Big Echo is an immediate, inviting listen. It’s not breaking any boundaries of inspired expression, but for what it is it’s a fine set indeed.

It’s all quite understated and beautifully played, and any shortcomings in the material are more than made up for by Drever’s peerless singing.

The pair can knock out enormous, memorable hooks from limited resources, the instrumental make-up stripped-bare in the extreme, just drums and guitar. But scarcity of equipment never once hinders their considerable ambition and inventiveness.

Barnett's blue-sky dreaming is actually a pretty accurate description of Hidden – heavily beat-driven, almost entirely absent of guitars, and laced with large amounts of elaborately arranged woodwind and brass. Does it work? Largely, yes.

The resultant pieces feel so alive that you can almost sense the pressure of Frahm’s fingers alighting on each key as these solemn improvisations begin to weave their magic.

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.

Black Light, their sixth album, finds them enlarging their repertoire to relax into wider influences. In the absence of a frontman they are aging well.

Fight Softly is, while not a game-changer, certainly a level-raiser. It glistens with pop immediacy, rollicks with breathtaking percussive interpositions, and clatters to a beat entirely of its own construct.

They’ll soon become enraptured by what accompanies these highest-of-profile pieces: music that embraces the listener with a silken touch and seduces them with a beguiling beauty that, still, sits prettily beyond the clamour of convenient categorisation.

Be Brave is not quite the barnstormer that its lead single suggests, but there is enough gumption to see The Strange Boys through any scrutiny of their credentials.

While sentimental on occasion, and certainly possessed by a lovelorn spirit that should connect with all but the hardest of hearts, The Law of Large Numbers never comes across cloyingly, its content ably handled and expressed with the same cliché-free purity The Delgados mastered.

This is music that rings shrilly with a deafening hollowness, an unashamed fakery akin to a dream-state where fantasy and reality have become mixed and hopelessly muddied.

Expectedly inconsistent, Almost Alice is a great idea some distance short of being properly realised.

Glossing over realisations that the second half begins to drag, Hologram Jams won’t appease anybody who rates music to decimal points or regularly orders their record collection alphabetically. Instead, it’s fun in the same manner as a night out necking Lambrini and cheap cocktails.

This is a raw, unfussy rock record that forsakes gloss or studio tricks for instinct and urgency.

One wonders if those responsible for this platter of past-perishable pop mimicry, these clichéd regurgitations of ubiquitous motifs, are indeed the same Danes who wowed admirers of sparkly melodies and insatiable hooks only a single springtime equinox ago.

Come Down With Me, while never plumbing peculiarly clichéd depths of introspective immersion, does stall its rapid step on occasion to allow both actors and audience a little breather.

Few records in 2010 will contain songs quite so mind-bogglingly broad, playful, beguilingly pretty and intense as these slowly unfurling ensemble pieces.

But it’s not float-away, background material; these songs poke and prod while clasping you close, the embrace warm but never completely comfortable.

Replete with moments of jubilance and tranquillity, cataclysm and contemplation, it feels like the successful culmination of everything the band have been aiming towards over their career to date.

It’s focused, and superbly executed, but forgoes immersive longevity for determined immediacy.

It’s a melee of styles and disparate ideas – some inspired, some falling woefully short. If its sheer reach borders on folly, it’s still enjoyable as hell.

Dear God… is as engagingly weird as anything before, but flows so much better by incorporating the customary sonic terrorism into verse-chorus-verse songs, rather than breaking off for performance poetry about living in the shadow of suicide, or (say) war as legitimate barbarism for jocks.

As an album, it is huge, sometimes overwhelming-- but such is the strength and individuality of Newsom’s vision, it seems almost inconceivable she could produce anything unremarkable.

It's tight, concise and thrillingly sharp--what makes High on Fire's fifth album such a success is its intricacy and balance that allows it to appeal to more than your friendly neighbourhood metalhead.

Luck in the Valley finds him totally at home on the ranch, sat in his rocking chair and surrounded by friends gathered around the porch deck. It’s a fitting last hurrah from a true American primitive.

