Ultimately Snow Patrol fare best when they play to their strengths.

There are certainly active emotions fuelling the themes laid out on this album, and I daresay you could identify fragments of meta-commentary. It's just that you need to take most of it on good faith.

Treefight For Sunlight isn't a knockout success, but it just about contains enough to suggest that, if there's any justice, the Danes deserve a second crack of the whip.

The most important thing to establish is that most of this music is extraordinary and that the first half is nigh on faultless... much of the second half really does feels like band or label have tried to airbrush out the stuff the Yanks didn't like so much.

It's a well recorded, well played effort, and it nestles into genre expectation very nicely. But weirdly, with one extremely notable exception, the songs are predictable and average.

Take Care is dense and takes a while to digest, but once you're in Drake's world there's no escaping.

The Soft Moon's mission to transcend all levels of tolerance and pleasure via the conduit of sound is well and truly accomplished.

There are moments of brilliance; sketches on a theme but with no real conclusion.

One thing that is immediately striking from the first tentative piano notes and discomfiting cello hum is just how accomplished it all sounds.

While sometimes left wanting for redeeming bells and whistles, where Big Bells & Dime Songs sporadically strikes gold is its distillation of tumbleweed folk Americana.

A shimmering DJ compilation which sounds a bit cerebral, all in all.

Its incoherence might prove a bit frustrating, but Eleanor has proved that she can do perfectly well away from her sibling.

If you've refrained from taking advantage of more illegal means of hearing this thus far in 2011, you really have no excuse not to listen to this subtly charming record.

Instead of jumping on board the reformation circuit like many of his Nineties contemporaries, Haines has released a concept album about British wrestling. Haines is not mad. He is an artist in the truest sense, and for that he is to be applauded.

From the filtered Cut Copy of "Hours" through "Adrift's" hip-hop tape signals to the final patter of "Elegy," Dive is a postcard from a pantone Miami, and a perfect memento for the summer weather we've all been deprived of in Britain.

It's a solid performance, by far their most coherent yet, but missing some of the flair of previous bouts.

Empros is consistently epic and life-affirming without ever delving into over-emotional cliché.

Whatever the case, 50 Words...demands to be listened to as a whole.

If you want a record that sounds a little out of step with everything else around it, which brightens its corners with all sorts of musical curios, then it's a yes for Every Step's A Yes.

His heart is worn clearly on his sleeve without becoming too overbearing and the final product is nothing short of profound.

The genuine article, Sets and Lights brings coldwave a step closer to realising the vision of the sub-genre once proposed by Blank Dog's Mike Sniper; a new underground form of internal transmission Sniper christened 'Impossible Folk'.

It has an idle drifting quality that suits casual listening very well. Whether that's all you want from an album is another question.

Severant's biggest strength is its optimism--very few of the tracks here fall into introspection, with nearly all of them boasting a crystal ball looked into by the meanest of hawk-eyes.

If you love Shonen Knife wholly you will probably enjoy Osaka Ramones to some extent.

Yes these notes may occasionally be pretty, and delicate, but for that kind of money you expect something spectacular and groundbreaking, something either heart-wrenching or extravagantly euphoric. What you really have is a record with all the spirit of Microsoft Excel.

The latter, less Smoke Ringy tracks are a worthwhile stepping stone for him, but Kurt just doesn't quite pull them off with that catchy, carefree artistry we all know he's capable of.

The music itself is epic, and not in that wanky overblown stadium rock way--epic in the way of glockenspiels and falsettos and cello bow scraping against guitar strings and pounding drums and explosions of piano chords.

Oneohtrix Point Never has gone further than most, especially with Replica, in proving that our heritage doesn't always need to be "rehashed" to be replicated with real style.

Yes, it sounds like you're now entering Bluejam, but Lynch discovered the place, and instead of quitting cinema to make an album that's being called his debut, it sounds more like he's coming home.

There aren't quite enough ideas here to sustain a 17-song LP, and despite being a not-unreasonable hour long, it's a struggle to listen through the final few tracks.

For all its stylistic diversity--bluegrass, bossa, jazz and electro all get a look in--and voracious internationalism, Floating City is a work with an identifiable centre.

Achtung Baby is worth the admission fee alone and ultimately a must-have addition to anyone's music collection.

