If you're not quite there by the time six-and-a-half minute opus Eyesore encapsulates everything that's been wonderful about the preceding 36 before slowly fading out, turn it over and start again. It's worth it, because Public Strain is one of 2010's finest LPs.

For all the calculated horror show element, much of King Night is very pretty and nuanced, trading in shivering beauty rather than infernal fury, with an aching world weariness running Marlatt and Holland's more lucid vocal turns. It's just a shame Donoghue has to dopily blunder in there every now and again, the dimwit henchman to his evil scientist colleagues.

Ring was inspired by the symmetrical order outlined in Homer's poem Odyssey, the idea that any structure doesn't necessarily have to abide by a beginning, middle or end. Presumably this is why when succulent-lullaby Clamour completes the cycle you'll want to return to the start once more.

So faithfully have Collins and his confreres recreated the Sound of Young America--shimmering tambourines drowning out drums, bass compressed to a fat, distorted throb--that it's hard not to be swept along.

While the leader has become absorbed by the pack, however, at least I Am the West doesn't go down without a mouthy fight.

Good Things is sufficiently accomplished, in fact, to at least temporarily banish the clouds of financial doom and gloom to the horizon.

Like Simple Minds, it's not too late for OMD to stride all the way back to greatness. But this album isn't even a stumble in the right direction, and the clock, as always, is ticking.

Maximum Balloon makes an impressive noise. But it struggles to make one feel anything more than impressed.

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

The rude guitar sleaze of Hands All Over, or the cocky glam-stomp in Stutter's verses show a band who are really at their best when they play pop music like the sleazy rockers they clearly are. In Adam Levine's mind, at least.

A majestic return and, let us hope, a harbinger of more to come.

For those Manics fans whose bearing on the band is centred by a Britpop firmament, rather than The Holy Bible, this record will prove a joy. It's jolly, but jolly good.

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

Santana's talent is compromised by a complacency to play these tracks as truly as possible.

If this were an EP, it would be captivating--Everdell's voice is certainly commanding--but, spread out over 11 songs, it loses some of its hold.

Pattern + Grid World may sound like an addendum to Cosmogramma, but it's no less essential for that.

Fourteen years on from his debut as leader, Vijay Iyer joins the club with a characteristic blend of tasteful tribute and exciting unorthodoxy.

Flamingo will keep the fans from growing rabid while The Killers take a break, but if Flowers releases another solo album before reconvening with his colleagues, teeth might well be bared.

Clearly neither advancing age nor years of unabated success have deprived Plant of either his constant appetite for challenge or his ability to deliver in a cogent, credible and thoroughly convincing fashion.

A welcome return, then – let's hope they stick around for a bit longer this time.

The rest of us will succumb happily to Grinderman's sick skill and wonder why rebel teens don't make dangerous, dastardly rock'n'roll like this anymore.

They have delivered another album which is at least 70% corking. It's just that they're much better when on stage, playing these tracks while scaring the life out of you.

Always building and beautiful, their sparse, even minimal, approach lends Penny Sparkle a complexity that's both rich and rewarding in both its inspiration and execution.

Rather than adhering to type, Black Mountain now have a catalogue of songs that respect and rival their influences.

These are warm, appealing tunes with no false bluster or crass anthemism, light years ahead of the bombastic drivel certain peers have offered up this year. The Charlatans are old fashioned, maybe even a little antiquated. But are they past it as songwriters? No way.

For the most part, though, the fuzz has been pulled back enough to reveal an enjoyable but hardly revolutionary set that tends to recall a more ponderous Darklands-era JAMC.

They may not be sticking their necks out as pioneers now but it's not important --they are never less than themselves, and superficial quibbles aside this is the sound of musicians with nothing to prove and everything to give.

They didn't want whatever their next album was to be predictable, and while A Thousand Suns might have emerged by accident compared to previous LPs, it's certainly a far from plays-to-perceived-type affair.