, digging deeper into melody instead of piling on the noise.

If there is such a thing as music with a hairy chest, this is it.

There's a real richness here, and raw venom beneath any fey first impressions, as gentle finger-picking bursts into free-jazz fuzztone guitar blasts and bloodied lyrics.

NYPC's restrained disco needs to rip it up and get wilder, cos this down‘n’dirty posse is actually cleaner than a Boots cosmetics counter.

It’s a fun mess, and although heavily indebted to 60s psyche folk and acid rock, Astronomy For Dogs has a verve and colour that saves it from derivative pastiche.

Overall, The Sun feels like three men taking things at their own leisurely pace but without wasting a second.

Their debut has a great deal of shadowy appeal: there are lyrics about ghosts and secrets, set to drowsy washes of guitar.

Whatever the permutations, Amiina's fragile magic can't fail to beguile.

It’s not just the recurrent meditations on mortality that makes Ma Fleur even more heart-rendingly beautiful than 2002’s Everyday, it’s also how The Cinematic Orchestra’s new album actually feels.

Excellent Italian Greyhound is vintage Shellac: stark, razorous and blackly comic, lurching into whatever time signature happens to possess drummer Tod Trainer.

While their sound might have progressed in an even more bizarre – if sadly less atmospheric – direction, it's still surprising, full of invention and totally unique.

As fun and full-on as it gets right now.

He’s an acquired taste, perhaps, but a distinctive and extraordinarily talented songwriter.

The influences may be antediluvian but the spirit is timeless.

As exciting as it is original-sounding.

The result is less cohesive than Vespertine or Medulla but the fun’s in the exuberance, the jolting between musical styles.

Having eschewed the over-earnest knob-twiddling of erstwhile producer Steve Albini, Verity Susman’s vocals and Mia Clarke’s guitars now sound crisp and urgent, and when the envelope gets pushed... the band’s detached cool melts into a pleasing joi de vivre.

Despite flashes of unexpected vigour, Everybody is ultimately more variation-on-a-theme than it is wheel reinvention.

Coming in 2007 it sounds oddly fresh, but nothing here’s as full-on as their early stuff or as lovely as Feel The Pain.

Even the most melancholy moments... have airy jazz arrangements that let them breathe.

Turner’s sharp narrative ear is still tuned to the revealing banalities of everyday life, the whole band admirably responsive to emotional nuance.

This is not a bunch of old blokes looking to recapture their youth; rather, Grinderman sounds like a freshly hewn and rudely vigorous chunk of leftfield rock.

The lyrics are often sublime, of course, but there are big, stupid choruses too.

There’s gold here but you need to dig deep.

This is one of those rare albums that makes you wonder how you ever got by without it.

Klaxons serve up Day-Glo pagan ritual and pop silliness on toast, and kids get sick on it.

At the heart of this album is a trio of absolute killers.

This is music that hits the head, heart and hips all at once.

El-P's uniquely, beautifully harsh vision remains undiluted.

An album as rich as it is strange.

While still lush in its own grimy way, Ruff Draft represents the harsher, more experimental end of Dilla’s palette.

The sort of euphoric, sweetly intentioned indie pop that, despite occasionally making Belle & Sebastian sound like Da Lench Mob, nevertheless manages to stay the right side of cloying.

A cannily considered, thoroughly de nos jours mix of punk, skiffle and music hall-bred power pop which fizzes with energy and affects a brash charm, but adds little to Barat’s and Doherty’s original blueprint.

Godin and Dunkel are peerless at conjuring a mood, and sonically this is typically impressive, but it needs more foreground, more focus.

There are missteps... and the production is sometimes frustratingly muddy, but Neon Bible very nearly delivers on impossible expectations.

Don't expect the gumption of Super Furries, instead bask in the mellow psychedelic ramblings of Gruff unplugged.

The album’s dark title belies its artful balancing of psych pop’s sweetness with head-down, rock riffing and the emotional power of the blues.

Overblown orchestrations, searing choruses, a demonic self-help tape pastiche and odes to Tom Cruise’s private life are tempered by sparse melodic interludes and tender songs of souls battling against grim routine.

