Taken together, Frisell's run of Nonesuch albums has been one of the most consistently excellent bodies of work in recent decades. Now, Beautiful Dreamers extends it further. The future looks bright for this trio.

It's a raw and white-knuckled collection, one which captures the phenomenal emotions of the man's solo live sets.

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.

Predictably but not to its detriment, Signed and Sealed in Blood delivers a mix of rousing rock songs and enough jigs and whistles to get a singsong going at one of their famous St Patrick's Day shows.

It's just one eye-opening surge of splendour, like the first gasp of a newborn baby taking in the world for the very first time. The difference with this album: that sense of wonder never fades.

Boy-girl group pop-rock that's polished and pleasing.

Even though the initial delight wears off relatively quickly, this is still a weird and largely wonderful insight into a band equally capable of frustration as they are innovation.

The album's long-term problem is will it have any meaning or relevance once the election is done and dusted? Well no, probably not in thematic terms; but the scathing humour of Going to Tampa is timeless and the thunderous Guantanamo, the sort of song Springsteen must wish he'd written, will remain a classic whoever's in the Oval Office.

The pace is slow, the mood is solemn verging on the sepulchral.

Byrne and Clark have managed to not only meet but exceed expectations, and created one of the year's smartest albums in doing so.

The Cherry Thing is more than just a welcome return – it's an essential album.

It is, simply, a thing of beauty, its hook quotient the highest of The Decemberists' discography.

While the other songs, intelligent pieces of art that they are, may intrigue, it's disappointing that only one song here compels us to really feel anything.

Psychedelic, kaleidoscopic pop... heady and brilliant.

Her enviable clarity of tone and the disarming beauty of her vocals lend Love and Its Opposite a dreamy, if uncomfortable, sort of truth. But blithe, sunny romantics are advised to keep a stiff drink (and a hanky) within very easy reach.

Some of the straighter songs can seem a little underwhelming – for example, A Prelude to Pilgrim Street is a decidedly flat glam blowout. But such lacklustre moments are few.

This debut is all creepy, crawly kinds of fun, and we already want more.

So while Hardcore... is a shift of speed, downwards, it's only a gear change rather than a signal that the whole journey's coming to an end.

So Les Revenants has, by virtue of finding perfect inspiration, become one of the more satisfyingly coherent and rangy of Mogwai's records.

For all the minor detours, Through Low Light and Trees is consistent in proffering a dreamy, timeless music which could have been recorded at any time in the last 40-odd years. That in itself is a kind of recommendation.

A little bit of cheese is a small price to pay for an album this likeable, accomplished and charmingly unfussed about being cool.

The state of the art recording ensures that this is another unmissable feast of song from an artist seemingly unstoppable in her continuing quest to present something new to her worldwide audience.

You'll wish you'd been there. You'll wish it would never end.

It is both a captivating listen and a terrifying one: Powers was 22 this year, but his voice carries all the experience of a man thrice his age.

Despite the echoes of their past on this second long-play set, Digitalism's perfectly timed return is more about fondness than contempt.

Beam's songwriting retains a cryptic quality, but the feeling shines through, and however far Iron & Wine travels from its starting point, it still won't feel far from home.

The result is a bolder, brighter record than their debut.

A worth-the-wait second LP a decade after the New Yorkers' celebrated debut.