While there are standouts, the whole is greater than its parts.

Throughout, there are unexpected melodic twists and turns, and the whole thing feels like a bid for commercial acceptance, if indeed the market for this classy music even exists anymore.

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.

For the most part, Hill's stubborn sonic bravery earns margin for a handful of bum notes, leaving Face Tat among the most rewardingly challenging listens of 2010.

An album to relax into, over weeks and months, this is one many will be coming back to whenever stress levels flit into the red.

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

Tramp continues the trajectory that got underway with her debut LP Because I Was in Love in 2009, broadening her sound and exhibiting greater confidence while markedly ramping up the volume.

With the ceaselessly inventive, engagingly cocksure 180, Palma Violets have given themselves a base to build a career, should they be in it for the long haul.

Ultimately, there are only two stars [Doom and Jneiro Jarel] that matter on this terrific album.

Whether for its bounty of warm guitar textures or for its still-rare insight into a distinctly female perspective on young love, Lights Out is surprising, sincere and, above all, a success.

Carey's gallant use of drum boxes and occasional, restrained glitchy sonics – like on the carousing Pickup Truck and undulating Into Tomorrow – round out Mason's sound, bringing a raft of rousing fresh dimensions to his previously straight-up folksy stylings.

This debut album deserves to take them to a new height of recognition: it's a superbly mainstream-accessible set, and distinctive of design too.

Now we're meeting a new side of the veteran guitar god – a gentle, delicate and altogether more acoustic Mascis.

Uncomplicated, subtle but memorable songwriting that might well have been played and recorded in a bedroom studio on Holloway Road.

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.

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.

It's hard to pretend this is entirely cutting-edge stuff, but the 70-year-old shows no sign of softening, his production rich without bowing to commercialism, his compositions full of unexpected twists and aggression.

It's a harrowing but beautiful end to an immense, intense album.

Hyro Da Hero has created a fresh and interesting blend of music and clever wordplay which broaches topics of prejudice and respecting the world we live in with notable humour and intelligence.

[Cyrk] is a rare beast: a genuinely off-kilter pop record that never feels too self-conscious or contrived.

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

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.

With high-concept sounds and an ace sleeve, Again Into Eyes is a bold debut, and an extremely rewarding experience.

Everything adds up to an unexpected and intriguing album.

Musselwhite's dialogue with Harper's soulful tenor and punchy guitar is pure Astaire and Rogers.

Callahan has gifted us perhaps his most subversive set to date: an album less about apocalypse and ruin than it is upheaval of the positive variety, and one of the most contented and rewarding of his career.

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.

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.

Ex Lives is guaranteed to change a few minds as to what stands out as their finest collection.

There's a kitsch appeal, but this stuff [from disc two] belongs in a different world from the marvellous early disc.

By getting back to basics and running on their instincts it would seem as if Australia's finest threesome have rediscovered just what it is that makes them great.

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.

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.

Stelmanis, bassist Dorian Wolf and drummer Maya Postepski have created something that plays as a carefully balanced, organic whole, like an inadvertent concept album. That's more a testament to the skill with which it's been put together than because it lacks standout moments; in fact, half the songs here could be released as singles, as Austra are as melodic as they are melodramatic.

Maturity and sonic streamlining hasn't removed the essence of what gave them their cult following.

The whopping 50 tracks are judiciously enough chosen to demonstrate why the band is legendary.

The familiar nature of this material takes nothing away from Trilogy. This is a great commercially available introduction to a young RnB talent who's following Frank Ocean into the mainstream.

Jarrett has separated the ingredients into bite-sized chunks. With an audience as ecstatic as the one at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, where his new album was cut in April 2011, this works to the advantage of both. Jarrett builds a rapport with his public, and they can more easily adapt to the changes of mood and genre as his ideas develop.

It's a mark of the album's strength that there aren't many standouts: there aren't any weak tracks either.

An album wracked with spirit and a ferocious refusal to let anything slide away. Every track's an anthem; every second's precious, each breath as breathless as the last.

The accessible groove of Flower and party-time refrain of ...Candyhands make for just two more standout moments on this terrific album that appears to achieve the impossible: making a breakup sound like just the most fun you could possibly have.

Celebration Day is an opportunity to witness the power and the glory of Led Zeppelin, quite possibly for the last time, and they certainly don't disappoint.

An indispensable guide to an iconic band.

It's the performances and songwriting, however, which invite most acclaim.

Bawdy, smart, big-hearted and mischievous, Mermaid Avenue is simply all about a personality that is rich with life.

