It's genuinely sad to note that "Everything's The Rush" sounds a little too much like hard work.

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.

Exquisitely detailed, you can well believe that this is an album many years in the making and one with twice those years of pain inscribed in its emotionally wracked songs.

And so it goes for a tidy ten tracks, all topped by a voice of gently boiling caramel--a style that channels the best aural qualities of Terence Trent D'Arby and Ray LaMontagne while side-stepping their cloying overearnestness.

A record to throw yourself into with the same glee Robyn clearly has.

We live in a Madonna world. And as long as she keeps releasing albums as vivid, relevant, distinctive and modern as this, we will for a some time yet.

Santogold, then, is a great 21st century cut and paste pop record: self-conscious, referential and catchy as hell. Buy it, love it...then chuck it away and buy a newer model.

'One Day Like This' rolls out an exultant, almost fulsome, bright blue-sky assurance that really, no matter how gloomy you might feel, a lovely day can put an altogether better complexion on things. If anyone else voiced such sentiments, you'd rightly want to reach into the stereo and slap them hard, but that Elbow make the affirmation ring touchingly true is a testament to their sweet sincerity and principled candour.

She's got an album which for all its sing-along moments is neither catchy nor extreme enough to be exceptional.

It's still very much a Mariah album--and a very slick and stylish one--with all the sweetness and swagger that entails.

At times here, The Kooks are far too easily confused with their peers--the Fratellis' riff on 'Stormy Weather' and Arctic Monkeys' intro to 'Down To The Market'--the band struggle to stamp their own identity on proceedings.

With its refined beats, immaculate arrangements and intelligent melodies, Spirit confirms both Lewis's international ambitions and the likelihood that she'll pull them off.

There's a rolling, free and expansive feel to the album as a whole that is not only one of its most attractive features, but is also the most difficult thing about it to pin down.

Like their three previous records, Mountain Battles is a record to return to again and again, like an old and dear friend who can still somehow surprise you.

Antidotes is frequently exhilarating, challenging but immediate, cryptic and catchy, calm then frantic, as intricate, itchy fret-webs are weaved around Afrobeat drums and far-out sonics.

Walk it Off is certainly not for everyone; but if you tire of quick fix indie and are craving something a little more cerebral to get your teeth into, it requires immediate investigation.

Though their efforts to keep the flame of rock'n'roll burning bright are to be applauded, the feeling that the real standard bearers are tuning up elsewhere is impossible to shrug off.

St Jude may be occasionally derivative, but it's also solid, confident and, musically at least, rewarding.

A savvy, shiny, slyly sophisticated set of thoroughly modern dance floor exercises, it's the record we hoped Girls Aloud might make.

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.

An intoxicating record from a re-energised Moby, for the first time in years he isn't struggling to work out how to follow "Play" and "Last Night" is all the more convincing for it.

Danger Mouse hasn't commandeered his charges' muse and forced The Black Keys to change, simply encouraged them to co-operate and collaborate for the first time. Clearly, company becomes them.

"Accelerate" pushes along with urgency but a lack of bite - like background music to a bar scene in an indie thriller. "Horse To Water", however, has the machine-gun fast delivery of "It's The End Of The World…" and a cart-wheeling chorus redolent of old times.

Listen to the B-52s first studio album in 16 years and within ten seconds it's like the 21st century never happened. They sound just the same. [...] And it's a delight.

Great fun to record, no doubt, and probably great live, but an annoying conceit on record.

The Heavy's biggest selling point is that they exist almost completely outside of what is currently fashionable, meaning they sound fresh despite having quite classic roots.

Time and time again, this patchy album is dragged down by obscenely flashy production, a surfeit of ideas that conspire only to sabotage the songs themselves and writ large across it all, Fyfe Dangerfield's interminable, platitudinous emoting.

While the die-hard These New Puritan fan might be annoyed that six of these tracks have been released before, there's enough to make it abundantly clear here is a band with a brilliant sense of invention.