With some judicious – let's have it then – tailoring, this is a sparky and affecting record, moving Swift on at a stately and assured pace.

Their 11th studio album is 40 minutes of gorgeous nothings, full of intricate curlicues of sparkling Colin Newman guitar and synth given beef by the surging rhythms of Robert Grey aka Gotobed and Graham Lewis

The Bride Screamed Murder, you see, all works when it really shouldn't, demonstrating once again just how the Melvins can somehow ensure their own very special brand of weird never quite becomes the norm.

It is the kind of record that might drift by unassumingly lest you lend it a careful ear, but really: the second you do, it rewards unequivocally.

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 a connoisseur's collection, steering clear of hits that have since veered into kitsch (like Release Me or I Can't Stop Loving You) to favour a handful of classics, some less-known treasures, and the title song--a charmer of Cantrell's own that sits snugly among the marvellous covers.

The whole thing's really rather magnificent.

The men are going to love it. But the women will still love Richard Hawley, too.

She's a quick-witted lyricist with a sharp eye.

Moving into darker, deeper spaces, it whets the appetite for further occasions when McAuley will fight the urge to rein it in for the dancefloor.

By calling their album Rough Carpenters, the Pickers are inevitably alluding to their creations as constructs of old timber, offered up with spontaneity and passion rather than precision. But it’s also a misleading moniker, for what is unquestionably the group’s smoothest ride yet.

Throughout this is an album of sufficient character, quality, daring and charm to ensure that its creator's unlikely march to the mainstream continues without interruption.

FFAF have produced another pop-punk special with Welcome Home Armageddon--and, thankfully, they don't look like stopping any time soon.

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

It'd be easy to breeze through Give Up the Ghost on first listen and take away nothing but the beauty of it all. Yet it sucks you in, and with every listen a new line flickers into the fray.

What It Means to Be Left-Handed contains more ideas than most guitar bands muster in their entire careers and will certainly consolidate Pierce's core cult audience.

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.

Yes, the videos still display awkward, cringe-worthy naivety that could inspire the next The Inbetweeners movie, but this music is a mature mix of jaunty and jaundiced.

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

If you can be persuaded to root around for long enough you might occasionally bump into the odd moment that made Thee Oh Sees' brilliant Help album of 2009, or 2010's lopsided Warm Slime, so enjoyable – slapdash songwriting, slovenly hooks and prurient flights of fancy.

This is primarily a celebratory set of greatest hits to appeal to casual and obsessive fans alike.

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.

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

His improved state of mind, and the superior production on some of the tracks, does bring the music on occasion perilously close to the RnB blandness to which this is presumably supposed to provide an alternative.

The set is a masterclass in how to respectfully update and enhance classic music, and proves how vital and relevant 30-year-old music remains today.

In fashioning it so lovingly and with such care, Bowerbirds have come up with their best to date.

Hookworms could become something genuinely astonishing in a few albums’ time, and Pearl Mystic is a fine foundation indeed.

The biggest criticism that can be labelled at White Crosses is that its best two songs are its first two â?? a politely rousing title-track that sheds its skin at the first chorus, followed by lead-off single I Was a Teenage Anarchist. The latter handily epitomises everything that people liked about Against Me! in the first place â?? a brightly intelligent polemic, only this time itâ??s trained on the close-minded futility of scenester punks.