Nine songs and 47 minutes long, their album debut feels like wandering through desert plains and darkened streets, tumbleweed at your feet and in your brain.

Rock like rock shouldn't be: a rock that your parents wouldn't just love, given a chance, but one that they'd ask you to play again, louder. It ain't right, obviously. But it rocks brilliantly.

Write About Love is a cracking pop album and a fine addition to a great band's already impressive catalogue.

What It Means to Be Left-Handed contains more ideas than most guitar bands muster in their entire careers and will certainly consolidate Pierce's core cult audience.

Ferry can only do jaded and glum nowadays – but when it works, he blissfully drags you under with him.

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

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.

Reinventing a genre they're not, but Nedry are certainly evolving trip hop in an enticing fashion.

A genuine great leap forward, Defamation is a cracker.

It might not always succeed in its style-swapping, but The United Nations of Sound is certainly as bold a record as Ashcroft's ever made.

These 12 tracks have an irrepressible energy that is all Collins' own, reflecting his twin loves of punk and northern soul; while his lyrics, always wryly self-regarding, have an urgency and bluntness that would make them seem inconsequential were there not so much at stake.

Delivering on that precocious promise, Rose's debut long-player actually reins in her EP's feistier extremes somewhat to deliver 10 tracks of timeless, simply adorned (albeit by some dextrously restrained Music Row stalwarts) song-craft which, while they certainly doff a 10-gallon hat to the country canon, never seem constrained by Nashville tropes, old or new.

Good news: Lights is an expectations-passing collection that should see fans of the singer's material to date elevating her to superstar status.

It's hard to tell how serious De Luca is being here, so over the top is everything (there's a song called Fish in the Sky. No, really). It could be misconstrued as a parody of 70s and 80s musical mores, cramming as it does all manner of instrumental bombast and excess into its 50 minutes.

Senior makes a strong claim to be 2010's best electronic album. It's a record to lie back and drown in.

When one hears a musical feast as good and as sultry as this it's impossible not to conclude that, for all their wistfulness, entertaining enough renditions of standards seem half-baked by comparison. Having moved into the position of being a beloved national treasure status, Wyatt remains at his best when he's facing forwards rather than looking back.

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.

Angelides may not make good on the initial promise of Cloudlight's fearless boundary pushing across the album's entirety, then. There is, though, sufficient mind-melting invention here.

There are some beautiful moments in amongst the manic electronic experimentation, but Stevens' strength as a songwriter lies primarily in his sincerity, his ability to express intimacy without appearing cloying or saccharin.

Swanlights succeeds exactly where you might not expect it to: Hegarty sounds content, revitalised. This is a record that revels in a sense of joy.

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

Sadly, much of the rest conforms to a malaise that's afflicted him since 2002's Have You Fed the Fish?: repetitive tracks consisting of one looping half-melody that outstays its welcome by several months.

It will surprise no one but the most uptight and partisan fans of either group to learn that Gilmour's honeyed, chiming and unchallenging guitar work is a sensual fit for The Orb's expansive, uplifting and soporific electronica.

Where there are no words, there are rampaging thoughts, and Lucky Shiner is an album designed to provoke and instigate.

The lack of challenge and the absence at so many points of any thrust, melodic or otherwise, doesn't do justice to the ability of the creator, and that's a terrible shame considering the quality of the highlights.

Margins struggles to rise above the ordinary. Fans of Maxïmo Park will not be disappointed, but it's frankly hard to see anyone else caring very much.

Three albums in, Tunstall appears undamaged, an ordinary girl you'd want to spend time with and an honest performer it's hard to dislike.

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.

Bubblegum is Clinic at their most approachable and, importantly, shows them to be sharp and direct in their more affecting statements.

Soundgarden, Seattle natives at the epicentre of the early 1990s' plaid-and-flannel rock scene, already have one best-of to their name, 1997's A-Sides. But Telephantasm goes further, spreading itself across 24 tracks and two discs, including excellent live performances alongside commercially released singles.

Yes, he's got Paul McCartney playing slurpy bass on As It Comes, and Neko Case pops up on the countrified duet Sing Me to Sleep, but there's no escaping the sound of his past. Nor any sense that it's a past that needs to be escaped from.

It's the group's most ambitious offering yet, a collection that bites harder than anything they've previously issued but which is equally eager to kiss everything better.

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

The problem with having so many different voices writing and performing is that Record Collection sounds like just that – a lot of different things plonked on a shelf that have their time and place but sound distractingly disparate when grouped together.

Le Noise remains reasonably accessible, Young's lyrics still as appealingly forthright as his playing, his melodies slowly rising through the unsettling, growling dirge.