It is Coleman's sax, Jonathan Finlayson's trumpet, Tim Albright's trombone and Jen Shyu's voice that make the strongest impact.

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.

It's easy to revel in Moffat's bleak wordplay and his everyman observations, but behind the black clouds and bitterness there are reminders of love and tempered optimism, encompassed by The Greatest Story Ever Told.

This is a full-on, joyous, positive album that makes you feel like celebrating.

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.

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.

The major achievement of this record--produced by Slipknot desk-jockey Ross Robinson--is the broadening of Dananananaykroyd's sound, prising it clear of the numerous shouty young bands to have followed their lead.

These sharply-targeted psychedelic guitar eruptions are well-contained, and always tantalisingly brief.

The Computers deliver a wholly satisfying sound that won't go stale any time soon. Mainly because there's so little substance to it, but in this case that's no bad thing whatsoever.

A treasure of tremendous emotional resonance and focus from the rising country singer.

Blood simple and bloody minded, their half-hour self-titled debut is a welcome lurch straight for the jugular.

The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them.

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.

Enjoy Kaleidoscope Dream for the rarity that it is: an unerringly consistent, very good pop record.

Ozanne has here delivered one of the most perfect after-party collections in recent memory.

This is scintillating fare, albeit rock of a variety that can dizzy itself to the extent where a point becomes dulled by the practice--not that it matters, because the poise is so polished (when it's not drenched in feedback) that the band's directionless bombast is a most pleasing soundtrack to all and any whatever-the-weather escapades.

It's an impressive feat, and a genuine reminder for those bemoaning pop's current state that challenges can still be made as long as you never stop asking questions.

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.

With a wealth of subtle and understated performances by the supporting cast, including wistful flourishes from pianist Geraint Watkins, whose on-the-money keyboards have graced albums by Nick Lowe and Van Morrison, this is no unthinking pastiche or smirking parody.

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.

While nowhere near as immediate as Johannsson's string-based albums for the 4AD imprint--IBM 1401, A User's Manual and the sublime Fordlandia--The Miners' Hymns is far more complex in its use of dynamics while succeeding totally in its evocation of time, place and message.

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.

The full band which appears on The Lion's Roar enjoys the rare achievement of being saccharine-free, and serves to highlight the sisters' brilliant captured-on-tape chemistry.

If Giant Sand had released fewer great albums, Blurry Blue Mountain would sound something close to miraculous. As it is, it's a worthy addition to a catalogue which was already embarrassed with riches.

The whole thing's really rather magnificent.

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

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

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

Childs and Blake have created a record of outstanding songcraft, which salutes rock's past with a carefree spirit and its head in the clouds. Go Jonny, go, go go.

Perfect Darkness is rather special.

Hugely impressive debut LP from the Liverpool trio.

It sounds so much more raw and harsh, more real and vulnerable.

A nebulous set of hyper-stoned musings on bass tethered together in the hard drive of one man's mind.

A long time coming it may have been, but Some Cold Rock Stuf is a disc worth spending plenty of time with after waiting more than a while for.

Sneering like the New York Dolls transplanted to a nighthawk-populated diner after exchanging their shiny skin-tight trousers for leather jackets and Elvis LPs, this is a rock'n'roll record and no mistake....fantastique in anyone's language.

A very successful collection which commendably fuses a series of contemporary "dance" music structures into an easily accessible whole.

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.

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.

Clear Heart Full Eyes [is] a work of understated beauty.

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.

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.

Terrifying yet magnificent horror from a group getting doom metal so very right.

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

They're relatively simple things to be sure, but they've been crafted with love and authority before being chiselled in stone so that they may yet last certain discerning metallers a lifetime.

Never ones for stating the obvious, Singing Adams have constructed an album that is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.

It may not be a Tindersticks classic, in the same vein as 1997's sublime Curtains, but The Something Rain is a record full of mystery and intrigue that will keep you listening--and discovering new things each time--for a good while.

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”.

This latest collection offers a tantalising glimpse of how Hendrix's genius might have progressed.

This is an album of surprising tenderness, of intricate (and, importantly, memorable) melodies and deep emotions, and everyman ruminations on love and life that will surely connect with long-standing fans and newcomers alike.

Whatever the treatment of his songs, Holly's knack of pairing of simplistic, catchy melodies with understated--almost flippant--melancholy always shines through. As such, over 50 years since his death, this is a wonderful testament to his songwriting prowess, longevity and legacy.

Submit fully to Centipede Hz and it will infect you, quite deliciously, for the foreseeable.

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

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.