It is surely intoxicating.

It easily stands comparison not just to the stars Jay-Z has been forced to compete with since 1996, but to the all-time greats of hip hop history.

Fans of musical experimentation, and Eno / Byrne completists, will no doubt want to add this set to their list, but for the uninitiated, you might be better off spending an hour or two browsing the World Music department of your nearest record shop than grappling with this quaintly outmoded collection.

This is a frequently great and occasionally bold statement from an - extraordinary - artist on top of her game.

The good news is that The Polyphonic Spree still make sense stripped of all visual gimmicks.

Incredibly, 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots' is a record that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with 'The Soft Bulletin', refining that album's themes and defiantly charging into unchartered musical territories. Another masterpiece.

On Dark Days/Light Years, their ninth album, The Furries consolidate their best ideas--electro leanings, hypnotic motorik excursions, catchy, hook-driven riffs and layers of vocal melodies.

As much U2, New Order and Jan Hammer as they are The Field, Harmonia and Black Dice, ultimately F*ck Buttons are in a league of their own--and with Tarot Sport, they just bettered themselves.

Pretty much a repeat of an earlier 1990 compilation.

This is a very, very good record.

At its best, 'We Love Life' features some of the finest British rock music of recent years.

By rights, Elbow should be pretty annoying, the same kind of lardy, overblown and overrated band as their compatriots Doves.... Yet there's something rather haunting and affecting about 'Cast Of Thousands', just as there was about 2001's 'Asleep At The Back', which raises Elbow far above most of their peers.

Compact and succinctly direct, its 16 tracks rarely break the three-minute mark but are packed with a greater density of ideas than its predecessor.

Arguably up there with his greatest achievements to date, "The Letting Go" is business as usual for Oldham, but also a brand new start.

Much scruffier and far less inhibited than Coldplay, and way more compelling than Editors, Two Dancers is widescreen stuff nonetheless and an album that will carry them across more thresholds than their first.

It's warm, analogue production bolstered by Madlib, ?uestlove and the inevitable J Dilla exhumation that makes it a summer smash in waiting, not least on 'Umm Hmm''s exhortation to let your feelings show.

Cut out vague Shindoa track, "The Instrumental", tired Gunter Kallmann Choir-retread "Daydreamin'" and the offerings here that are marred by warbled soul harmonies - consistently added as afterthoughts to choruses - and this would be perfect.

This is not merely a good album, but a truly great one.

A hugely impressive debut.

The most genuinely interesting addition to The Beatles' canon in years, it actually makes you want to dig out the originals and fall in love with the music all over again.

They've become accomplished, exciting, restrained and wise.

To anyone who's felt like they've been along to share even a little bit of that journey, it's an album-of-the-year contender that's bound to do nothing but delight.

Almost everything here boils down to Cave's perennial concerns of sex and violence, rather than any Dark Lord of rock'n'roll stuff, coming loaded with lines to make even the most grave-faced goth chortle into their gruel.

If you're lucky enough to have the original version of 'In Search Of', you don't just own a sure-to-be-valuable collectors' classic, you also have the better album. [Review of U.S. version]

[A] nine-minute sprawling, shifting and landing tidal wave.

Even the vague pointlessness that hangs over this product (some interesting rarities – aside from the not-very-different 'alternate takes' of a few tracks included here – wouldn't have gone amiss) can't detract from the incredible music contained in the first two CDs.

At these transcending moments, "Good News...". is elevated into excellence. But overall, there is too much Mouse that bores and not enough Mouse that roars.

New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War is an insane, obscure and exciting record of the kind that very few artists have the guts or imagination to make anymore.