Here, they deliver a sequel as successor, less a follow-up and more an outright usurper from the underworld.

Every one of the 13 tracks on this album are co-writes that he's had a hand in, but all the same, a certain autobiographical tone predominates.

Best Coast still sound like Best Coast, but now they're tidier, shinier and looking us right in the eye.

Dense yet accessible, fleeting but full of memorable moments, Tricky's done here what he always does at his best: let the listener share the soundtrack of his involving, nomadic, outsider spirit.

She keeps the mood fairly moderate amongst Burton's fluid soundtrack, setting the pace with a wry bravado that makes this album a dynamic listen.

His carefree attitude skips through the different styles and beats here with a sense of fun and adventure.

The array of musical styles on show across The 2nd Law means that, like many of this band's past albums, it doesn't entirely coalesce into a seamless collection of songs... But when this album works, it works well.

These 10 songs often appear to be just elaborate jams, whipped up in the studio, with a few scribbled-down choruses added along the way.

This is no revolution, but Shit Robot has put together a seriously robust collection of party records.

Ultimately though, this one is a step up, its maker beginning to lean towards representing the sentiments of the men he stands for, developing a voice currently missing in RnB.

More quality grime would be nice, but Winner Stays On proves Roll Deep are no longer an underground crew trying to make pop: the charts are there for the taking.

[The closing track is] evidence of a big pink heart and of these musicians' ability to transcend their beats-based mindset. In other words, time for the boys to really future this.

Even when tracks pass without too much of an impression left, the listener is never without a smile on their face--there's simply that much fun on show.

Social Distortion are clearly unhurried by the passage of time and passing trends. And it shows, as this is a fine addition to their canon and proves they're full of a very important quality: life.

A wide array of producers means that Recovery isn't as consistent as Eminem's best albums--his second and third--but there are significantly more highlights here than on either of his previous two.

It's not exploring new musical frontiers, but Resolution is an eminently listenable heavy metal album.

If you avoid Mysterious Phonk during the impatient daytime hours, you'll find it impressively dark and uncomfortable.

For all the minor detours, Through Low Light and Trees is consistent in proffering a dreamy, timeless music which could have been recorded at any time in the last 40-odd years. That in itself is a kind of recommendation.

With six-minute songs in which to stretch out, they continue to weave surprising musical strands into an agreeably amorphous whole.

Ben Chasny's solo venture continues to tackle folk as if the 1970s never ended.

Deez exhibits the songwriting panache of a Brendan Benson or Ben Folds, and this album acts as his DIY taster in the same way as the former's One Mississippi and the latter's work with Majosha.

Peculiar and unconventional, this is an album which constantly shape-shifts and surprises, but does so with a graceful, effortless ease that feels incredibly natural and utterly delightful.

There must be worse fates than ending up as a classic pop jukebox, and there's excitement as well as devotion in all this archaeology.

Judged objectively, Minotaur is a good if somewhat slight record, with enough quality to comfortably surpass most music likely to be released this year. But when compared to The Clientele's previous work, this is one for the completists rather than an essential purchase.

What is present is that instant-click connection between artist and audience that only comes with the most naked of performances--Monotony is one such riveting recital, sketchy yet complete--and Beal's commitment to documenting the minutiae alongside the meaningful in comparable detail ensures that even-handedness permeates the entire set.

Astro Coast sounds so prescient that Surfer Blood will be riding a wave of popularity for a good few months yet.

There's a real intelligence about the whole album that looks to old-school hip hop and late-model disco, which were never too far apart, to provide a platform springy enough and familiar enough for the singer to launch her vocals.

The type of punch Metronomy now pack is differently varied, and instead of relying on catchy melodies, its excitement and originality is now more broadly sourced.

While Endgame is a strong album, and certainly an honourable one, it does lack an ingredient that might be identified as magic.

They've produced an album worthy of a closer look.

This is the sound of sun-stunned drift, as opposed to slacker ennui. Such a formula could make for an enervating listen, but this debut album is shot through with casually glorious melodies.

There's nothing bad to be said for Soul 2, and with Horn on production everything shines brightly like the first snowflakes of a new winter.