Such is Sitek’s influence on the record that it takes you a little while to get to know the real Miranda. While initial listens find her songs somewhat opaque, they gradually open up to reveal their emotional depths.

Past Lives are prog incarnate; yet dissection of their work here reveals a far simpler formula than what initially presents itself. The four are restricted to some degree by their make-up, with Henderson handling much of the multi-instrumentalist demands, but the ideas are solid.

Beautifully recorded, Ali & Toumani lives up to and perhaps exceeds expectations.

Just like its predecessor, Constellations’ unfussy panoramas may initially seem a little too polite, just a tad too restrained for some, but repeated listening will unravel hidden seams of loveliness.

These are strong, conventional songs full of clever flicks and feints, deliciously produced by Ed (Suede, Pulp, White Lies) Buller.

Falling Down a Mountain opens with the six-and-a-half-minutes of insistent, monotonal jazz of the title track. Mercifully, this fails to set the scene for what follows, as the album is dominated by the band’s whimsical, playful side, a usually dormant but altogether delightful aspect of their character.

Each track is certainly jam-packed with ideas, but they are woven tight and worked to perfection with the help of producer and mixer Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) who has clearly done a sterling job of making sense of Hynes’ ridiculously overactive imagination.

This is another tippy-toe step forward in a strange journey that's seen them steadily chart a course beyond the ubiquitous post-rock tag to take in orchestral pomp and clattering psych-outs as they forge some sort of hairy, woebegone chamber music for an indie set raised on Dirty Three and The Black Heart Procession.

Across its many and varied pieces, this collection proves that Field Music truly are a gem of a band.

Gorilla Manor is no classic – it's too indebted to its makers' influences for that. But it is a strong, striking debut that exceeds expectations and should open enough doors for the band to ensure that album two is immediately placed at the top of journalist must-listen-to piles and consumers' to-buy lists alike.

If the Wu’s raw, unreconstructed side is your poison, Return Of represents a custom-made catchall, hitting robustly yet classily like a fine malt, only minus usually infuriating distillation times.

An extraordinary and stylish album.

He now presents his third compilation which, as such compilations should, demonstrates to the world that he is a man of excellent taste.

The new sound features a dense, Dave Fridmann-like production: pumping, parping, squelching sounds familiar to those from The Flaming Lips, or MGMT, but rarely coupled to such strong hooks, or vocal performances, by either.

This is an imbalanced record, and one that leaves you frustrated rather than elated. But despite the blips, they have dished up at least two cerebral bangers here.

I’m New Here is an unlikely but triumphant return, packed full of sadness, experience and an underlying feeling of someone making peace with their mistakes and regrets.

So while an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognize it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.

There is gospel organ (Be That Easy) and a mid-tempo reggae-ish gait on Babyfather, but mostly Soldier of Love is as mournfully one-paced as previous Sade albums, with the same attention to texture and surface lustre but, alas, not to melody or moving autobiography.

Sadly, the songs here are slight and flimsy. Most of them sound like blink-and-you’ll-miss-it backing tracks for under-performing American drama series, pleasant and wholesome as a high-street sandwich, but instantly forgettable.

Unlike, say, Memory Tapes though, Bundick doesn’t burn straight for a memorable hook, the pop elements of Causers of This trickling slowly from a frame that’s shaped primarily upon forms usually spied and assimilated by artists operating in more dance-savvy circles.

Occasionally augmented by beautifully restrained strings, there’s a kind of heat-haze shimmer evident, of a kind that gave Bobbie Gentry’s sound some of its mystery and magic.

A refreshing, unusual and diverting first record from two new talents, then, and one to recommend for jaded electro and indie fans who felt the New York scene had gone as far as it could with art-skronk.

After this striking highlight ["Stick to My Side"] Black Noise glides into a slight lull that persists through the Underworld-like fidget of "Satellite Snyper" and the disappointingly anonymous electro house of "Behind the Stars," which shows that when Weber promotes rhythm ahead of melody the effect can be underwhelming. It’s with the album’s final trio that things return to the high standard of the first half.