While it's hard to critique The Vision for its scattershot successes, as a whole the album is just too erratic to have any sort of lasting impact on formerly ardent fans or casual admirers.

Moments of genuine marvel, each one craving its own flowery descriptives, come thick and fast.

It is arresting, but not desperate for your attention like an invalid. Coming down or getting up, Coracle will do the trick.

Straight out of a John Hughes screenplay, Welcome to Condale pulls off the feat of being thoroughly POP--polished and plump, preened for the screen and sequinned to the hilt--yet, somehow, marvellously INDIE.

As a second album, it is perfectly acceptable and there are many aspects of it to admire. But the static present on much of Ceremonials cannot quantify the record as anything but a regression in broader terms.

This is a piece of chewed-out gum; with no viable nutrition, no flavour and no joy. Do yourself a favour and spit it out.

Essentially, if you like the sound of men that sound like they drink a lot and make a lot of bad decisions in life, have people die around them and then like to sing about it, set to a raucous soundtrack of guitars, drums and piano... then Strange Boys are pretty adept at all of those things.

You Are All I See is all about the shimmer, as if rather than playing with cutting edge tech Grossi's touch is so deft, and the sound so seemingly in tune with the natural world, he somehow is able to play with light.

Bad As Me sees the performer reaching back into his bag of tricks to pull out a few favourites in a characteristically exhilarating, terrifying, heartbreaking, tear jerking, bone-rattling style.

Much as [Bjork's] presence is immediately arresting and enhances its charms no end, it's a testament to the strength of Longstreth's songwriting that Mount Wittenberg Orca wouldn't suffer were she not a feature.

Smoking in Heaven is a still novel and mostly welcome dive into an often ignored and overlooked era.

Even with these small blips, Peggy Sue have made the transition to a darker and bolder sound with ease.

It's popcorn music, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But trying to dress it up in big concepts only belies the belief that it's somehow lacking, which leads to its undoing.

This is a dense, rewarding--and yes, fun--record.

There are times though, when the record slips into a degree of smug self-reference that leaves you wishing that Lewis would spend less time considering what it means to be a songwriter, and more time just being one.

With Emika, then, the hiding is over, her close-up appearing clearly on the cover of this varied and impressive 12 song record.

Fundamentally, this EP is the sound of a very good band becoming a great band.

It actually feels quite sterile in a lot of places; a bit too afraid to show its cards, a bit too afraid to get its hands dirty.

On Romantic Comedy the fuzz has been wiped away, leaving a shiny surface that, whilst impressively gleaming, suffers from a lack of texture.

Hall Music, continues this reticent foray, concealing its quaint charms until six or seven concentrated plays have been sucked up and digested.

It's the extraordinary ordinariness, sophisticated simplicity, that redeems all this: even when bass drums calmly clatter wall-to-wall like hungover flies in a jar, there's a gentle edge that's mellow and mellifluous, distant yet direct.

Tick the boxes, add a few strings, loud bit here, quiet bit there--it presents as the musical equivalent of a catering buffet that while attractive, initially satisfying and never truly souring of the palate, ends up quickly becoming a homogenised sprawl that fails to tempt you back for second helpings.

American Goldwing isn't bad, but it's not particularly exciting when you consider the band's usual standards.

This is a somewhat underwhelming effort, once again pushing any idea of recapturing that lost magic even further towards the back of their cabinet of curiosities.

For an album with no discernible weak links--we'll deduct a mark simply because half these songs were previously available--the final quarter is where Veronica Falls finds itself elevated alongside 2011's best.

Double albums are necessarily somewhat hit and miss. That's part of their pick'n'mix charm. But M83 mostly miss me here.

This is a fantastically arranged and conceptually exquisite record, and as much as it feels like anathema to say that a contemporary pop highpoint has sprouted below the surface, in the case of Class Actress it's true.

These towering moments stretch thin across a record lost in a comatose state of traditional, if beach-bumming, rock-pop tedium.

This comes highly recommended as an appetiser.

Certainly no misnomered record, Extra Playful sounds more fun, excited and full of joie de vivre than anything else in Cale's extensive discography.

As a debut, as a mark in the sand, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is an endearing and beautifully drawn modern folk record

What In Dust lacks in sonic breadth, it makes up for by bringing richness to its palette of oppressive mists and dread-filled shadows.