Seven albums in, Jimmy Eat World are still going strong, and Invented is an enjoyable record. But it also fails to dispel the concern that the band's well of ideas is about to run dry.

Expectedly, the lacklustre delivery of the vocals throughout this album is its only slight shortcoming. The power of its songwriting and compelling twists and turns are more than enough to carry it though, and it warrants listen after listen after listen.

This is an affecting and intelligent record: neither Folds nor Hornby should be shy about suggesting a sequel.

Throughout all this, though, lies a sense of warm experimentation that should feel familiar to fans of Deerhunter's unique brand of ambience-loving indie-rock. Halcyon Digest is simply another solid entry in the discography of a mighty band.

By and large The Place We Ran From falls well short of the left-of-centre power and eerie intimacy of Lightbody's heroes' music.

If you're not quite there by the time six-and-a-half minute opus Eyesore encapsulates everything that's been wonderful about the preceding 36 before slowly fading out, turn it over and start again. It's worth it, because Public Strain is one of 2010's finest LPs.

For all the calculated horror show element, much of King Night is very pretty and nuanced, trading in shivering beauty rather than infernal fury, with an aching world weariness running Marlatt and Holland's more lucid vocal turns. It's just a shame Donoghue has to dopily blunder in there every now and again, the dimwit henchman to his evil scientist colleagues.

Ring was inspired by the symmetrical order outlined in Homer's poem Odyssey, the idea that any structure doesn't necessarily have to abide by a beginning, middle or end. Presumably this is why when succulent-lullaby Clamour completes the cycle you'll want to return to the start once more.

So faithfully have Collins and his confreres recreated the Sound of Young America--shimmering tambourines drowning out drums, bass compressed to a fat, distorted throb--that it's hard not to be swept along.

While the leader has become absorbed by the pack, however, at least I Am the West doesn't go down without a mouthy fight.

Good Things is sufficiently accomplished, in fact, to at least temporarily banish the clouds of financial doom and gloom to the horizon.

Like Simple Minds, it's not too late for OMD to stride all the way back to greatness. But this album isn't even a stumble in the right direction, and the clock, as always, is ticking.

Maximum Balloon makes an impressive noise. But it struggles to make one feel anything more than impressed.

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

The rude guitar sleaze of Hands All Over, or the cocky glam-stomp in Stutter's verses show a band who are really at their best when they play pop music like the sleazy rockers they clearly are. In Adam Levine's mind, at least.

A majestic return and, let us hope, a harbinger of more to come.

For those Manics fans whose bearing on the band is centred by a Britpop firmament, rather than The Holy Bible, this record will prove a joy. It's jolly, but jolly good.

While Duppy Writer is sufficiently bubbling to temporarily sate cravings, there's still scarcely enough nourishment until a new album proper.

Santana's talent is compromised by a complacency to play these tracks as truly as possible.

If this were an EP, it would be captivating--Everdell's voice is certainly commanding--but, spread out over 11 songs, it loses some of its hold.

Pattern + Grid World may sound like an addendum to Cosmogramma, but it's no less essential for that.

Fourteen years on from his debut as leader, Vijay Iyer joins the club with a characteristic blend of tasteful tribute and exciting unorthodoxy.

Flamingo will keep the fans from growing rabid while The Killers take a break, but if Flowers releases another solo album before reconvening with his colleagues, teeth might well be bared.

Clearly neither advancing age nor years of unabated success have deprived Plant of either his constant appetite for challenge or his ability to deliver in a cogent, credible and thoroughly convincing fashion.

A welcome return, then – let's hope they stick around for a bit longer this time.

The rest of us will succumb happily to Grinderman's sick skill and wonder why rebel teens don't make dangerous, dastardly rock'n'roll like this anymore.

They have delivered another album which is at least 70% corking. It's just that they're much better when on stage, playing these tracks while scaring the life out of you.

Always building and beautiful, their sparse, even minimal, approach lends Penny Sparkle a complexity that's both rich and rewarding in both its inspiration and execution.

Rather than adhering to type, Black Mountain now have a catalogue of songs that respect and rival their influences.

These are warm, appealing tunes with no false bluster or crass anthemism, light years ahead of the bombastic drivel certain peers have offered up this year. The Charlatans are old fashioned, maybe even a little antiquated. But are they past it as songwriters? No way.

For the most part, though, the fuzz has been pulled back enough to reveal an enjoyable but hardly revolutionary set that tends to recall a more ponderous Darklands-era JAMC.

They may not be sticking their necks out as pioneers now but it's not important --they are never less than themselves, and superficial quibbles aside this is the sound of musicians with nothing to prove and everything to give.

