As a first collection of work from the band this is a stunning release, bursting with life and creativity and fully deserving of the attention and praise that is bound to come its way.

There is perhaps no band with a greater appreciation of the sheer joy and thrill of pop music in its purest form than Saint Etienne. 'Words And Music By Saint Etienne' is not only their own unique take on what pop means to them it is also an incredibly fine album.

A very impressive debut. The best thing about it is you get the sense he has only just started.

Gallery is an enjoyable offering from Craft Spells.

[Walk the River]is not for the faint-hearted but it's certainly for the soft-hearted - three albums along, they still feed our hunger for the big, the wild and the honest.

Best Coast will never win over the cynics who like their music to sport a more assured style of intelligence and invention, but for those who fell in love with the sunburnt stoner of old, there's plenty more to revel in, here.

A truly astonishing, unique and unchallenged sound.

A great album full of slightly haywire, unpretentious pop music.

Go Fly A Kite is a likeable album, but it sounds like Jet at its worst times and like an American alt-rock band past their sell by date at its best.

Highly recommended.

Another triumph.

Back to their scrappy, atonal, lo-fi sound of the band's early days it mightn't be, 'In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull' is still a good album which sees The Cribs exploring new sounds and old – stumbling upon some truly excellent songs in the process.

Though 'Europe' is an enchanting and elegant record, this is not a giant leap forward.

One of the most endlessly intriguing albums of the year so far.

'Time Team' is a hugely rewarding album that delivers rich emotional laden electronic music with a human heart and an impressive debut.

The final word sees Neck Of The Woods as a great alternative rock record that will hopefully spur the band onward where 'Swoon' had them treading water.

If this album is your first experience of Wymeswold's favourite songs, it's unlikely you will forget them. If you're a veteran, this is a good reminder of their brilliance.

This eponymous debut is a well-rounded effort for a band that clearly has a knack for stadium-filling melodies and angst-ridden confessions. Anthemic in most parts and enjoyable in all, Various Cruelties deliver a debut that's moving and memorable.

For all its playful charm, CYRK is deliciously dark: it revels in its ability to marry calmness with the uncomfortable.

Combined with the hypnotic instrumentation that blankets the record, it's easy to immerse yourself and get lost in its alluring character.

Lonely and desolate at times, the album would benefit from being reigned in slightly - amongst the 19 tracks is a brilliant 12 or 13 songs that, despite the subject matter, deserve to see the light of day.

Melancholic and joyful, it's both soft and harsh, but more impressive than any contradiction is the gorgeous use of timbre that takes over from the word go. A wonderfully simple, elegantly performed album that puts the importance of texture into perspective.

Its refined edges, percussion heavy sounds and understated opulence find the band's sonic landscape revitalised.

Evans The Death's debut album is full of promise in bitesize two-minute chunks, and we can expect to see more from them in the future.

There's no avoiding the fact 'Blunderbuss' is an album for those already long inducted into the church of Jack White.

It all sounds Trullie effortless and it wouldn't be surprising if she reached the same heights as her contemporaries with just as much ease.

For Toro y Moi enthusiasts, this will be nothing new, but for the rest of us 'June 2009' is an altogether pleasant blast from the recent past.

The keyboards are the same tones, the chords are similar intervals, the vocals are heartfelt without the lyrics really saying anything, and perhaps most tellingly they don't deliver the goods on a pop hit to rival 'Buck Rogers'.