Good Morning To The Night is not going to reinvent the wheel, provide breathtaking new revelations on Elton John's back catalogue or shine new light on Pnau's songwriting abilities....But for all of that, toes will tap.

Through it all, Delicate Steve does what so few composers are able to do: his billowing compilation resonates without words, its sterling procession an otherworldly creation that remains grounded somehow.

It's an album of razor-sharp irreverence, infectious energy and, beneath its surface, genuinely intelligent songwriting.

There really is nothing of great merit to this album.

Confess isn't just steeped in the sounds of an era, but in its films, feel, stories and sense of aspiration. It's an album about love and lust behind the bleachers, in the dark of a multiplex, on the back of a motorcycle, in bathroom cubicles, under the neon glare of America's bright lights - and it's wholly, wholly brilliant.

Mission of Burma have successfully walked that fine line between being consistent and running out of ideas.

Kitsune is a powerful and fragile album and composes itself with the grace required to step ahead of the current glut of bands that are revisiting the post-rock genre, believing that all that all post-rock requires is distortion pedals and patience.

A carefully considered, exotic and mature record that stands out as a blueprint of how to handle the move from lo-fi to, well, just –fi.

A wise, personal and vigorously ambitious album of the year.

Swing Lo Magellan, then--deadly serious even at its most eccentric, wilfully awkward even at its most accessible, dense and intricate even at its most freewheeling. Same as it ever was.

While this isn't a mainstream record, it's perhaps Blackshaw at his most accessible.

Without undermining the worth of the sort of material that forms Beak>'s bread and butter, >> really hit its peaks when it blurs genre distinctions.

The album is the real star here, sounding as fresh, vital and universally accessible as ever 25 years down the line.

There are just enough love songs in there to keep it rock, just enough instrumentals to edge it back towards the cinematic, and more than the usual helping of skill to smooth off the edges and end up with a beautifully rounded, awesome debut album.

The songcraft is back, but the romance is still missing.

Wonderfully accomplished in construction, devastatingly powerful in delivery, Echo Lake have just raised the bar one notch higher for everyone around them.

Pitched somewhere between physical pleasure and mental torture, is Oshin, dream-weaving, benevolent, sadistic puppet masters Diiv playing havoc with your sense of contentedness.

It's certainly the most arresting record that she's made.

A swift punch of an album which inevitably hits some artistic limitations, but succinctly delivers all the timeless qualities of in-yer-face riffage from a snotty garage band.

The Raveonettes take you to the dark side and articulate every sharp pang of aching heartbreak and rejection you ever felt but they make it sound so goddamn lovely.

Brutal, violent and disturbing though it may be, its surreal hybrid of human and simulation has some strange beauty to it.

While these jams document an undoubtedly exciting collaboration, only a few of them go so far as to offer anything that sounds like this project's true potential, despite frequently being tantalisingly close.

The scope might be limited, but at least one truth shines out: he writes songs of unembellished rawness, sharp as a knife and tight as the proletariat wallet.

All we're presented with here is a collection of half-baked, badly-produced versions of sounds we heard a couple of years ago.

Lucifer is definitely not for everyone, but for some it will be their album of the year.

The Lost Tapes isn't an easy album to listen to, but then that was never the case with Can. Nonetheless, as the years pass and more bands form, by default their influence grows, which makes this a fascinating addition to any collection.

The National Health gives the likeable quintet a firm footing from which to stop their seemingly inevitable decline.

So a game of two halves, with enough excitement from Arbouretum to keep it interesting--but cosmic Americana fans may find more solace in their (excellent) previous two records The Gathering and Song of the Pearl than they will here.

If you like 'The Wrong Girl' or 'I'm Not Living In The Real World', you'll find plenty to enjoy here. If you tend to shuffle past the B&S that isn't pure Stuart Murdoch, you'll just find your punnery tolerance levels severely tested.

This is the album Morrissey could have made if he'd been treated to MDMA and burgers.

The rest is solid if rarely spectacular, with the Crazy Horse rumble making a welcome return to Young's modern day repertoire.

Far from the bold reinvention initially promised, its restless energy masks over most missteps.

