The result is a dizzying fusion, marked by its lofty ambition and stunning central performance.

The Foundling isn't a lot of fun, but it tells a very sad story with bleak eloquence.

Claudia's timbres, eerie and winsome in equal measure, prove its greatest strong point. The combination of clarinet, accordion and vibraphone fashions an electric whistle and whir that squares the circle between 90s indie science frictioners Stereolab and 60s proto-proggers Soft Machine, making it clear that Claudia is a jazz group questioning the divide between genres and points in time.

Sea of Cowards works hard to dispel those not-unjustified notions of The Dead Weather being Jack White’s third-best band. What’s even stranger is that they appear to have succeeded, in spite of the fact 80% of the record proceeds from a fairly lumpen blues template which at first glance would seem to suggest a continued dearth of inspiration.

Its charms are subtle, its grip soft and easily shrugged by those who choose to pay it only passing attention. Live with it a while, though, and High Violet rewards patience with songs that colour one's waking existence, becoming vivid night-time narratives when curtains are drawn.

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.

Latin, the band's third album, is something of a side-step from its predecessors, Holy Fuck (2004) and LP (2007). It's less brawny and statelier, perhaps in part due to its producers Paul Epworth (Florence, The Rapture) and Dave Sardy (Black Mountain, LCD). But it might well be the closest the band has got to sounding as visceral and as rich on record as they do live.

This is electronic psychedelic-groove, flush with drama. Neither space rock nor alt-dance but flickering somewhere on the cusp of both, it should win back deserters while glamouring new converts.

Phosphorescent's contribution to the new-folk cannon is an impressive and rather lovely addition.

What saves Grey Oceans is the occasional good idea: the Eastern-tinged Smokey Taboo mixes tablas and wilting strings with Bianca's woozy, half-rapped vocal to impressive effect, while the very peculiar Fairy Paradise is, more or less, Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy as remixed by Paul van Dyk.

Their debut album will probably not be a Shins-esque licence to print money for the label, but it's a minor triumph as a grab-bag of punky jams.

This is lush, involving music that takes stated influences and sculpts them into something genuinely there.

The contrasts are ecstatic, setting in stone just how remarkable a comeback New Young Pony Club have pulled off. The Optimist is a super-smart pop album at the top of its game.

Heaven is Whenever is good for the exact reasons Hold Steady records always tend to be good. Such dogged consistency suggests it's doubtful Finn and company will ever come out with a startling masterpiece that frees them from Springsteen's shadow, but it also implies they're extremely unlikely to make a bad record.

This latest record also goes some way to proving that, while he may be an old dog with a pickled onion for a head, Mark E. Smith and The Fall are still capable of learning the odd new trick.

Though clearly as replete with imagination as they are with personnel, Broken Social Scene would benefit from the attentions of a less indulgent producer.

Because in constantly mutating just when you begin to pin it down, drawing everything around in before rearranging atoms before your very eyes, Cosmogramma proves itself time and time again as mind-meltingly boundless as a black hole.

Like much of Together, it aims for The Beatles, hits ELO, and sounds like the people responsible mightn't have thought that was a bad thing.

These 11 tracks flow fantastically, sounding like products of a focused period of writing and recording, completed over a relatively short space of time.

While Court Yard Hounds is a well-packaged and produced collection, its songs seem rather ordinary compared to Chicks material

He clearly relishes the heightened emotion of his source material, the album wisely avoiding cheap campiness in favour of respecting the music's rich sense of drama.

Those expecting a worthy if belated sequel to "Movements," however, will be disappointed: even at its best, More! rarely exceeds inoffensiveness.

Braxton's sixth album Pulse--some five years in the making--is certainly a release shrouded with anticipation, but instead of sticking to her strength in ballads it feels more a trend-chasing American Idol semi-finalist's debut offering.

In creating a work which pretty much unfailingly sounds like it could have been made 25 years ago, Future Islands have rejected a lot of current sonic trends--only for their sound to land fashionable-side-up anyway. The tunes are the thing, of course, and the tunes are good.

There are ten other very fine songs here, this album shows Ritter developing continually, and there's potential for greatness, in time.

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.

Nobody's Daughter, despite its lengthy and troubled gestation, is a rich and emotionally searing addition to that canon, effortlessly besting her haphazard solo album.

Throughout, Avi's vocals coalesce remarkably with those of keyboard player Rebecca Coleman, who was originally Avi's muse by way of an intense teenage crush.

Despite the lyrics failing to improve upon previous efforts, elsewhere Fever represents a significant step forward, and practically guarantees that BFMV will fulfil the expectations preceding its release.

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.

Sleep Mountain has the emotional weight of a Boxer or a Turn on the Bright Lights, but it doesn’t quite have the tunes. That said, there’s still plenty to fall in love with here.

This raucous collection of three-minute knee-tremblers, however, is as close as it gets [to a live show]. Swilling whiskey and spitting gravel, over-driven and over here, this is aural Prozac for the 21st century.