They didn't want whatever their next album was to be predictable, and while A Thousand Suns might have emerged by accident compared to previous LPs, it's certainly a far from plays-to-perceived-type affair.

So the best songs on Hurley are immediately familiar, like an old lover's phone number you can't forget. This is great, but obviously not that great. Everybody should move on after a while.

A record that doesn't deviate from what the listener might have already expected from an artist might not sound like an engaging one, but Fields most certainly is.

Harlem River Blues, though, sounds like the work of a man who can handle pressure. It more than matches--it far exceeds--what had gone before.

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.

Whereas the finest music of this ilk goes full pelt with either ideas or loins, sometimes concurrently, Business Casual is, as its title suggests, the ultimate middle ground.

Over-familiarity with Barnes' recent oeuvre aside, the material on False Priest just isn't as strong as the songs that comprise those other records.

While a talented producer in his own right, here we find Chilly collaborating with Berlin dance producer Boys Noize, re-rendering the elaborate, minimalist-flavoured piano debuted on Solo Piano as louche, polished Euro-disco with one beady eye on the chill-out dollar. It is often much better than this sounds.

Comprising eight tracks and running to just over half-an-hour, it's a crucible of stark arrangements, contemplative moods and subtle hooks; never earth-shattering yet consistently, discreetly affecting.

It's when the ceaseless forward momentum of old hijacks Pop Negro's new structural nous that the most rewarding moments arrive here, the aforementioned Soca Del Eclipse, Ghetto Facil and Muerte Midi highlights of an album that's among the year's best, and that, while immediately enchanting, will take years to unravel.

Infusing--as per usual--squalling, buzzsaw guitars and Mac McCaughan's high-pitched, emotionally-charged vocals with simple yet cerebral lyrics that turn commonplace existence into something sad yet (as the title suggests) splendid, Majesty Shredding--their ninth album--brings their sonic template fully into the 21st century.

To further the point, the album's 10 tracks total just 34 minutes, so listeners will snap out of the dream rather than disappear with it down a wormhole. But the blissful summery mood hangs around for ages. If you don't want summer to end, or you're a SAD sufferer, then consider Skit I Allt the best and cheapest antidote on the market.

Bluntly, Lisbon is a collation and culmination of their finest work in years. Rather than a selection of scattered snapshots, this time we've got the bigger picture. And it's irresistible.

On one hand, this [move to a much smaller, California-based independent label] represents a gentle lowering of expectation. On the other, however, it's given Bilal space to explore what he does free of the stifling expectations of a label trying to work out what they can sell, and to whom.

With this latest release he seems to have come closer then ever to mainstream respectability, while retaining some of his maverick idiosyncrasies.

Rock album of the year, if anyone's counting.

A brief, brilliant record that leaves you panting, Body Talk, Part 2 is the latest evidence that Robyn is probably the best, most versatile pop star currently at work.

There's still the chance that this album will finally push them into the stratosphere – you wish Interpol were globally huge, you really do – although it's likely that their future won't be written until after Dengler's tour-replacements have helped broaden the band's palette more.

There was a question mark over whether Hamilton's muse would have been better served by adopting a new moniker to go with this band. It's not a question of him stepping away from an impressive legacy, rather giving him the freedom to fully explore his creative urges.

It's not an album fans of Prekop's signature drowsy vocals and woozy choruses are going to warm to instantly. Not that it's entirely unapproachable--far from it, there are luminous passages and lulling, almost cartoonish refrains to be found among the synthetic scree--merely unexpected.

The sessions don't sound patchy or cobbled together. There's a unity in terms of performing equality, coupled with an unbeatable repertoire.

Style and gravitas are all very well--if Hurts could also have been consistent with the substance, Happiness would have trounced its 80s counterparts and many of its contemporaries, too.

The four-piece have made a follow up that makes their beginnings busking on the South Bank seem like a myth propagated by publicists. Receiving a nod of approval for their pigeonhole-defying venture really has emboldened them.

Although not unanimously blinding, Dream Attic is replete with the kind of deft flourishes and considered wordplay that fans of the singer will be more than familiar with. Chalk up another triumph, then.

Something for the Rest of Us is every bit as easy on the ear as each of their albums has been since 98's big-league breakthrough, Dizzy Up the Girl.

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.

Consequently Familial initially seems timid, even half-hearted, but persistence reveals an album full of sweet sentiment and honest meditations.

Taken together, Frisell's run of Nonesuch albums has been one of the most consistently excellent bodies of work in recent decades. Now, Beautiful Dreamers extends it further. The future looks bright for this trio.

EE are wilfully eccentric, and endlessly entertaining, but they know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an 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.

It's a union that just keeps on giving, with the steelier, more focused Hawk the best they've given yet.