For all its capricious cherry-picking of the historic benchmarks of sensuality and synthetics, there's still a sense of genuine invention that permeates the whole album.

The Belbury Tales is infused with a deep vein of paranoia, a palpable fear, an attempt to reconcile the imminent unknown (evoking a reimagined or never experienced past).

Ultimately this sounds like a side project, which can only be so disappointing when that's precisely what it is.

This is a credible collection of electronic RnB tracks that owes a greater debt to another, more grown-up Justin.

A curious collection of techno covers from the Detroit garage-rockers.

It's less Working For than Driving Through a nuclear-free (or otherwise) city, taking in all the myriad sights, as opposed to the unchanging view of the motorway/ autobahn.

It may only be a stopgap before the official follow-up to Jewellery, but like all the best mixtapes, it's a telling insight into its creator's unconventional mind.

Get these cuts [I'll Never Let Go and Called Out In The Dark] out of the way, though, and Fallen Empires settles down and improves.

The result is a bolder, brighter record than their debut.

To the Yorn faithful this set will probably seem like a step in the right direction.

Out of the Game is very much a master class in restraint. Rather than straining for the big choruses, here Wainwright intones over smooth backings, horns and the gospel harmonies of Brooklyn soul-stirrers The Dap-Kings.

It may be time to tinker next time around, but right now he's redeemed an awful lot of himself.

It's not perfect... Overall, though, this is a long overdue, welcome comeback.

The component parts of this record prove that indie rock may be 'dying' commercially but still sounds alive and kicking.

The results occasionally jar, when Epstein's consistently elaborate productions overshadow the more pedestrian of Zott's compositions, but generally the sum of their parts is an equation to be savoured, and frequently produces magic.

Lupe remains a singular hip hop voice, and Lasers is still worth a listen.

Despite these weaker moments of Is Your Love Big Enough?, it's La Havas' gorgeous voice and gifted string fingers that'll make the biggest impressions. This might not be a home run straight out of the gate, but it's an extremely promising first swing of the bat.

If a little dominated by this trio [Champagne Life, One in a Million, Beautiful Monster] the rest of the album also develops the cool soul player theme nicely, with offers of mind sex and a considered approach in slick fusion.

Despite Testament's commendable attempt to spice their sound with something a little different, one can't help feeling that Dark Roots of Earth is one track short of achieving overall excellence.

There's a distinct valedictory tone to his customary musings upon life, love and the spirit, with one track titled "Amen" and another "The Darkness". But if it is to be his last communiqué, at least the old smoothie's going down swinging.

Generation Freakshow is more mature, more considered, and less noisy, but it's nonetheless got Feeder stamped all over it.

With the bare minimum of innovation on show and nothing approaching the pure pop elation of Sex on Fire, Come Around Sundown will go down as KoL's classic consolidation album.

The reason that such a potentially pointless enterprise in trash retro works lies entirely in Lidell’s extraordinary talents as musician and producer.

On most of these tracks, Minaj rises to the occasion.

While kin is solidly crafted throughout, there's nothing to justify the lofty artistic conceits surrounding it.

By focusing on the sweetest of hooks amid some wonderfully retro-twanging surf guitar and licks from dusty Tijuana barrooms, it really clicks with immediate effect.... This is quite the upbeat treat.

She just needs to dig up some big old songs again, as those here aren't consistently up to the standard fans have rightly come to expect.

It all depends where you stand on the group's painstakingly retro, sax- and organ-fuelled sound. If you love it and go the distance, these grooves are simply mesmeric.

It all adds up to a sassy, splashy modern pop album that rattles through its 10 tracks in a dash under 35 minutes.

Zig Zaj is predictably unpredictable, something else again for the artist.

While some consistency may have been sacrificed in favour of a space-filling selection of tracks, this set still represents a heaving, breathing journey through the introspective and the bombastic, the striving and the exhaustive.

All in all, Destroyed feels like both a return to the darkness from which Moby emerged in the first place, and perhaps his most year zero offering to date.

It's a huge, focused, and daring leap forwards.

While not exactly standing alongside their best in terms of outright quality, shows that even Elbow's 'hidden' past is worthy of deeper exploration.