The lyrics mingle optimism and deliberate naivety, with even the downer moments coming across as exultantly miserable rather than genuinely forlorn. Rhodes is undoubtedly sincere, but maybe at the expense of potential humour and irony.

There is, unquestionably, a mass of fortitude at work from the creator throughout.

Intimate, intense and up close with the openly flamboyant Wainwright as he offers up himself with no full band to hide behind. It works, too.

The hit-and-miss nature of her words wouldn't be so noticeable if the music was more of a distraction. But the skittering sub-Motown fare accompanying much of this album fails to muster a chorus worth savouring.

Hardly revelatory then, but Nelson delivers hardy material like traditional Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down and I Am a Pilgrim with such wizened assurance, it's impossible not to feel the love.

The Radio Dept. have cleverly managed to conjure up music with a thoroughly minimal feel, despite this hive of activity instrumentation-wise.

An extension of the rehabilitation that the 63-year-old has undergone in the last decade, under the devoted guidance of family and friends, it's a record that both addresses and somehow transcends his past.

It’s a genre experiment that might encourage more sceptical listeners to err on the side of caution, but if you’re willing to let yourself be swept away, then the rewards are worthwhile.

La La Land is so warm and easy to like, it triumphs over any misgivings.

Tears, Lies, and Alibis is an album worth buying mainly for two reasons. Firstly the opening track, Rains Came. It sits in what sounds like a familiar bed, but doesn't quite go where you expect it to, and is, this time, lyrically opaque. Secondly, you can drown in her voice. It is fabulous; not an in-your-face "listen to how many octaves I can leap" sort of way, but it effortlessly convinces you she's lived this stuff, and means every word.

What emerges from such silliness is the pleasing sense that the duo had a blast making this record. Listening to it is also fun at times, but just as often it's damned hard work.

The Wild Hunt is a heady and enthralling work, its impressionistic nature bolstered by levels of charm and confidence found all too rarely in these modern times.

It's full of fascinating, stirring moments, but overall, Year of the Black Rainbow suffers just a little too much from its own grand, sprawling ambition.

Indeed, everything sounds so good from a purely musical perspective that the record perhaps doesn’t showcase its lyricists as well as it could.

Cancer Bats’ tendency to veer towards the metallic might shock those unaccustomed to having a sweaty Torontonian screaming blue murder in their faces. But persevere and it reveals itself as a selection of dark, enjoyably violent treats.

By evolving their formula without losing sight of the elements that it’s founded upon, they have delivered their most satisfyingly ferocious set to date.

It’s Thomas’s guilt-free love of mavericks past that lends such evocative warmth and unusual spontaneity to a fascinating album that could have been pure self-indulgence.

The quality of Georgia Peaches is expectedly sketchy – but such is the energy conveyed that it's tough indeed to not become caught up in the crackly cacophony.

A serviceable but utterly derivative slice of twee electro-pop, the album quietly retreads the ground covered by Sufjan Stevens, The Postal Service and Frenchkiss labelmates Passion Pit, failing to form any identifiable shape of its own.

It is full of catchy melodies and hooks. It is extraordinarily lame. Think of Keane, and remove the grit.

Instead of shadowing the pack, this album puts them right up the front.

With I Speak Because I Can, that argument may now end. Though just 20, it doesn't appear within her scope to make an outright bad album, and here we are shown a few more glimpses of her gift, but yet not an overwhelming outpouring of it.

Several perfectly agreeable songs are unexpectedly hijacked by a cacophonous onslaught of instruments, with Finnish percussionist Samuli Kosminen setting the furious pace.

Sadly though, the prevalence of mid-tempo, Des'ree-lite ballads and inconsistent quality make this is an exhausting listen over 90 minutes.

What pushes I Learned the Hard Way towards being something truly brilliant as opposed to just very, very good is how well it works as a cohesive, well-rounded whole.

Propellor Time is, in short, another fine Robyn Hitchcock album, proving that, almost 35 years into his recording career, his gift for crafting such perfectly-imperfect, winningly-askew pop as strong as ever.

It's an inverted-commas proper long-player, which manifests a relaxed mood and maintains it marvellously.

In its own right, The Fear... is an impressive piece of work. As inevitable as comparisons with their previous creations are, they shouldn’t detract from what is by anyone else’s standards a major achievement

Quite who Harlem can hope to appeal to, in the UK at least, when music fans here are evidently besotted with sci-fi nonsense one minute and cleverly articulated kitchen-sink dramas the next is anyone's guess. Best to quit the questioning, though, and get down with the rollicking jams they're kicking out regardless of how many people are listening.

Maddeningly tame, neither replicates the whiskey-soaked sleaze and instantly classic riffs that have earned Slash his deservedly legendary status. Thank goodness, then, for three reliable road warriors, who ride in on a much-needed rescue mission.

This third solo album is a cracking collection, one that rings with the depth of twang comparable only to the likes of the legendary Ry Cooder.

