Peculiar and unconventional, this is an album which constantly shape-shifts and surprises, but does so with a graceful, effortless ease that feels incredibly natural and utterly delightful.

A curious mixture of rage and nostalgia.

A record fizzing with ideas, tight melodies and loveable sass.

Best Coast still sound like Best Coast, but now they're tidier, shinier and looking us right in the eye.

The first half of Trespassing offers a smorgasbord of succulent up-tempo pop. There are a couple of derivative cuts, but the highlights are tasty enough to compensate.... The album's second half is less entertaining.

This is no revolution, but Shit Robot has put together a seriously robust collection of party records.

Yet at every turn, this new album eschews clichés--any strident shrieking, chanting and cod imagery--for something sleek, fluid and effortlessly modern.

This is an album nostalgic for a time when soul, circa Watergate/Vietnam, had an upbeat message and a positivist agenda. Here, though, Crow puts aside politics for pure fun.

Never Trust a Happy Song is far from a cohesive album, but that actually works to its advantage--because it encapsulates the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, of this emotional rollercoaster known as life.

If you've heard one track, you've heard them all. But there are a few standouts.

For a debut album it’s accomplished stuff, though like the Manics before them Anthems is not without its stodgier moments.

Just Tell Me presents 17 cover versions of differing quality which don't gel as a cohesive listen, but it's not without standout interpretations.

A rich, warm, big-hearted and hilarious album.

There's still the chance that this album will finally push them into the stratosphere – you wish Interpol were globally huge, you really do – although it's likely that their future won't be written until after Dengler's tour-replacements have helped broaden the band's palette more.

Zig Zaj is predictably unpredictable, something else again for the artist.

The follow-up to 2010's Paupers Field, this set plunders the overarching melancholy of Townes Van Zandt, making for an emotionally draining listen.

This is agonisingly personal music, poured straight from the heart--just as punk should be. It's a bonus that it's also frightening catchy.

1977 may be a blip for this artist in regard to its genesis, but for anyone other than his ex-wife (and perhaps himself) it's an utter pleasure.

It's not that Gainsbourg is swallowed up by her band, more that she doesn't – or can't – rise to the occasion as a natural singer can... It still charms, though.

This thoroughly enjoyable release does include one surprising blast of brass.

If Mika had refined this into a 10-track collection, trimming the cuts that don't quite click, we'd have an excellent album on our hands. As it is, The Origin of Love is stretched slightly too long.

Almost everything is tight and controlled, returning time and again to the simple power of a pop song.

There's more than enough here to satisfy aficionados of offbeat, fiercely inventive pop music.

They've produced an album worthy of a closer look.

Yes, he's got Paul McCartney playing slurpy bass on As It Comes, and Neko Case pops up on the countrified duet Sing Me to Sleep, but there's no escaping the sound of his past. Nor any sense that it's a past that needs to be escaped from.

Consequently Familial initially seems timid, even half-hearted, but persistence reveals an album full of sweet sentiment and honest meditations.

This album’s calling card, Sea Change, starts so well that the rest of the album fades in its shadow.

The imaginative artwork, of a black and white keyboard splintering into different colours, emphasises the feel-good factor of this winning collection of songs and arrangements done with great style.