Fear Factory’s slices of digital dystopia no longer sound futuristic or groundbreaking, but Mechanize is a powerful statement from a revitalized and still-relevant band.

As far as second albums go, it is a brilliantly bold, robust work, showcasing real development and the kind of graceful erudition that places Regan squarely ahead of the curve.

Perhaps finding mass appeal has given Tim Smith and his band-mates the confidence to take their ideas into darker, brooding waters, and further harness the influence of classic British prog-folk. But whatever the motivation, it's a mood that suits.

There’s nothing wrong with experimentation, and a handful of rock tracks here could have worked well. But to make a whole album based around a sound Lil Wayne is so inexperienced with is simply outrageous.

Original it isn’t, but it trades innovation for let-loose fun, and wears its influences proudly.

Nick has a great pop voice--high and clear and strong. It isn’t a great rock voice though, and his desire to smash it into shape by spirited bellowing alone can curdle things, just as they should really start cooking.

However, as the album progresses, with its mix of violins, guitar, synths and fitful percussion, a paradoxical mood and feel is established – desolate yet comforting, glacial yet warm, remote yet intimate, never more so than on Summer Fog.

Unicorn is that rarest of things: a record imbued with genuine talent and emotion which wipes the floor with the majority of its makers’ contemporaries, while calling to mind the classic vocals of Karen Carpenter and the pioneering spirit of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Quite startling.

At times it is so minimal and skeletal, the songs are in need of intensive care. Yet it is unafraid to rock (Trick Pony, Dandelion) or be resolutely commercial.

More serious but still jittery, and not without detritus, this is the album that will decide the longevity of Los Campesinos!.

The most unmistakeable sound on Teen Dream is that of a band truly finding its own voice. In so doing, they may just have minted the new decade’s first essential album.

It’s a theme that recurs throughout the record, and, indeed, that defines the Four Tet canon: mesmeric, melody-laden music, with varying degrees of difficulty. There is Love in You should be a fine introductory course.

Merritt’s songs are, as ever, as lugubrious yet playful as his voice.

The Sea, produced as per the debut by Steve Brown and Steve Chrisanthou, is no self-indulgent lack of tunes-fest. Even at its bleakest--"Closer," say, or "Love's on Its Way," where there is "blood on the streets"--the music and melodies draw you in, and even when they follow their own lushly orchestrated circuitous path, they seem to dare you to drift away.

It’s experimental but aimed at embracing an audience first and furthering its makers' out-there adventures second. As such, it’s the most instantly rewarding Pit Er Pat album yet, and deserves to take the duo to a new level of recognition.

The band’s phlegm-clotted bark and crisp four-chord surges remain intact throughout, whilst at the same time appearing more refined and steadily more adventurous.

There’s a solid groove to most tracks, with no digressions to the Court of the Crimson King, or democratic opportunities for weaker members of the commune to sing.

As it stands, cumbersome arrangements and a tendency to coast weigh heavy – diluting the finished article from one of real, enduring merit to a patchy, only sporadically wonderful album.

She's not displaying much in the way of stylistic evolution, but it's not exactly certain whether this is a negative factor. As ever, raging raw emotion shouts out of Niblett's gullet, whilst sludge-chords resound from her low-hung axe, following the Nirvana (and thence PJ Harvey) school of quiet-then-loud, loud-then-quiet, but nevertheless imposing her own unpredictabilities on this dynamic.

With 33 tracks stretching well over two hours, A Reality Tour isn’t exactly suited to single-sitting listening. It’s also far from a genuine greatest hits collection, though it certainly does feature a number of Bowie’s most-loved songs. But it is a great document of one of the world’s most inspirational recording artists.

He’s come close to his aim of making this album more than a curiosity, but the real impact can surely only come from seeing his orchestrion in action.

Downtown Church is full of astonishing songs.

