Perfect Symmetry is often an exhilarating and unexpected pop record from a band you'd have thought incapable of either, and there's something genuinely life-affirming about that.

An intelligent step forward from a unique and prolific troubadour.

It’s Manuva’s startling honesty which first impresses.

It's likely to be a defining point in their career even if it's not their definitive release.

Goes on a bit, predictably (20 tracks!), but only Jay-Z can match its highlights for party soundtrack of the year.

And though the influences/peers - Stooges, Velvet Underground, Krautrock, Spiritualized, Primal Scream - remain the same, this exceptional collection of visionary psychedelia is more ethereal and somewhat bereft of the cloaked fug of death threats, serial killers or "eggs bearing insects hatching in my mind" that made 'Contino' such a brain-damaged future Goth classic.

Whilst “Some Cities” has less radio-friendly singles than “The Last Broadcast”, it is perhaps a more cohesive piece of work.

Despite its branding as work-out music, 45:33 feels more like an amazing club DJ set than something to quicken one's pace on the treadmill. [Review of UK release]

It's rather a genuinely exuberant, joyously infectious and sheerly celebratory affair, its tribal drums, parping keyboards and rippling, brassy guitars offset by sweet vocal harmonies and reverb-laden solos, with Koenig's witty and literate lyrics marking out their crucial difference.

Musically and vocally, there's few surprises but at least lyrically he's moved on from clever-ish wordplay and inane love songs, to tell tales of being generally screwed-up at the hands of the multi-million dollar pop machine.

Reliably odd, then, but unexpectedly moving, too: the best Tom Waits album, all told, since 1992’s “Bone Machine”.

Overall, it’s a suppler record than its older brother, largely avoiding the skittish tempos of "Turn On..." tracks like "Roland" in favour of elegant curves and harmonies... though the road-honed likes of "Slow Hands" and "Not Even Jail" still hit bruisingly hard.

She's melded the two sides of her history much more seamlessly; four-to-the-floor pop belters mix with touches of electronic and lyrical darkness to make one of the pop albums of the year.

Show[s] that the early chapters of the Staton story may not match the later commercial success, but trump the four-to-the-floor stuff with grit-in-the-grooves southern soul.

The Lemonheads 2006 may not be breaking any new creative ground, but they couldn't sound in ruder health.

It's not a perfect record, but "The Cure" does achieve something quite remarkable and unexpected. It leaves you looking forward to their next one.

By narrowing their range and increasing their focus, and by wearing their hearts on their sleeves and not smirks on their faces, they may just have released their first, confidently Hot Chip record. And that turns out to be something rather wonderful.

Towards the end, Herren's love of the glitch tentatively tries to reassert itself, but poetry and seductiveness manage to pacify it for the duration.

The result is the best end-to-end Wu-Tang Clan album since their debut, 15 years ago.

For every misfire, the band hit their target twice.

Breathlessly exciting and enormously sexy, "The Witching Hour" is just the soundtrack for your next S&M session.

Justice essentially have two modes: funky techno built with filthy overdriven synth sounds and gleefully daft disco/'80s pastiche so shiny as to be almost reflective. Both are held together with a studio rigour that makes the record bounce out of the speakers so forcefully that the moments of synthesis, where the sound coheres into its trademark elastic groove, become utterly addictive.

Don't be fooled into thinking it's the big American names that are carrying this record, because her lyrical wit, seductive soul vocals and Brit charm offensive prove she is strong enough to punch above her weight.

Contrary to the way he's been perceived, Shadow has never been anything other than passionate about hip hop, and "The Outsider" is his love letter to the genre, revelling in all its myriad excesses.

It would be thrilling to hear a Silversun Pickups record which finally shakes off all their influences and creates something entirely their own. Swoon isn't quite that record, but it takes them closer to that goal, and is a seductive, intricate thing of beauty in itself.

Nine Types Of Light is an album that manages to blend experimentation with a welcoming accessibility that proves pop music can still be bold this far down the line.

Despite the overbearing subject matter of war, morality and protest "Trampin'" doesn't feel like a particularly heavy album.

"America's Sweetheart" is a thrilling record. Held together by that extraordinary voice, which sounds even more shredded than it did in the days of "Dick Nail" and "Pretty On The Inside", she can still deliver.