Free Time improves when the band tones down the simpers and demonstrate the lessons of 30-odd years of playing as a touring punk band.

The lack of standout hits here is disappointing, but All of Me's Achilles heel is its conversational interludes.

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

Sure enough, complicated, esoteric and, yes, really quite bonkers, it turns out to be. By the same token, Tomorrow, In a Year is also a work of vaulting ambition whose ‘seriousness’ is written on its metaphorical sleeve and whose sense of gravity and ascetic rigour give Scott Walker’s Tilt or The Drift a run for their artily uncompromising money.

Some Clark fans will be disappointed with Iradelphic, but many others will see the promise in this little treasure.

The less they do big dumb bravado, it seems, the more there is to love about this London bunch.

While no longer the carefree creatures of their early records, Mystery Jets sound as bracingly hit-and-miss as they've ever done on Radlands, and for that much alone we can be thankful.

Despite this motley bunch, the album's sound hasn't become a random genre gumbo.

100% Publishing is a clever balancing act that allows the casual listeners in and retains them with riffs and tunes you can't ignore, but makes sure it's insubordinate enough to keep the regulars happy.

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.

Steel strings slick with gumbo grease and sweet gospel inflections.

It would be a crying shame if a record so accomplished, relevant and unifying never gets to be heard. Because, right now, this album is necessary.

Reanimated glam-punk pioneers get dafter as they get older.

Elysium could be Pet Shop Boys' warmest, wisest album yet.

This 10-track ode to the joys of a sad, sweet, mellow but occasionally dark and atmospheric love song is arranged with tender loving care and produced with just enough reverb to remind you of girl-group classics

This one bristles with a sense of hope and possibility.

These gifted siblings have come of age. You’ll want what they’re having.

It is Rihanna's vocal--at once commanding, soulful and vulnerable--that anchors the song, and Loud itself, elevating it from a hit-and-miss collection into something oddly arresting.

As it turns out, Spears' seventh studio album is part-success and part astounding failure, mixing some of her very best songs with hideous black holes.

An instant hit with tasty ingredients, and worth waiting for.

The Betrayed is not an underachieving record. It sweats hunger and ambition, and while it’s not flawless, it’s a success on their own, aggressively populist terms.

Two Door Cinema Club show sporadic flashes of greatness and have an overall standard of songwriting which places them among the better new bands in the UK.

Cadenza is so much better than alright: it's more than a little brilliant.

Player Piano is a musical jacket potato: satisfying but never amazing.

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

Keepers of country's tragi-comic flame will clasp Lindi firmly to their bosoms.

Who would have thought the musical accompaniment to a film about a series of Idahoan murders could be so beautiful?

This is an album that glides between the concertedly cold and clinical, and a simplistic joy in pop harmonies.

Jónsi is on form.

Not a record to play through seamlessly but one to skip and cherry pick, Out of the Black is about selecting the monsters, and cranking them out at the volume they deserve.

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

This album unfortunately fails to showcase his strengths, and proves something of an obstacle course for the listener to negotiate.

There are enough moments of deft, delicate brilliance here to remind us of what a gifted songwriter he is.

In another dimension, this is the soundtrack to a high-budget sci-fi romp. In the here and now, it’s a great escape from the drudgery of everyday ordinariness, a rollicking ride on one seriously funky UFO.

Scissor Sisters have rediscovered a magic touch lacking slightly on Night Work. Their progress is marked by a developed sense of reflection, which balances their familiar flamboyance – surely to resurface with their Fraggle Rock soundtrack – quite wonderfully.

So far, so chin-strokingly barroom--but then things take a turn for the interesting and Live Music becomes a more-frills-than-you-might-imagine, no filler delight.

It’s a neo-soul record. A very good one, because that’s what she does, her passionate voice bringing abundant personality.

overall Excerpts is an evocative, sophisticated and charming record, awash with imaginative atmospheres, that looks back to the past for inspiration without ever wallowing in sentiment.

There's plenty of interest here, then, but not enough to satisfy across a whole album.

Danilova and Stewart are respecting the intended intimacy of the record, but this could have been so much more had they let themselves bring a dash of Zola Jesus and Xiu Xiu, rather than phoning in their parts.

Aphrodite is pure Kylie magic. Everything that made you fall in love with her all over again before is present and correct here.

While the sound of this Tennessee five-piece is hardly shimmering with originality, few have imitated those sunny falsettos and sweet'n'sad melodies quite so irresistibly.

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.

The result of this is that many songs here, like Elbow's Mirrorball, are fairly modern, and Gabriel rarely dips into the obvious rock canon (Heroes aside). And the sparseness of the arrangements around the singer’s tender vocals makes this a thing of beauty.

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.