There was a time when it seemed anything emanating from a Chicago zip code was essential. That time may have passed, but if you're in any way interested in atmospheric, exploratory music that creates worlds as it progresses, seek Boca Negra out.

Good Shoes have home-produced a record worthy of similar plaudits; there’s both hope and future here in abundance.

There's not much more British than slightly freaky folk music. As if to prove the point, Erland Cooper has mined these pleasant pastures for a debut album of depth and weird beauty.

As tasters go, it’s exciting fare: the appetite for more isn’t so much whetted as left in a state of delightful fervent.

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

Within Spoon's astute use of sunny structure, a brooding heart of murky frustration lurks. A deceptive, addictive album, revelling in hidden depths.

End Times plays to Everett’s strengths, offering enough intrigue and wonder to keep happy listeners new and old.

There are impressive experimental excursions here, too: take Never Say Never, a whirl of backwards beats, twinkling harps and discombobulated vocals that’s both utterly disorientating and quite delightful.

So, despite promising little, Turn Ons proves to be quite the diverting delight, albeit one you're unlikely to return to once a new Supergrass album arrives.

At times it can settle too readily into a kind of country chug, and one begins to feel stuck for too long in a dusty, last-breath pick-up on some interminable road trip. But when it is good, it is very, very good.

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

The Len Price 3 sound well aware that people aren’t tuning in for their Swiftian commentary, but for the fizzy fury of their cheerfully unreconstructed rock’n’roll. Pictures may well be what the doctor ordered, for those whose preferred consultant’s last name is Feelgood.

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.

The band’s lack of a defining musical style has proven an advantage here, as frontman Damian Kulash and co. were clearly able to explore their boundaries, unconfined by audience expectations.

Not everyone is going to want a 12-song cycle about the relationship of an extremely violent fictional farmer (no – come back!), of course, but within Heartland’s grand sweep are some riveting and quite glorious ideas.

In The Music Scene, Blockhead has made both pretty melancholic tracks and straight-up thump-the-desk bangers bedfellows, and for that the new decade should be eternally thankful.

Lawrence Arabia's narrator persona, with one foot sternly in the past and the other staggering, trying desperately to get away, loiters before it settles. This makes Chant Darling a charming listen whose dolorous sentiment recurs like a welcome motif, each song taking time to reveal its full charm.

Although Stronger with Each Tear may not be one of her greatest works, it ensures that Blige remains as relevant as any of her more recent contemporaries.

More than a holding operation while Thomson tours with Ian F. Svenonius as two-man funk caravan Publicist, this is travelling music for swinging around asteroids or hurtling down a ravine.

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

Kid Sister is certainly on the right tracks, but Ultraviolet is a sadly patchy affair.

No-one will be disappointed by a Glee album which includes "Don’t Stop Believin’"--their chart-eating cover of the Petra Haden arrangement of the Journey song; or "Alone," or "Gold Digger." But it’s a shame there wasn’t room for their Winehouse-approved upgrade of "Rehab;" or the stripped-back swing at Bel Biv Devoe’s "Poison," as performed by the show’s all-male vocal group Acafellas. These would probably have lifted the second half of the CD, which loses some of the sparkle and joy once the barn-storming "Somebody to Love" has finished.

If at times the impression left is too breezy (the elephant in the career that is You’re So Vain sounds almost embarrassed to be here), at others it’s extremely potent.

While it lacks the freshness that saw it named one of Pitchfork's best albums of last year, there's no doubting that Palomo's best efforts retain their charm a year since they were first heard.

Despite the bounty of overdubs, however, there’s little self-indulgence to There Is No Enemy; Martsch’s overloaded approach might scream ‘prog’, but he also possesses a perfectly-disciplined, ‘pop’ songwriting sensibility, with every lengthy instrumental coda married to contagious choruses and melodic barbs that lodge in the mind.

Originality niggles aside, the vitality and wit these Oregon upstarts display on this first LP is enough to recommend them to anyone interested in hearing a quality good-time band. Hockey seem to actually give a puck, and that’s reason enough to like ‘em for now.