Things are a little different now but like many of their contemporaries, Cut Copy have had to adapt to the landscape and Zonoscope is a considered attempt at a more kaleidoscopic approach.

His are fragile, beautiful songs floating over warmly alien, sometimes seemingly formless musical structures yet it's an effect borne through unconventional levels of space and patience.

Like following a serial killer's trail of devastation, you're gripped until the end, no matter how grisly the conclusion. Bewitching.

In no way throwaway, this is a trip.

The repetitive beats and seemingly endless loops become, on the whole, tired and tedious too soon.

The prominence of structure beams through and makes this more of a traditional offering than a novelty. Still unlike anything else, this is time well spent.

Dominated by Satomi Matsuzaki's cute vocals, this is might be a laid-back record, but it's still one that's wonderfully challenging.

Adele is sincere, poignant and affecting throughout; the emotive 'Someone Like You' closes the album magnificently.

His prodigious talent is undoubted, but a second dose of puppy punk feels suggests Baldi is in cruise control.

This Party succeeds in merely rejuvenating, rather than reinventing, wonderful Wanda.

Less folksy, more funky, Kiss Each Other Clean is a rather more lively, sometimes even poppy record.

Nathan Willett digs deep into fractured relationships for inspiration and the resultant openness, coupled with King's deft nurturing of Willett's soul-searching, has created the finest Cold War Kids album yet.

They've mastered the anthemic choruses; all they need to work on now is the consistency.

This latest offering is a finessed folk-rock record to bring a little taste of long summer evening drives to the glacial January gloom.

Their subtle blend of kraut-funk, atmospherics and hushed vocals works, but at points several tracks pass by and you realise you haven't noticed anything.

Splicing the spirit of ancient Viking alcoholics with some red-hot Jamaican jah, BSP are finally having fun.

The band's third generation began just after the turn of the century and this LP completes a trilogy of new work that is confident yet vulnerable, refined yet earthy, moody yet flippant, representing a highly commendable contribution to the current scene, suggesting they are more relevant today than ever before.

Rich, detailed, and poetic, Blurry Blue Mountain explores human emotion and the meaning of life like the great writers of old. Gelb has been around a long time, and on the basis of this he will be for a long time to come.

A daydream-like haze smudges the crispness of the beats while Lewis sings his osmotic melodies, his tones akin to Richard Swift gone disco.

As a stand-alone album, what Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter have created won't sate the disco heads screaming for more club material, however as an accomplished score it can only make a legendary film yet more cherished.

As attempts at storming the mainstream go, this looks like a surefire winner, but musically it feels like a lesser take on Outkast's The Love Below.

So, while Robyn shows that her body can certainly do the talking, when it comes to walking the walk she's prone to stumbling in directions she should avoid.

This is not just West's best album, it's a keen contender for the most ambitious LP in hip-hop history. West side story!

To account for the offensively retrospective nature of this trawl of commonplace dance-floor garbage (we're talking Coldplay, Candi Staton and Justice), I must assume, first, that they spent the last two years in a timewarp somewhere between 1993 and 2006. And secondly, that they spent this time in trashy commercial nightclubs, where glowsticks never die, dancefloors rotate and there's a price reduction for hen parties.

By concentrating heavily on this former and earlier part of Elliott Smith's career, the compilers of An Introduction To... have gathered some of his best songs into a starkly beautiful and coherent album.

The musical equivalent of a coffee table book this is a poised, polished album of covers and collaborations spanning a decade.

With the veteran experimentalists on a self-imposed hiatus--and now a drummer light--Not Music offers a stopgap if not a final full stop to a kaleidoscopic career.

Things move from melodic ambience to galloping sci-fi workouts and back again, the highlight being the sublime 'Emerald And Stone'.