Steel strings slick with gumbo grease and sweet gospel inflections.

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.

Reanimated glam-punk pioneers get dafter as they get older.

Elysium could be Pet Shop Boys' warmest, wisest album yet.

This 10-track ode to the joys of a sad, sweet, mellow but occasionally dark and atmospheric love song is arranged with tender loving care and produced with just enough reverb to remind you of girl-group classics

This one bristles with a sense of hope and possibility.

These gifted siblings have come of age. You’ll want what they’re having.

It is Rihanna's vocal--at once commanding, soulful and vulnerable--that anchors the song, and Loud itself, elevating it from a hit-and-miss collection into something oddly arresting.

As it turns out, Spears' seventh studio album is part-success and part astounding failure, mixing some of her very best songs with hideous black holes.

An instant hit with tasty ingredients, and worth waiting for.

The Betrayed is not an underachieving record. It sweats hunger and ambition, and while it’s not flawless, it’s a success on their own, aggressively populist terms.

Two Door Cinema Club show sporadic flashes of greatness and have an overall standard of songwriting which places them among the better new bands in the UK.

Cadenza is so much better than alright: it's more than a little brilliant.

Player Piano is a musical jacket potato: satisfying but never amazing.

As step forwards (via looking backwards) go, it's brave and for the most part it works.

Keepers of country's tragi-comic flame will clasp Lindi firmly to their bosoms.

Who would have thought the musical accompaniment to a film about a series of Idahoan murders could be so beautiful?

This is an album that glides between the concertedly cold and clinical, and a simplistic joy in pop harmonies.

Jónsi is on form.

Not a record to play through seamlessly but one to skip and cherry pick, Out of the Black is about selecting the monsters, and cranking them out at the volume they deserve.

This is a credible collection of electronic RnB tracks that owes a greater debt to another, more grown-up Justin.

This album unfortunately fails to showcase his strengths, and proves something of an obstacle course for the listener to negotiate.

There are enough moments of deft, delicate brilliance here to remind us of what a gifted songwriter he is.

In another dimension, this is the soundtrack to a high-budget sci-fi romp. In the here and now, it’s a great escape from the drudgery of everyday ordinariness, a rollicking ride on one seriously funky UFO.

Scissor Sisters have rediscovered a magic touch lacking slightly on Night Work. Their progress is marked by a developed sense of reflection, which balances their familiar flamboyance – surely to resurface with their Fraggle Rock soundtrack – quite wonderfully.

So far, so chin-strokingly barroom--but then things take a turn for the interesting and Live Music becomes a more-frills-than-you-might-imagine, no filler delight.

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

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.