Mescaline-soaked narratives woven through hallucinatory images of Americana.

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.

Super Furry Animals frontman's third solo LP captures his creative wanderlust.

Hercules and Love Affair have vaulted over any second album worries with a jubilant and celebratory collection of large tunes.

While not quite the amazing leap that Cut Copy made from Bright Like Neon Love to In Ghost Colours, Zonoscope is by no means a bad album. But it is one that will probably sound better when wafting across a field during festival season.

God bless unique, unfathomable, great Queen Polly.

The results are every bit as enthrallingly out of step with the group's "mainstream" catalogue as previous SYR releases, but fashioned into something that's perfectly coherent, and really quite a delightful listen.

To the Yorn faithful this set will probably seem like a step in the right direction.

A curious collection of techno covers from the Detroit garage-rockers.

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.

They successfully hit many of rock's sweet spots on this debut LP.

Overall this is an impressive album that could prove a game-changer.

In a world overflowing with female singer-songwriters, Anna Calvi's exceptional guitar playing and raw, elemental style certainly mark her out as different from the herd.

There's not quite an established cohesion from piece to piece--no flawless thread that binds these tracks together as a whole. But this can easily be forgiven, given that it's a debut (a better-realised packaging of the band's obvious potential will surely follow), and that the stylistic detours are always taken with confidence.

It's an exhilarating taster of things to come.

One of the most deeply satisfying debut albums of recent times.

Stuck in a time warp they may be, but singer-guitarist Craig Fox, drummer Patrick Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence (the latter pair better known as the rhythm section in Jack White's Raconteurs – Lawrence also plays with White in The Dead Weather), revel in their chosen genre with such mellifluous joie de vivre that it's hard to deny them their retrospective orientation.

Aside from the hype, this album is by no means a feasible breakthrough into the mainstream--there's not stride enough for that. But when it's at its best, it's boundary-breaking.

Thompson's fifth album is a winningly charming affair, showcasing his rich voice.

It is an album that gives up its charms slowly, but its painstaking attention to detail, dark shadows and languid depths will see it become an essential companion for many sombre souls in 2011 and beyond.

That the album is a minor triumph is testament to both the durability of the songs, and the astonishing gifts of the singers.

This is one mainstream marshmallow with an acidic coating worth a lick.

Lacks the otherworldly impact of their 1990s releases, but well worth listening to.

Ultimately you have to admire the precision tooling, the cunningly-gauged parallel levels of bigness and blandness, the ruthlessness – the only-too-plausible machine.

The conclusion, then, is clear: both as a standalone record and part of …Trail of Dead's considerable canon, Tao of the Dead will be remembered as a high point.

Talk About Body is a long, long way from the oblique post-shoegaze blur of chillwave, witch house, ill-bient and experimental dubstep at the cutting edge of the alternative.

An original, accessible and highly recommended purchase.

Some have decried the use of clicks and fuzz, but they're surely half the point in this exquisite album-length disquisition on memory and desire, love and loss.