There's no getting away from the fact that the goofy guy who used to play drums for Nirvana just made a classic album.

Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon is a feel good record for what's left of this 'summer' and even though it's packed with second hand magic and joy, such charms probably won't wear past the depths of winter, unless you truly are a hippy at heart.

The self-produced Beyond The Neighbourhood balances its meat and veg indie with enough electronic textures and hip hop beats to (sort of) catch the ear.

The only thing wrong with this largely excellent album is knowing that will.i.am has better stuff up his sleeve.

Minor gripes aside, however, Jose Gonzalez has crafted a fine album of rare beauty that seamlessly blends righteous indignation with delicate musical panache; a tough balancing act, to be sure, but one that negates the need of a safety net.

The World Is Yours is one of the year's worst albums.

It might be a little too airbrushed, arch and meticulous for some, but it's brilliant all the same, and, in the tradition of all great second albums, it could prove to be Hard-Fi's defining moment.

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.

His voice still sounds like it could curdle milk, an anaemic whine with no substance. Song-wise, this is mass-production fodder about which there's very little one can say.

The full band approach seems to weigh things down so heavily you can almost see the red welts on the shoulders of its two leaders.

Curtis doesn't sound like it was much fun to make, and it isn't much fun to listen to.

This album's reduced sonic density is both refreshing and slightly disappointing, since the confounding head-rush of their tunes was always a large part of their appeal.

The album lacks the flab of previous efforts and, where he's been guilty of hiding behind guests before, the contributions are (perhaps inadvisably in retrospect) kept to a minimum. Sadly though, the grandstanding and chest beating take their toll on both Graduation's aesthetic and the listener's patience.

Proof Of Youth was made for rolling back the years and the rug, not chin-stroking contemplation. If shredded Axminster was The Go! Team's aim here, then mission well and truly accomplished.

Their third, Happiness Ltd, is a sulky teenager, and about as attractive and engaging as that suggests.

Not a bad record by a long stretch but a disappointment nonetheless.

Calvin Harris does nothing out of the ordinary, but still, he does it well.

For all the one-paced nature of its songwriting, wilfully lo-fi production values, inevitable Lily Allen comparisons and grating larynx, Panic Prevention is still an enthralling debut, and one that says infinitely more about the life of young Londoners than any amount of Bloc Party seriousness.

Architecture In Helsinki are hyper self-aware and they seem unable to write or perform any kind of song without imbuing it with some sense of irony or post modernism.

Three loud cheers for her scattershot creativity, please.

Aside from whatever awaits Rilo Kiley if they discover, like Courtney Love before them, that deliberately setting the dial to AOR doesn't guarantee success--is the seam of graceless contrivance. Not just musically--but lyrically.

Andorra feels free and fresh, comfortable exploring its own sonic identity.

They lack, for example, the ribald ugliness of Suicide, another big influence--but they deserve acclaim for sculpting the work of so many doomy forebears into something that, in their field, has rare pop purpose.

It would be crazy to suggest that Roots And Echoes is anything less than consistently fine, but from a band whose initial forays promised so much 'fine' doesn't quite cut it.

On paper then, Finding Forever has the dubious distinction of being the equal of "Be". In practice, its jaded formula falls someway short of the genuine energy of its predecessor's finer moments.

So, once again UNKLE have produced another good rather than great album that sounds ahead of the curve.

Lopping off about twenty minutes would have improved things no end, but mostly it needs focus - focus that would probably have come with time.

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