It feels like the work of a man groping his way, fastidiously but uncertainly, towards the next level.

Written, arranged, performed and recorded by Blake in his bedroom, the album isn't just a good collection of touching songs, it's a complete world of his own; a mood, a moment, a sound that's uniquely his. Just as a future classic should be.

Around the world in 60 minutes, then, Mos embraces both the jet-setting film star lifestyle and a re-found love for the game, making for the Deffest jam since that label gave Jay-Z the keys.

Largely acoustic, the album showcases a beautifully brutal collection of warped love songs; pristine and jagged, abrasive and tender and always devastatingly honest.

The one-time Best Unsigned Band In The Country have come up trumps with a debut album brimming with whip-smart, post-riot-grrl attitude.

A curiously unsatisfying odds'n'sods album.

It's too much risk-free computation and not enough wild emotion.

"Damaged" is as nuanced, temperate and contemplative as its predecessor.

There isn't a second's worth of music here that doesn't come mink-swathed in note-perfect retro sound, or a song that isn't worthy of it.

Cox is evidently a songwriter and sound sculptor of incredible skill and though the inclusion of the two collaborations--both a little too in thrall to their guests perhaps--means Logos lacks the wholly immersive quality of its predecessor, there is little else to contest; truly, this is pop music at its most weird and wonderful.

For some, the excursions into god-bothering territory ("Create Me", "Man Of God") will be too mawkish, but few could deny that we're now in the full swing of a fascinating new era - a place where rock'n'roll, formerly the preserve of the doomed teenager with nothing to lose, has grown old.

Everything is that much thicker, more weathered, generously exaggerated and significantly less innocent. It pays increasing attention to composition and classy song structures and yet more to pulling them apart and lassoing passing listeners with the strands.

It's not all brilliant, but there's enough of brilliance here to convince.

With this majestic and multifarious new album, he has surely struck sonic gold once again.

You suspect Fits would fit better live, where the audience have no choice but to go with it, but here the trio sound slightly too pre-occupied with pleasing themselves rather than the listener, greedily ripping through riffs with a tenacity that, while impressive, is often ultimately self-defeating.

On a couple of tracks, on this their fifth and finest studio album, singer Stuart Staples doesn't actually sound like he's mumbling through the pain of all too recent root canal treatment.

Essentially, 'It's A Wonderful Life', is an equally brilliant and perhaps more cohesive album, mixing an arcane guitar, string and keyboard based atmospheric tilt, with more fast-action, barrelling moments.

Engineers here prove capable both of emotive songwriting and of virtuoso studio craft.... Yet it falls shorts of true brilliance, for the simple reason that the band steadfastly refuse to rock-out.

“Anniemal” is a textbook pop album – with all the passion that entails (i.e. none).

Both artists have stepped outside their regular roles to make what feels like a genuinely instinctive, love-fuelled record that zings with an enthusiasm for all spectrums of music.

With their grand orchestrations, love of idiosyncratic detail and self-consciously old-school dynamics, Guillemots sound refreshingly out of temper with the times.

Two things save Los Campesinos! from being utterly insufferable. The first is that many of these songs are such fun, hurtling from the speakers in a blur of fuzzy guitars, big shouty choruses and smart vocal jousting between singers Gareth and Alexsandra. The second saving grace is that Los Campesinos! have the brains to back up their smart arse attitude.

For some, the absence of human warmth may prove the album's ultimate flaw. Still, until there are humans out there making music like this robot, we'll settle for it.

Reflecting their influences without becoming burdened under them, their self-titled debut is an impressively varied beast.

It's quite brilliant, the one thing we have come to expect from this band.

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to hate Scissor Sisters. But this brilliant debut is not one of them.

There's no denying Sway's dazzling verbal chops and it's not just the speed and flow of his delivery that impresses.... His musical backdrops, however, are very much less adventurous and anyone looking to "This Is My Demo" for grime's trademark, darkly paranoid, tacheometric beats will be disappointed.

That rare thing in modern music, you feel Deerhunter grow with each second of song that passes, a band who delight in running under their own graceful steam rather than gasping at the airs of others.