Rather than functioning as simple b-side fodder, the four tracks which shape Earth Division are all totally different, yet just as essential as the album from which they were excluded.

Perhaps the highest praise of Lights Out is that it portrays the gamut of romantic and sexual longings and emotions of adolescence with the honesty that you would expect from someone who recently experienced them, but with poise, melodic nous and a musical maturity that doesn't forsake youthful vitality.

On the Water is surely one of the most unconventionally beautiful records of the year.

As a representative document of the band's formative years to the present, Creatures Of An Hour is an astounding debut that can only bode well for the future.

Whilst Koone's recycling of chiming keys and bell like samples throughout each track might seem lazy, it in fact makes Wander/Wonder effective as a cohesive listen, and that's how its euphoric atmosphere should be heard.

It's a worthy album for consideration should you find yourself browsing in a record shop of a Saturday afternoon and fancy something at once familiar and different.

This is Willner's finest record yet, a composition of effortlessly gorgeous, technically fantastic, genuinely awe-inspiring music.

Whatever happens with the technology and wherever the arguments over music, art and commerce drag themselves to next, it's these songs that are the triumph here.

For the moment, In Light is hamstrung by its creators' raw ambition.

It has a lot to offer around the edges, but is difficult to truly connect with at its core.

It grows, fades and breathes like an album should, it provides enough singles to make it the envy of many a record, and it also demonstrates what a perfect stem the original TKOL was.

Yes, it's enormously derivative, but it's also frequently exhilarating.

This album sounds more rounded and more complete than her previous releases; the sound of an artist truly ARRIVING and ready to play.

While it might not be a consistent classic like Heartbreaker or Gold, there's flashes of those earlier triumphs from Adams' career on Ashes & Fire.

For all the puritanical spoilsports trying to confine Toro Y Moi to an unfortunate genre box, Freaking Out has the chops to confirm him as an interesting artist in his own right, rather than as the product of a semi-coherent micro-scene.

The first thing to say is that the remastering is pretty good: it's in no way a record that needed remastering, but it's definitely one that suits being remastered.

The way London transcends genres and creates a blend between hip-hop and post-rock is certainly commendable, but there's nothing here that we haven't heard from TV on the Radio to save this album from sounding just a little bit silly.

Too often, Scott and his band are guilty of lily gilding.

A step forwards, if not a giant leap.

This emotive disc balances a hushed intimacy and vast expanse that places it in a unique sonic terrain.

It's a bold, brash, varied, slightly confused dance record with flashes of hip-hop.

Alec Ounsworth has responded to the challenge by writing a bright, pithy record stuffed with delicious tunes, not only in the vocals but both guitars and (particularly) the keyboards, and generally all at the same time.

With Trans Love Energies, Death in Vegas do well to avoid such pitfalls, instead creating an album that is musically and thematically filled with space, both roomy and outer.

Nearly every track is catchy enough but for an act in the business of cheap, good time thrills, most fall too far from the bountiful tree of old.

Haunting until its final breath is drawn, Conatus pretty much does what it says on the packaging, its creator's endeavours in no way wasted on what is a worthy addition to a body of work of uncompromising consistency.

Intense, cutting and clever, this is an album that unfolds at a near blistering pace.

In Heaven sees them take the scenic route to vindicating their claim to be pop with a capital P, maintaining enough of their atmospheric qualities without being in thrall to any genre's limitations.

The Devil's Walk can be as persuasive and intoxicating as you want it to be. The acute complexity of temptation inevitably boils down to a simple yes or no. You'll take to this record or you won't.

Just like Sky Blue Sky and Wilco (The Album), there's songs that are more ambitious and some that are more successful, but all of them fit as a cohesive whole, just as on every Wilco album so far.

Overall, this is a highly schizophrenic collection.

The Hunter is a pitch for the mainstream--but it doesn't compromise on Mastodon's core ambition.

This is Butcher Boy's finest hour to date, but by the signs of it the best is yet to come.

The album as a whole is amongst the best showcases of her piano work because she allows herself to meander about the keyboard and never lets production to drown it out.

Just as Only In Dreams confirms this bunch of self-anointed femme fatales as an impressive songwriting outfit, it's stands as a warning that their outwardly-facing facade is wearing thin.