On the whole, I Will Be invites you to be whisked along by the sheer energy burst: the pots’n’pans clatter of the drums, the crackle and fizz from the amps and the bitter take on romance from Dee Dee herself.

Buoyantly produced, it finds the singer leaning a little too comfortably on the conversational Georgia drawl of his baritone, and the writer coming up a little shy on the sort of detail and wordplay that lifts a cliche.

So don’t come to this thinking you’ll get the inside scoop on a celebrity divorce, but as a soundtrack to rampancy in general, it’s hard to beat.

She is, by no means, ‘retro’ in her art; it’s just been a long time since anyone sang soul music as passionately, wittily and inventively as she does here.

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

With the most basic tools, the Stones build something lovely and lasting. Roll with them.

As it happens, most of these songs are rockers, and even the ballads possess a toughened core of energy.

Option Paralysis stretches its makers' imaginations and abilities superbly. Consider it another singular success.

Coconut’s acid-fried eclecticism occasionally strains for effect and lacks the brutish vigour of its predecessor. A commendably outré listen on any other terms, it’s still a sideways-shuffle that never fully convinces.

This is a great album: smart, thrilling, bouncy, imaginative, sussed, melodic, fiery, punchy, passionate, repetitive, and immersed in the technology of 2010 but the ideology of the 60s and late 70s (and early 90s Olympia, if we’re going to be exact).

At an economic 38 minutes and free of anything in the slightest bit terrible, you should welcome Head First like the first sun of spring, know it inside out by the time the band are slaying festival crowds mid-summer and possibly buying copies to give to close friends and family at Christmas.

Despite the clunky moments, there’s ample proof that Team Bieber know exactly what they’re doing and who they’re talking to. As you’d expect, it’s the ballads that hit the hardest.

By maintaining a ferocious appetite for streaming across territory few electronic musicians possess even a perception of, Autechre continue to test themselves and listeners alike with stunningly intricate results.

As good as their 2007 Mercury Prize-nominated album, The Bairns, undoubtedly was, Here’s the Tender Coming raises the standard higher still.

High Places have moved on, positioning themselves on the fringes of the ongoing chillwave explosion with enough invention to outlast most of its central protagonists.

The spacious production lends The Wonder Show… an appealing as-live feeling, an intimacy that Oldham has often turned to his advantage in the past and does so again here.

Although the parallels with Bonobo's peers are obvious, his fourth album doesn't just sit in their shadows. Rather, it's an inspiring example of how, free of pressure and publicity, he has blossomed into something beautiful at his own pace.

The first four tracks of new album The Big To-Do are a solid continuation of the Truckers’ recent winning streak....But just as it seems clear we’ve got another rough-edged diamond on our hands, the album begins to wander at its mid-point.

This is a far from perfect album, but at its peak it’s highly mature, seasoned music. Exhaustion clearly seems to be beneficial to McRae’s unique sound.

Peepers is every bit as good, talented musicians reworking the rulebook with hearts and minds at play.

Sweet 7 doesn’t sell the Sugababes as individuals or as a brand.

Liquid Love is undoubtedly impressive, well-honed and slickly produced, and it’s shot through with a glowing joie de vivre. But it’s too smoothed and tidied.

Only behind such a distracting smokescreen could Damon Albarn get away with conducting a project as sprawling, daring, innovative, surprising, muddled and magnificent as Plastic Beach: not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole.

Sisterworld is perhaps their masterpiece, showcasing as it does all strands of the Liars sound so far.

Mercer's gently off-beam pop songs are lit up colourfully by the duo's choice of arrangements.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks is more polished, more polite than the band’s earlier offerings, but it’s reassuring to note that the band’s scruffy-hearted charm still lies just below the surface.

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.

The band have taken Bruce Springsteen's influence, twisted and distorted it and made a quite remarkable album that lives up both to its rebellious, riotous ambition and its rich musical heritage.

Essentially, jj have offered a more rounded, somewhat slicker version of what came before, and to the vast majority of listeners the comforting embrace it offers will be welcomed.

The fact that the climax comprises the closest thing to a substantial recording on the album is an indictment of a release that one suspects would not have made the stores had the Hendrix estate not wished to offer a bone to new label Sony following the end of their distribution deal with Universal.

It's an album that largely triumphs with a black snake moan and the revitalised, tempestuous twin snarl of Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been.

Both in words and music, this album works by letting anger and warmth share a platform. In this respect, listeners already au fait with this splendid band should find plenty of cheer.

With Are the Roaring Night they delve deeper into the glittering soundscapes that have become synonymous with their sound; sacrificing something of the warmth that marked their previous work, they nonetheless emerge with a thoroughly impressive, coherent whole.

This is a transatlantic musical campaign whose virtuosity, verve and sheer eccentric heart make it hard to resist.

It all clicks into gear by the end, and it perhaps bodes well that they appear to have worked out how to finish things on a high.