This is a perfect, 30-minute, 10-song album that demands to be treated as one long symphonic pop masterpiece.

The clutch of songs performed by make-believe bands are complemented well by a supporting cast including Blood Red Shoes, The Rolling Stones, T. Rex and The Bluetones.

The creepy, icy elements of Black Heart's music here underpin the warmer atmospherics of Pinback's electronic indie aesthetic, meeting in the middle to create an album that constantly shifts--or even merges--seasons yet which is, at the same time, entirely cohesive.

On one hand, it's raw and stripped down, but on the other it's expertly crafted.

But heavy as the rhythms are, Mala's deftness of touch means the Cuban contributions are never entirely overwhelmed, and when he pulls more elements into the mix the results are often stunning.

Twins is a pile-driving yet playful record that loudly proclaims is influences.

It's not the album that will define Deer Tick as a force in their own right, or McCauley as a songwriter on a par with his heroes, but The Black Dirt Sessions is the best set yet from this still-rising quintet.

Fujiya & Miyagi are an invigorating mix of the cerebral and the visceral. In a just world, they'd be the new lords of the dancefloor.

Nineteen years later the band are in robust health, and Skins makes for an impressive, graceful addition to their catalogue.

Wilson specialises in vintage gear, and Gentle Spirit sounds like the product of such equipment--warm, wistful and golden-hued, coated in creamed harmonies--but also, crucially, alive.

The real joy of this record is that, behind the sulking and swearing, the clips of sampled speech and toying yelps, are 12 gloriously penned pieces of unadulterated pop.

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.

RIITIIR is a complex, schizophrenic work, verging on the overly sensorial at points, leaving the listener feeling as if they've been repeatedly bashed over the head with a really clever hammer.

Ultimately it's The Avett Brothers' innate ability to deliver killer tunes and present them in an engaging fashion that connects them to a vintage pedigree of classic Americana artists, from Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young onwards, that seduces you from track one.

She's shining bright and crying out to be taken on as Britain's new favourite pop star – and if this album is anything to go by, it looks like the stage is set.

This worthwhile venture serves as a fine complementary package, not exactly pushing at the edges of its makers' own creative envelope but exploring known ground extremely well.

Like Arnalds and Johannsson, Richter is capable of eliciting profound emotions from the barest of foundations, and it's perhaps this that makes their music of such interest to alternative music fans.

Recorded in a week in Reykjavik, this is music inevitably imbued with Iceland's stark grandeur and glacial eeriness; even if Wallentin's strident but wounded vocals retain a distinctive bluesy quality (albeit a blues closer to the funereal ceremonials of Diamanda Galas than Muddy Waters).

One Second of Love is arresting from the outset, Gonzalez's airily velveteen vocals cascading in with a similar invitingly icy inflection to St Vincent on Surgeon while luscious, Eyes Without a Face-esque keyboard washes burble by on their way to a skippily abrupt, if recoverable, meltdown.

Immersion takes Pendulum further still from their roots. It offers more rock and more dance, but most importantly more fun. And when it's good, it's very good indeed.

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.