This is, generally, straightforward guitar rock with tinges of country and folk drawn from Roddy Woomble's sabbatical in New York as a folkie.

Isles ends up an easy pleasure--nothing too weighty, but substantial in its way.

Moving into darker, deeper spaces, it whets the appetite for further occasions when McAuley will fight the urge to rein it in for the dancefloor.

He merges his raw lyrical roots with No I.D.'s voluminous soundtrack, resulting in a decent album far more celebratory than his previous work.

There's an unusual sophistication and depth of lyrical craft here, and maybe it's not best advertised by a polished country-pop setting that sounds overwhelmingly usual.

Explores the dark, suburban-gothic shades always loitering beneath their surface glimmer.

The lack of a cutting edge doesn't itself mean that such songs aren't lacking in charm, and each one of the 12 compositions that makes up Speed of Darkness does feature a tune that the listener can whistle.

With Gomez still a going concern, this solo effort--five years in the making--is very much a side project finally realised. But Ottewell should consider a follow-up, as there's much more to recommend here than on recent releases by other indie band singers turned so-so solo artists.

Admittedly, the album contains the odd soporific song like No Freedom, but these turns are outweighed by tracks with a strong tune or an unexpected hint of sadness.

Visions of Trees are enjoying themselves, which is evident throughout this atmospheric and surprisingly tight album.

Confirms that Tennant and Lowe have always been songwriters first and pop stars second.

Thanks largely to the instrumental work, there's a satisfying amount of entertainment value on this release--even if major revelations are not forthcoming.

This home-grown loveliness... melts your soul.

Times New Viking are just as wilfully, wonderfully lo-fi as ever, but five albums in they've finally let the listener get that little bit closer to the heart of what they do.

Shoegaze drone-noise from Texas, done well but done several times before.

While it might not find itself a massive audience, fans of earthy, charismatic Americana might do well to seek it out for themselves.

For many listeners, Foxygen's influences will sound tired. But as they plunder the past, they're enjoying themselves, and the enthusiasm on this messy collection of songs is infectious.

The Gift wins at warming the heart in a time of reflection and recession, ringing subtly--via an impressively less-than-mechanical recipe--in the slushiest part of our brains.

The group's melding together of dance music, metal riffs, punk energy and vocals that sound English rather than Californian make A Flash Flood of Colour not only a compelling effort, but an appropriately named one to boot.

It's an album that envelops even as it blurs and drifts, its hooks no less insistent for their subtlety.

Four may be 2012's most exciting guitar album.

It's as if Offer, completely understandably, has pulled everything towards him a little too close. Reined everything in and hugged the songs a little too tightly.

As a tastefully populist exercise this set represents a job well done.

A slightly sinister brand of enigma is a key component of his shtick, but it's hard not to wonder what this leftfield pop talent might come up with if he were asked to produce something a bit more crisp and definite.

As it stands, The Union is a blot on neither man's legacy, just a mature bout with flashes of former glory.

If anyone asks how Heroes differs from the 65 Willie Nelson studio albums that preceded it, the happy answer is: not much. The expressive, intimate tenor, the matchless musical instinct and Willie's distinctive ringing guitar lines are just as compelling, and just as delightful, as ever.

As a transitional release, however, Night Train points to an even bigger and brighter future: it mostly sounds like a band happy to enjoy the freedom of chalking up 10 million album sales, and everyone else can take a running jump.

Simple, slightly silly but splendidly affecting, it's a telling suggestion that Arnalds will retain her endearingly obtuse edge, whatever language she favours in future.

The overriding impression of Boys and Diamonds, however, is of MIA's global smash-and-grab style of musicianship minus the bonding agent of an overarching personality.

The album's long-term problem is will it have any meaning or relevance once the election is done and dusted? Well no, probably not in thematic terms; but the scathing humour of Going to Tampa is timeless and the thunderous Guantanamo, the sort of song Springsteen must wish he'd written, will remain a classic whoever's in the Oval Office.

As step forwards (via looking backwards) go, it's brave and for the most part it works.

Nothing that features on Kaleide will come as a surprise to those familiar with Sky Larkin's debut, though it will please them.