Guitarist Stuart Braithwaite has certainly outstripped the generic post-rock style he helped to inspire, and does justice to some of his more direct influences--My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Robert Smith from The Cure, to name two. Extraneous touches, such as the occasional keyboard parts contributed by Barry Burns and the electronica-style glitches threaded through 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, also ensure that Special Moves is a varied 75 minutes.

There's intelligence, individuality and character in abundance. But all too often it's caked in dollar-store body glitter and choked by feather boas.

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.

This is intimacy on a purely aural level, the ultimate headphones album.

The Sword have stepped up a gear with this release, and ought to crumble the defences of more than a few cynics.

The same sort of eccentricity that sees Matt Bellamy pegged as a loveable boffin is well intact, but it's the sheer depth of the sound that drags you in like ultimate gravity. Also intact is their underlying pop instinct.

Lissie does not fully earn her an-artist-apart stripes with Catching a Tiger, but all the signs are here. Give the girl a second and she'll steal your heart; give her another album and she will, quite possibly, become untouchable.

Throughout there is an attention to detail, to little tics and tricks in the mix, that make this a treat for listeners who still wear headphones. But mostly it's music for defunct--or, rather, Defunkt--nightclubs.

There are more ideas here than many bands manage in their entire career, but in inimitable Maiden style, it's woven together beautifully.

The better songs here don't quite rescue the disc, but they do suggest that LaMontagne can step outside his comfort zone when he chooses to--it's just a shame how rarely that occurs.

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.

The arrangements are dense and intricate and, together, Chief make an accomplished, purposeful noise--but it's rarely matched by depth of melodic imagination. For a slow-burner, Modern Rituals needs a little more fire.

Eli's irrepressible personality shines through this varied and very appealing collection of songs, and tunes abound.

The clutch of songs performed by make-believe bands are complemented well by a supporting cast including Blood Red Shoes, The Rolling Stones, T. Rex and The Bluetones.

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

If their debut sounded like they listened to nothing but the sounds in their heads and tried to recreate them, this sounds like all they've listened to over the past two years is their own records, and subsequently tried to better them. They've succeeded.

Even on a cursory listen, a water-testing foray into its 16 tracks, it's immediately apparent that this is an album unlike either that came before it.

The title-track is a prime example of the album's dominant pace: downbeat and sluggish.

Tribal contains 16 deeply detailed, fidgety tracks--but it's never hard work. It's a warm, gently funny album.

Transit Transit is full of the sort of implausible leaps of imagination that normally only happen in your sleep.

When Melua reveals this sensitive side she's amongst the best artists in her easy-on-the-ear field, and she could yet surpass several of her own idols. But The House contains enough forgettable filler to suggest she's some way off delivering a career-defining canon classic.

King of the Beach offers a fascinating insight into the slightly skew-whiff mind of this talented young artist, now well on the way to mastering what could turn out to be an incredibly inventive career.

For any bootlegging rappers with cerebral ambitions, this could represent the greatest thinking man's beat tape of all time. To mere listeners, it's an enveloping temporary distraction, more than fulfilling its purpose of whetting anticipation for El-P's mic-wielding return.

Anyone who has enjoyed the Crowes' live show will find it a veritable trove of delights.

Although fourth album Mines, released three years after its predecessor, retains Menomena's trademark virtuosity in production, here the band's complex, monolithic sonic structures are supported by a consistent emotional foundation that elevates the songs to new heights.

It's a gauche mix of church and the rock'n'roll chestnuts he grew up on. Outside Robert Plant, it's hard to see who it'll appeal to.

Best Coast's music wishes for that innocence – for when a pop song could sum up your whole torment in three perfect minutes, before your heart truly gets broken that first time – and successfully evokes it with Crazy for You's immediate classic-pop hits.

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.

A ramshackle beast largely informed by the tension between the pair's aforementioned psychedelic styles.

The band's weakness is an unfortunate tendency to drift occasionally into MOR territory, and sometimes generic boy-meets-girl lyrics fail to keep the arrangements above water.

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.

It's a sometimes perplexing, often very pretty excursion into the recent past of a pair of gifted musicians, but Archive 2003-2006 expectedly holds little appeal beyond a limited audience.

If you peer hard enough, there are. Subtly, slow-burningly, Zero 7's wispy, placid emissions reveal charm and interest value; even the occasional surprise.

Like Arnalds and Johannsson, Richter is capable of eliciting profound emotions from the barest of foundations, and it's perhaps this that makes their music of such interest to alternative music fans.

A record, then, that says nothing, beautifully. When Burrows develops a lyrical accuracy as keen as his musical one, these Arrows will truly burst hearts.

Striding through metal, dancehall, space pop and dubstep, our multicultural mascot has littered MAYA with politicized sonic motifs: from marching drums, gunshots and modems to heavy machinery and blaring sirens. It's loud, proud, and taking no prisoners.