There are off-centre, post-hardcore workouts and plenty of edgy but polished, pop fusion pieces, which suggest The Futureheads transplanted to 70s West Coast America.

It's perfect for passing down the crown of Malian desert blues.

As lush and expansive as his former work was taut and aggro - only the quality remains.

At their best, on Yankee Go Home and Five Easy Pieces, their sound becomes less indie rock than ecstatic chanting.

Now every track is an intensely creative pop gem, like those brilliant pockets scattered throughout previous releases, refined and condensed.

This is a beautiful record; so wistful and reflective when it finishes it’ll make you feel instantly nostalgic.

The production is smoother, but when Sleeping Lessons morphs from an opiate dream to a riffing stomp with such exhilarating economy, or Red Rabbits wraps drunkenly swaying strings around yet another firmament-bound chorus, you can forgive an occasional excess of slickness.

Much of Hissing Fauna… dances in the face of its depressing subject matter.

His vivid, scattershot rhymes are clever without being cryptic, and his techno-tinged beats never veer off into tuneless arhythmia.

Essential listening.

This only occasionally matches the breathtaking splendour of last year's …Illinoise! but with its modest price and immodest extras only Scrooge could fail to have his heart warmed.

It’s to her great credit that Newsom (literally) plucks artistic triumph from the jaws of cloying whimsy.

This may not measure up to The Hour Of Bewilderbeast, but it does boast a batch of sweet and deceptively unfussy, scruffily heartfelt tunes dealing with love, loss and the messiness of life that help redeem his unarguable songwriting talent.

Meek Warrior’s seven tracks form a sprawling tapestry where every guitar pluck, clarinet wail or joyous shout seems part of some euphoric cosmic plan.

[Finn's] smart, poetic, unashamedly adult lyrics... almost guarantee this is the best arena band that’ll never play an arena.

Bewildered newcomers will soon be entranced, old fans won't be disappointed.

Shot through with attention to detail and the lush production typical of Dunkel’s main concern, Darkel might have its moments of archness but it knows how to shake it’s booty, too.

It’s a winning combination, with the Prince’s shambolic charm still intact but lent clarity by the new additions that make this infinitely preferable to previous efforts.

Heartfelt but sometimes overly polite.

A less angular, more grown-up album - something that won’t rattle your nerves.

At 77 minutes it’s no sprint, but YLT’s mellifluous serpentines are never less than involving.

A welcome reminder of the Brummie art-poppers’ lighter, brighter past.

The confessional micro-detail of Darnielle’s minimal indie-folk songs – and haunted whine of a voice – remains stoically unchanged.

Ward’s band kick back with a looser, rockier feel than previously, yet his dusty, wistful voice still inhabits an age all of its own.

Waterloo To Anywhere is more pro and muscular than former endeavours, chiming more with labelmates Razorlight’s ambitious professionalism.

The translations offer many witty surprises.

The Eraser’s sound lies somewhere between the roiling beat soup of Amnesiac and a poppier sensibility.

Not all of Dangerfield's maverick ideas work - he should steer clear of under-accompanied singing for a start - but when they do take off, Guillemots really soar.

It’s a one-trick pony album sure, but what a trick.

An ultra-sensuous experience.

Their second album continues in a similarly delicious vein, melding wonky electronics, pillow-soft soul and lyrics that manage to weave strange violence into gorgeous soul songs.

A complex yet controlled fourth album of astonishing beauty and perfect strangeness.

Warm and quirky. Pleasantly bizarre. Sophisticated and daft. Herbert at his best.

Though it still errs toward a languid late-60s template, Cabic’s songwriting is now crisp and effortlessly melodic.

The freewheeling garage bangers of Original Pirate Material have receded into the distance and we’re left with stabbing high-range synths... resulting in an album that’s charming and witty, but not as exhilarating as it might have been.

Five albums in, The Coup have just made their best since their debut.

It’s a step backwards for sure, but a worthwhile one.

The best thing about Garden Ruin is the way they look beyond country borders to engage with the wider world, both culturally and musically.

If you’re after dark, bloody romance with a twist, look no further.

The incessant hooklines cloy a little after repeated listens, but that’s hardly the most damning criticism of a pop band.