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.

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.

While Duppy Writer is sufficiently bubbling to temporarily sate cravings, there's still scarcely enough nourishment until a new album proper.

Unique: rarely meant, but here the only possible description for the sounds these four remarkable players emit.

It's nice to hear a female artist singing so much from the belly, even, at times, with a stirring kind of anger – as in the rollicking Peace Signs.

Some pruning could have tightened all this up, especially as the band's songs speak volumes for themselves. Nevertheless, The Big Roar is a powerful signal of intent and a fantastic debut.

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.

This is the sound of the Noughties – electro enough without being harsh, interesting without being over-cool, quirky without being weird. Empire Of The Sun have cracked the perfect blend of fond reflection and sexy new frontier frisson. If this is what the future sounds like, then it's going to be beautiful.

Thirty-odd years after singing about ripping it up, then, Collins is calling on the past to help him through. It’s working brilliantly.

Good news: Lights is an expectations-passing collection that should see fans of the singer's material to date elevating her to superstar status.

The Dark Crawler shows just how varied a grime album can actually be.

Toro y Moi goes longer and harder than before, and the results represent an accentuation of the elements which appealed in his prior work.

Their songs are very nearly as good as the tale behind them.

ess gritty, less grimy, and more digital in its overall sound but no less inventive than its predecessor, Lorn has thrown down another musical challenge that's well worth rising to.

This is dark, feverish garage rock as it's meant to be played.

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.

So faithfully have Collins and his confreres recreated the Sound of Young America--shimmering tambourines drowning out drums, bass compressed to a fat, distorted throb--that it's hard not to be swept along.

Throughout, the lyrical clarity and emotional honesty of the band shine through, creating an album that is as much uplifting as it is in parts bleak.

This is music with a pure heart, a clean conscience and the snap of a steel-spring trap.

Neighborhoods could easily have been a disaster--that it's not, and actually a very successful endeavour, is worthy of substantial praise.

So while Rant may be a stunt album for The Futureheads, it's an exhilarating stunt, and one that more than whets the appetite for whatever it is they choose to do next.

Between the bounce of the lighter numbers and the ache of the sweet ones, there's all manner of winningly realistic insights veiled underneath the music. This debut is a joy from beginning to end.

Hecker's latest seems to ultimately be about making peace with our mortality, and as such is his most powerful album yet.

Boys Don't Cry works superbly as a companion piece to Seasons.

It's a soulful, self-contained delight.

She doesn't seek to graft herself onto these songs; instead, and with considerable skill, she draws out from them new layers of wit, tenderness and melancholia.

This first album have produced something so beguiling, it's clearly been time well spent.

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