It's a complex, winding late-night soundtrack that doesn't move too fast, but never stops to question the judgement of its own unique outsider logic.

There are many more moments of magic on this triumphant third album. Among them, The Girl is Gone proves Mystery Jets can do melancholy in as confident a manner as they do happiness.

Remember Who You Are is the sound of a band not so much rediscovering their past as recycling it.

Despite the anthems being on a tight leash, repeated listens reveal this to be one of their best albums.

With the band now considerably more settled, the release of Disconnect from Desire is confirmation that SVIIB's meticulous balance between the spiritual and choral has reached a confident, polished plateau.

Steadman's vocal stands out--its tremulous quality may be a hangover from, as the story goes, embarrassment at being overheard singing as a kid, but it heightens the sense of an authentically troubled spirit exorcising his demons in the quietly devastating manner of a Nick Drake.

Sky at Night simply distils and expands all Kloot's lovely strengths, from his taut, elegant tunes to resolutely bittersweet lyrics.

Despite being a guitarist down (Bill Ryder-Jones departed after Roots and Echoes), they've regrouped admirably and made a comeback record that strives for, and indeed almost reaches, the dizzying heights of 2002's self-titled debut.

That OutKast comeback will surely be killer, but for now respect is due the way of this splendid solo adventure.

Kelis's honey-husky voice slips easily into the hypnotic repetitions of dance music vocalisation; she uses the classic language of love songs and the soaring declarations of generalized euphoria particular to house music.

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

From a palette of familiar reference points, they've created a fresh, vital sound that could prove to be the basis of an impressive career.

Night Work is a far livelier and more enjoyable record than Ta-Dah, which was a modest album with much to be modest about. But the nagging sense that Scissor Sisters aren't living up to the promise of their multifaceted, emotionally rich debut is slowly being replaced by the suspicion that they never will.

They're probably the only band in history whose latest album would sound better if they did not appear on it.

This is a typically odd, zany album, but that's precisely what makes it so good -- because Wolf Parade's twisted, crazy, surreal world becomes yours, and it feels both absolutely normal and absolutely right.

Talent burns through old-skool rap bangers, ferocious electro body-poppers and teary teen anthems – never a dull moment, never an irritating frat-girl with a “bottle of Jack”.

The message is, essentially, Times are hard, but let's make things better. As honest and uplifting statements of intent go, it's hard to fault – just like this album.

Much has been made--often unfairly--of Gray's awkwardness and lack of convention. But after several stabs at clumsy conformity, it finally feels like it's something she's embracing, and that's massively evident here.

On Further, The Chemical Brothers show no signs of fatigue, and the absence of any star names matters not a jot. It's better to continuously explode than fade away, or something.

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.

This is the most balanced album of Mason's career, or certainly the least precipitous. There is still a yawning void beneath him, but for once it doesn't sound as if he's about to fall into it, and you can't help but share his relief.

There's definitely a place for We Are Born in our post-Gaga pop landscape. The album's accessible tunes might not stand up to in-depth analysis, but they stand a good chance of lighting up cheesy club nights everywhere.

Total Life Forever's break with the past is astutely judged, the execution is even better.

Early trio Fembot, the single Dancing on My Own and Cry When You Get Older are scorchingly catchy, and laced with Robyn's familiar cordial of sparkling hook mixed with unutterable poignancy. The thing is, it's alarming when the first instalment of a trilogy houses so much filler.

As such it's not so much a bad record as a weirdly redundant one: four talented, passionate musicians do a perfectly reasonable job of making a record that sounds a good deal like vintage Springsteen, but fail to really leave their own mark on the music.

Mojo sees Petty steep himself in Americana again, adopt a live-in-the-studio feel, and generally rock out. The results are initially quite perky, as the band crash and charge through songs, but after a couple of plays everything becomes rather dull.

As morose meditations on the miseries of fame go, it comes across like a rap version of Woody Allen's Stardust Memories or Deconstructing Harry.

Whether or not the addition of Burrows is solely responsible for the improvement in consistency on this fourth album isn't clear, but Barbara is their best work by far. Current fans will be glad and new ones may be easier to come by.

Harcourt is a singer of uncommon charm, and Lustre is a welcome reminder that when he's on top of his game--which he is for roughly half the record--you'll want for little else.

Her songs fall easily on the ear, her rhyming schemes are adroit and she writes intelligently on serious subjects.

This utterly unnecessary but partially satisfying "complete" (says the sticker on the sleeve) singles collection manages to fall at the first hurdle by not including their first (and best) 12" from debut album Definitely Maybe, the shameless cocaine elegy Columbia.

Ultimately it's so much less than it could have been, given the talent involved.

Still, it’s a largely terrific return that retains all of the weirdness and edge of their debut but allows the tunes to win through at the expense of unnecessary glitch and red-raw distortion.

