The feeling persists that The Century Of Self marks an important moment for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead--one in which they began to weave together their diverging paths and one that, after all, should be hailed as a victory.

Hurley's feet are firmly rooted in the present but this collection is, without doubt, the closest the band have come to recapturing their glory days.

Marina & The Diamonds convincingly fight off the encroaching talons of expectation by embarking on a rampant, stomping adventure, letting no idea lie when it can be crashed into another loudly and a microphone placed nearby to collect the resulting sparks.

An underwhelming end to a sly, bitter, rocking album it maybe, but at least it makes plain the point that being polite does nothing for her and a bit of passion and rock'n'roll attitude goes a long way.

The fact she's delivered an album which is vivacious and entertaining despite its obvious flaws means this cat probably has at least one more showbiz life left.

A tremendously odd hour of music.

"Jacket Full Of Danger" thinks it's funny but isn't - it's often pathetic.

For the most part, "The Understanding" saunters along without a trace of urgency, which is unfortunate as Royksopp were always at their best when electronic ingenuity rather than pastel-shaded synth washes were holding things up.

The Stereophonics are trying to say something, expressing something more than the exuberant rock songs with which they made their name. Only time will tell whether their fans will lap up an album almost entirely starved of the big guitar sounds and sweeping choruses they've grown accustomed to.

Every genre needs its defining record, its high watermark, and this 66-minute tantrum is nu-metal's gift to history. A classic, terrifyingly.

This is far from being a bad album - Jay has never made one of those, nor given the impression he is capable of doing so - but it rarely rises to the levels he has consistently reached.

Evil Urges isn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination but it still manages to fall well short of expectations when applying the benchmark set by this fine band.

A frequently astonishing album that combines bruising rock and limp-wristed flourish in almost equal measure.

No, it isn't as good as that, but getting anywhere close is proof that Damon Albarn remains a musical alchemist, turning what could easily have been crude and leaden into something that often gleams like gold.

Neither wholly satisfying nor wholly great.

We Are The Night feels bloated and ornate amongst the elegant functionalism of post-millennial club music.

A great lost album in the making.

If not musically the most creative thing to ever have been called hip-hop, “Sweat” has more than its share of head nodding struts and hands-in-the-air moments.

Tender and loving it might not be, but one of the albums of the year? Definitely.

This is an album rich in feminine delicacy and woodsy magic, but ultimately Campbell will remain far too fey for many.

"Once Again" remains Legend's best record. But Evolver, in all its modernity and timeliness, may well become his biggest.

It helps to pick the right tune and Dando has good taste, judging Gram Parsons ('I Just Can't Take It Anymore'), Wire ('Fragile') and Townes Van Zandt ('Waiting Around To Die') to be worthy of homage. But that's all this album is, really. Homage.

Far from Noah & The Whale lagging behind their popular folk peers, with Last Night On Earth the band are finally punching above their weight to create a sound that's altogether new and wholly theirs.

Three-part 16-minute closer 'The Lightening Strike,' at the other end of the scale, also sees them finally growing into their stadium skin, evoking Oasis, REM, Muse and, indeed, Coldplay amongst other subtleties and convincing you for once that they genuinely harbour ambition.

After coming out fighting last time round off the back of a messy, violent break-up with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, it's nice to hear Rihanna getting back to something approaching normality on Loud.

Femme Fatale is also unevenly paced, overlong (16 tracks in its deluxe version) and burdened with filler like the generic 'I Wanna Go', which tries to find a shortcut to the dancefloor but gets lost en route. But the weaker material is outweighed by the fantastic, from the slamming, techno-tinged 'Trouble For Me' to the glorious bubblegum house of 'Up N' Down'.

"The Beautiful Lie" isn't without its merits but their appearances are few and far between.

There's simply not enough killer songs here to snare you in the same way that, say, The Rakes did on their debut.