Free from grandly theatrical flourishes that were threatening to become things of creative captivity, ¡Uno!'s graceful manoeuvres confirm Green Day's status as one of the world's finest rock'n'roll bands.

This is a musician with creativity on tap and enough of it to burn through a little filler here while ensuring the prime cuts emerge perfectly.

While there's much to marvel at, not everything convinces.

Overall this is an impressive album that could prove a game-changer.

This is a discernibly different beast from any aforementioned acts of convenient comparison – from a distance, sure, it has its similarities, but zoom in and it's an exquisite new breed to behold.

If the novelty had already worn off by the time of their second album in 2005, this comeback effort tests the patience beyond breaking point.

Its most successful examples retain some Radiohead DNA, but reconstituted into a new form.

ASIWYFA sound like they’re having fun shaping and performing this music, and you’ll want to be part of it.

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.

It doubtlessly works better as a full performance, but as a stand-alone soundtrack has wonderful moments nonetheless.

The Duke Spirit still sound like The Duke Spirit.

John Cale's new five-track EP conceives and executes more great ideas in 21 minutes than most musicians do in 10 years.

A largely redundant – and frequently downright woeful – endeavour.

It's a colourful grab-bag, but Zimmerman's ear for stock clubland dynamics means that while 4x4=12 barely breaks sweat whomping the listener into submission, it also stops way short of revealing the man behind the mask.

Bensussen has delivered a varied, immersive set of highly memorable, enjoyable and danceable tracks that should push him further into the limelight where he has triumphantly proved he belongs.

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.

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.

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.

Sundark and Riverlight is thankfully more chamber pop than chamber pot. It's an elegant collection, but an acquired taste.

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 moments where Total does come close to a Daft Punk pastiche. But these are few and far between, and there's plenty enough of Sebastian's own character on show to make this one of the most enjoyable dance albums of 2011 so far.

This chilled-out collection is an easy, pleasant listen, but it is far from an essential purchase for anyone except Florence completists.

Despite an all-pervading gloom that dominates tonally, and pacing that rarely gets the pulse racing, this is certainly the best Raveonettes record since 2007's keyboards-dominated left-turn LP, Lust Lust Lust..

There isn't a bad pop song here, and the balance between whimsy, sensitivity and boisterous fun is expertly weighted.

Pale Fire is a pale beauty, and if you're seeking the chill-out Lykke Li (with whom she split a single in 2009) or an equivalent oasis of smouldering calm, Assbring will see you right.

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.

A curious mixture of rage and nostalgia.

A record fizzing with ideas, tight melodies and loveable sass.

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

The first half of Trespassing offers a smorgasbord of succulent up-tempo pop. There are a couple of derivative cuts, but the highlights are tasty enough to compensate.... The album's second half is less entertaining.

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

Yet at every turn, this new album eschews clichés--any strident shrieking, chanting and cod imagery--for something sleek, fluid and effortlessly modern.

This is an album nostalgic for a time when soul, circa Watergate/Vietnam, had an upbeat message and a positivist agenda. Here, though, Crow puts aside politics for pure fun.

Never Trust a Happy Song is far from a cohesive album, but that actually works to its advantage--because it encapsulates the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, of this emotional rollercoaster known as life.

If you've heard one track, you've heard them all. But there are a few standouts.

For a debut album it’s accomplished stuff, though like the Manics before them Anthems is not without its stodgier moments.

Just Tell Me presents 17 cover versions of differing quality which don't gel as a cohesive listen, but it's not without standout interpretations.

A rich, warm, big-hearted and hilarious album.

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.

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

The follow-up to 2010's Paupers Field, this set plunders the overarching melancholy of Townes Van Zandt, making for an emotionally draining listen.

This is agonisingly personal music, poured straight from the heart--just as punk should be. It's a bonus that it's also frightening catchy.

1977 may be a blip for this artist in regard to its genesis, but for anyone other than his ex-wife (and perhaps himself) it's an utter pleasure.

It's not that Gainsbourg is swallowed up by her band, more that she doesn't – or can't – rise to the occasion as a natural singer can... It still charms, though.

This thoroughly enjoyable release does include one surprising blast of brass.

If Mika had refined this into a 10-track collection, trimming the cuts that don't quite click, we'd have an excellent album on our hands. As it is, The Origin of Love is stretched slightly too long.

Almost everything is tight and controlled, returning time and again to the simple power of a pop song.

There's more than enough here to satisfy aficionados of offbeat, fiercely inventive pop music.

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

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.

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

This album’s calling card, Sea Change, starts so well that the rest of the album fades in its shadow.

The imaginative artwork, of a black and white keyboard splintering into different colours, emphasises the feel-good factor of this winning collection of songs and arrangements done with great style.