This is a firecracker of an album, no doubt about that--but its longevity is appropriately limited, its stretch across the hardcore spectrum deliberately hamstrung.

Teenage Fanclub's first album since 2005's Man-Made, coming so soon after the death of Alex Chilton, has the warmth and poignancy of a tribute, even if writing and recording was all wrapped up by then.

Consequently and unlike most covers records, If I Had a Hi-Fi (which, rather neatly, is a palindrome) sounds wonderfully fresh and easy, but also yields some unexpected pop trinkets.

The biggest criticism that can be labelled at White Crosses is that its best two songs are its first two â?? a politely rousing title-track that sheds its skin at the first chorus, followed by lead-off single I Was a Teenage Anarchist. The latter handily epitomises everything that people liked about Against Me! in the first place â?? a brightly intelligent polemic, only this time itâ??s trained on the close-minded futility of scenester punks.

In fact, every track on this superb album is a winner--and, draped in the quiet glamour, fun and stateliness of bygone radio pop-rock, evidence that Ariel has emerged from his bedroom to exact his revenge on Hollywood's Hills.

It's at once a work of larger ambition and greater focus than its predecessor, beginning brilliantly and continuing in the same manner for its entire length.

For the most part, this is a fine debut and speaks of even finer things to come.

It's not the album that will define Deer Tick as a force in their own right, or McCauley as a songwriter on a par with his heroes, but The Black Dirt Sessions is the best set yet from this still-rising quintet.

Peggy Sue have firmly moved from kooky and wonky soul-smith-stresses to blazing a path through fully realised songs waging war with life.

Nevertheless, what the album lacks in depth, it more than makes up for in the length and breadth of Weller's imagination.

There was always the hope amongst their fanbase that the band might give up on their commercial dreams, instead ploughing the oddness that always set them apart from the pack. Album number four delivers on that hope.

Rokstarr bounces to a beat that feels fresh and vibrant.

The Bride Screamed Murder, you see, all works when it really shouldn't, demonstrating once again just how the Melvins can somehow ensure their own very special brand of weird never quite becomes the norm.

Should he ever stretch himself as a musician the results could be fascinating – think The Beach Boys before Pet Sounds, and what they felt capable of afterwards – but right now he's operating in a comfort zone that should guarantee continued commercial success.

See You on the Moon’s mid-tempo anthems hover with a decorative shimmer that matches their wispy bedsit sentiments.

Sleepy Sun aren’t above dispelling the perceptions of over indulgence, and they may always be tarred thus, but Fever at least proves there’s a renewed clarity to go with the lozenge-smooth lethargy, even if it isn’t totally clearheaded.

A bewildering but fun bedlam seems to be their default setting, if the first half-dozen or so tracks are anything to go by.

This album doesn’t bristle with the sonic daring of Dangerfield’s usual work; instead, it offers love songs, largely unadorned with stylistic quirks or brash arrangements, a document of a life pulling into focus.

These 11 tracks wisely elect not to outstay their welcome, ensuring that repeat experiences are enjoyable, if not markedly memorable.

The consistently diverting changes in style across the album are fine--the wonky 80s shoulder-pad pop of The Outsider is nothing like anything else here, for example. But over 13 songs of Sparks-voice and many similar staccato piano riffs listeners may feel bludgeoned by Marina and her slightly overbearing presence.

Clearly, the reduction in volume and scale has lead to fantastic musical growth--a fine, accomplished and emotional album that ranks among his very best.

At Night We Live is the best and the most confident album of their two-part career. It is also, admittedly, more commercial-sounding, but there's no shame in that if it's done with integrity, dignity and passion.

Even during its less-memorable moments, this is an album that maintains its atmosphere, and Elson is an engaging narrator (although there's no trace of her Oldham roots to be heard).

Some might find all this misery, whether it's stripped back like Sweetness or as explosive as She's Building Castles in Her Heart , a little masochistic for their tastes. Those, however, who have followed Hinson's career since 2004's debut, The Gospel of Progress, will be relieved by a compelling return to Gothic American themes which repays their early conviction that he is a unique songwriter capable of converting lyrical gloom into musical glory.

Despite occasional flashes of brilliance it’s a patchy, derivative work.

Fans of the band, and those with a rustling liking for a certain kind of beard-here-now Americana, will devour this like a bottle of the Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler referenced on the last track.

Brimful of air guitar moments and other guilty pleasures, Brothers is pleasingly diverse and diverting, with barely a duff track.

it's disappointing that collaborative projects featuring prominent artists from these fields haven't yet delivered a worthwhile album. Marley's 2005 release Welcome to Jamrock was a step forwards, but Distant Relatives represents an accomplished attempt to go further, fusing traits with few discernable flaws.

Though Compass initially seems like the least interesting song on the album, that’s the beauty of the surprises in store.