Most of this record isn't the kind of total genius that can be found elsewhere in their canon but it's a fine album that shows what can be done if bands just relaxed a bit.

There are no alarms and no surprises here, but it's a record produced by Jeff Lynne (who is a genius and anyone who says otherwise is a joyless idiot) so it sounds as bright, clear and appealing as anything this year.

Leave your prejudices behind, shut your eyes and just enjoy.

Red Night is a launch pad, doling out tunes and following each eerie throb with a radio-ready smart bomb.

The over riding result is that Hot Chip now seem infinitely more comfortable and competent in their skins.

The music they make is frequently stunning.

Despite the aggression in their music, it's not uncommon for APTBS to tone things down a few tracks into an album, but watch out for the lull in this one.

This is an agreeable record, but it comes from a man who we know is capable of something sublime.

Valtari might not be a huge digression for the band but that doesn't matter: this is quietly, entrancingly and thoroughly sublime.

Not only does The Plot Against Common Sense reach and exceed those expectations, it only goes blows them out of the water. Into the sky. To the moon. And beyond... This is everything a Future of the Left album should be.

Ultimately, Lex Hives sadly conforms to the patchy-at-best trajectory of the band's major label releases, but at least does so while taking a decisive step back in the direction of being the ferocious rock band which The Hives unvaryingly claim to still be, and indeed unquestionably once were.

There's an honesty of emotions, accentuated through the denseness and complexity of sounds.

A bit of musical beauty, some interesting lyricism and a pinch of hippy bollocks--still distinctly Patti Smith.

The sensitive sections are fine but tritely Musak at times. The power-soul sections feel a bit, sorry but, Jools Holland-y. There's nothing concrete that you can pinpoint that makes it feel false or weak per se.

Overall, this'll be way more easily digested by trad-minded hard rock consumers.

Heaven takes another firm and measured stride forward in what is rapidly becoming a celebratory jog towards brilliance: a re-affirmation of what heart, skill, craft and guile can birth given time and experience.

It is a refreshing, sublime, and exciting work of art.

Husky's best songs are carefully paced and uncomplicated; when they attempt to aim for cod-psychedelia they produce some turgid tunes.

Here's a band skipping from one musical fragment to the next with the reckless abandon of youth, trying out ideas, finding their strengths.

Blood Speaks a largely timeless-feeling piece which not only sounds like it could have been written any decade over the last 40 years or so, but feels eternal in the way it runs its course.

The sheer energy pouring from this record is breathtaking: not until the very final song ('Continuous Thunder') does Celebration Rock's sense of acceleration cease.

That's Why God Made The Radio isn't terrible or embarrassing, it is just is a bit safe.

In covering just three to four years of Lee Hazlewood's less readily available material The LHI Years mines a rich seam of individualistic pop genius, even the rump of which betters that found within the entire back catalogue of many artists.

Magnetic North seem to take you to another place entirely with what seems like very simple ingredients--subtle, dare-I-say tasteful instrumentation, and languid, slowly infectious melodies.

In its more luminous moments, it also contains enough to suggest that there is still a great album lurking somewhere underneath the Ladyhawke moniker.

This is jazz, this is funk, this is soul, this is gospel... but most importantly, R.A.P. Music is rap music, as fresh as it comes.

Easy to enjoy, if not adore.

This album has five more absolutely brilliant tracks.

Both as an album opener after a ten year absence and a spiritual partner to Public Image, This is PiL is pretty much perfect.

It's fine. It's well-rounded. It's cosy.

Parts of ...Cheap Seats feel either disposable or a revisiting of old ground.

A record light on substance but packed to the rafters with melody - there are plenty of cheap thrills to get jiggy with.

It's something that can be quite brilliant: to paraphrase Special Agent Dale Cooper--Squarepusher's path is a strange and difficult one.

When you combine this teeth-gritting lyrical intensity with El-P's boundary-pushing production and stupefyingly capable poetics, it's little wonder that, for all its darkness, paranoia and rage, Cancer For Cure emerges as one of the year's most endlessly re-playable records.

Like many such films (they exist, right?), Passage is endearing, with unforgettable peaks; it looks beautiful at first glance, and has no shortage of beautiful moments, but don't delve too deeply lest the mirage of a grandiose masterpiece dissolve.

Boasting the talents and a depth of spirit of an artist twice her age, I Predict A Graceful Expulsion is a majestic powerhouse of a career starter.

Ultimately the riffs and hooks aren't up to the standard of previous Coombes-led outings, and whilst the textured soundscapes can help disguise this slightly the reality is that the majority of this record, whilst occasionally interesting and certainly surprising, is just ... a little boring.

A Joyful Noise is a femme-power event album too shallow to achieve the import its creators intended.

After 21 years, it's hard to believe Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres are still capable of producing moments as vivid and relevant as these.

Neck of the Woods on its own is a good album, sure, but sabotages itself by giving us less to latch on to.

In sticking two fingers up at both their detractors and Dalston, they've crafted one of the most viscerally engaging British rock albums in years.

Whilst good still, with Bloom comes the first seeds of doubt that maybe there isn't actually much below the surface--albeit it for many that's probably the source of their allure.

At times full of nervous vigour, at others letting itself fall blindly backwards into honeyed daydream, A Different Ship has a life and character all of its own.

Throughout Europe, they manage to make that sound like a pretty nice place to be, and also serve a timely reminder that there's life in such a simple but effective style of music.

Unpatterns feels like less of a discrete instalment in a collection and more an accomplished blend of the two things James Ford and Jas Shaw do best--gigantic, open-armed, open-air pop, and femur-fracturing analogue techno.

As you'd likely expect, they're still as confused as ever.

A bittersweet symphony that remains unparalleled.

Lone has delivered a Nineties attack that even Neil Buchanan would be proud of.

It's the sound of a group ably treading water while its scars are glossed over with a Golden State tan.

The sound of a band still in their creative prime, MMXII is everything Killing Joke have proclaimed themselves to be these past three-and-a-half decades, and 15 albums on is just as incisive and coarse as their debut.

Their songcraft proves singularly remarkable once more.

Mondo is that rare case of judge by cover, or what you see is exactly what you get.

If it's not a masterwork it's an evocative accompaniment to a summer's day, a sporadic but persuasive reminder of how spine-tingling Albarn's voice can be, and yet another musical genre ticked off his list with studious accomplishment and loving care.

This record has been hailed by some as a return to form, but it's every inch as pointless as his last couple of records and a contender for dullest album of the year.

Maybe at some points the eastern influences are more prominent, on tracks like 'Panic In Babylon', but on the whole it's classic BJM.

Smart, fast and visceral, debut LP Time Team is unpretentious and unfuckwithable; inviting, evasive and very occasionally serene, like a cosmic kaleidoscope peering beneath the totality of existence.

Although the album shows impressive range - toggling back and forth between insidious ambient ('Dome Horizon') circuit-bending noise ('2T(fru)T') and a kind of stroboscopic speed-drone (the aforementioned 'chase sequences'), much of the textures and tech you could find in commision across the Captured Tracks and Wierd Records catalogues.

Strangeland feels just a bit by the numbers.

This is their best yet and possibly the best of the year.

When it works, Long Black Cars condenses the finest elements of The Wave Pictures into some impressive moments.

It's an unabashed throwback, but it's a throwback that's accomplished, likeable, and a lot more fun that it probably should be.

However you choose to describe it, or whatever your preconceptions of Hawley and his music, this is definitely an album you should bend a considered ear towards.

Even for those who already have both of the previous volumes, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is a fascinating look at one of America's greatest writers.

All are decent enough but, when placed alongside the album's standout moments, they aren't quite as dazzling. Not like that really matters though, because there are standouts throughout.

What sets Traxman apart from most of his current footwork peers is an ability to preserve the tenderness when he's strip-mining house, soul, disco and Prince... This should not detract from his equal skill at conjuring unruly, drums'n'samples raw bangers, of which Da Mind Of Traxman has plenty.

Amidst the overstuffed yet predictable arrangements, the middle-of-the-road sentimentalism and lack of killer tunes, these brief moments can't prevent Ways To Forget itself proving to be largely forgettable.