Pretty much everything about Jens except the scale of his melodies is gentle and unassuming, and there is a quiet honesty here that is unique pleasure.

Mesmerising throughout, it's a beguiling and brilliant listen.

While it certainly shows Blink to have the potential for much more than their past reputation may convey, Neighborhoods is reminiscent of that first awkward conversation after a heated argument, as no-one's quite sure where to go next.

As an album, The High Country is a little disappointing, as fans of Richmond Fontaine might wish for something a little more traditional in the structure, or at least for the story idea to have been realised better.

Altogether, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is a complex record, one that doesn't quite fully realise Girls potential as great recording artists, yet equally suggests that bona fide masterpiece may not be too far around the corner.

You can't take it too seriously--if you did you'd find an album riddled with clichés and vulgarities. Just take it as it was intended: 30 minutes of fun from one of the world's most entertaining rock stars.

For the most part, it feels like either overweening confidence or desire to snare rudderless Oasis fans has led to Kasabian attempting the sort of conventional guitar pop record that they've always so successfully avoided making.

Akerfeldt should be praised for breaking free of an often repetitive genre--there's nothing wrong with radical reinvention. But this departure didn't need to be quite so lacklustre.

Her second full length is a compelling pleasure that rewards additional listens.

Much like Actor, it's the contrast of tendernesses in both the red-raw and Elvis senses of the word, that marks St. Vincent's music out as something more sophisticated and enthralling than it might first appear.

These songs rest quite naturally between the forlorn, heartbroken ballads, making this an album of exceptional and understated maturity and beauty. Sadness has rarely felt this good.

The downer is that nothing here can touch the early pop gems that can still see even the more stringently alternative spill their JD and cokes, and without that it's all too easy to start thinking this record is a lot worse than it actually is.

For diehard fans Gravity The Seducer is replete with pleasing moments. For fans of novel musical statements, not so much. Listen, feel your mind wander, forget.

Having heard Taylor's fingerprints over a dozen fine records, it's great to finally hear one that he can call his own.

For completists Obscurities is a must. For Magnetic Fields fans it's a worthwhile starting point for Stephin Merritt's other projects. For newcomers, start with 69 Love Songs and come back when you've fallen in love with everything else.

This is a very well-made album; heads will nod and feet will tap. But it doesn't capture that molten energy that the Icarus Line have been capable of in the past, and as such falls short of greatness

Somewhere in Never Trust A Happy Song are the fragments of a great band, but sadly they aren't enough to make a great album.

All of Cass McCombs' deliberate ambiguities add up to a beguiling character worth shouting about, even if he's not willing to do it himself. Give this album a spin and join its gently strident fan base.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a great album waiting to be unleashed from the Brooklyn trio in the not-too-distant future. They just haven't given themselves time to make it yet.

For longtime fans, a dubbed-out Grace Jones begets an exotic retelling of her myth, like painting a Sherman tank in watercolours - sure it's pretty, but under those runny dub brushstokes is hidden a killing machine.

Some of the songs like 'Miss You' and 'In The Grace of Your Love' have genuinely good moments and are enjoyable whilst they last. However, it's hard to escape the feeling that this is a band struggling to define themselves in a musical context that no longer needs them.

Jeff Bridges might not be the actor's most emotional performance - to see that you need to watch the last five minutes of Fearless - but it is a surprisingly heartfelt piece of work, packed with enough hooks and harmonies to show he's obviously a keen student of the greats.

Nevermind the continual rebooting of their franchise, this should be the time to quietly lay the series to rest and focus on the box-sets. This band simply have nothing more to say.

It's the sound of a band completely at ease with themselves despite hostile surroundings, where music becomes both a document of life and a means to ease away from its greatest challenges for a little while.

This album is a reminder of the healing power of three dweebs, or how much fun it would be to watch Brian Wilson getting caught in a triangle of punk.

There's a completely unique blend of textures and a desire for musical experimentation running through the bloodstream of The Golden Age of Apocalypse, and it would be a great shame to see that overlooked.

A Different Kind Of Fix is an evolution of baby steps for Bombay Bicycle Club and one which will leave you wondering if Jack Steadman and co are ever going to burst into full bloom.

All said and done, it's the kind of enchanting, quietly literate indie rock record you could build an intricately compelling life story from, while retaining a fascinating jumble of half-told, quarter-understood anecdotes, stolen glances and sad, gleaming characters for leftovers. Lovely stuff.

Young the Giant are aiming for big things and they come close.

There is no doubt that this side of Lil B is his most genuine and I'm sure as a statement Im Gay (Im Happy) is sincere just not quite how you might have assumed.

As Program 91 soars over--here we go--fjords of excellence, it never really lands or takes off with any satisfying oomph.

The main flaw with Eno and Holland's collaboration is that words which, read on a page or spoken into silence, might have the space to spark a host of mental images, here frequently seem flattened by the music.

As with so many albums in the contemporary indie-electronica world, there is a decent one simmering somewhere inside of EVINSPACEY (this sentence makes me curse the existence of cease-and-desist orders).

While World Wide Rebel Songs exudes confidence, its execution is like attempting to cross too many "T"s with your eyes closed: odds are that you'll get one or two right, but it's impossible to consistently hit the mark.

This is easily Beirut's most accessible-sounding effort yet.

The rest of the record is suddenly and gracefully, if somewhat confusingly, scooped up in the slightly irksome breezes of troubadour lo-fi, though considering the chops of that opening brace it's hardly a deal breaker.

An escapist Jamaica-pop lark with a traditional bent and a big heart, in the realms of good-times bass you could do a lot worse than the classy and charming Watch Me Dance.

What this duo have is exactly that – heart. They also have balls to spare, but don't tell them that – those little fellas get into all kinds of trouble. Wouldn't want to worry them.

This is a fruitful and distinctive addition to Malkmus' oeuvre, not least thanks to Beck who also produced Thurston Moore's latest outing with a similarly sensitive finesse.

Route One or Die is a heavy, sometimes dizzyingly diverse listen. Despite this, the band's emphasis on melody means these songs hook you in from the very first listen, while still having more wonders to reveal to you on repeated listens.

FOW just seem go through the motions. No sweat. No tongue in cheek either.

By psychobilly's own modern standards it's serviceable, faithful, consistent and good for a groggy pogo, but in the greater scheme of things there's very little here to nourish the modern punk fan.

They're one of only a tiny handful of bands currently using retrospective influences from the past to create something relevant and unique for the present and beyond.

A tastefully produced, solid entry into the Man Man catalogue.

Thanks to a couple of moments where they give in to the anthemic impulses, the rest of Slave... can afford to drift along at its own singular pace, with rewarding results.

Excerpts is a work of forgetful minimalism; it is powerfully repetitious--perhaps, in waves, completely random.

Nothing Is Wrong would have been a better record had that time been spent eking the emotion out of their own lives, rather than their record collections.

Haters are gonna hate given the artists in question – but to be disappointed with Watch the Throne is to be disappointed with the rap game in 2011.

With a humble ten songs, Hynes banishes our woes and turns a shoulder to the glut of all too mundane music released this year, reminding us that someone can still make a perfectly influenced yet original collection of songs. This is how a record should be made.

Thankfully, One Thousand Pictures was well worth the wait.

For what The Weeknd have produced, regardless of what genre it is or isn't, is a very good record.

What stops it being Great, as opposed to great, is the feeling that Machinedrum's basically working his way through segments of his music taste, having a crack at one after another. That is to say, he's a follower, one now signed to a label that's often been a haven for innovators.

There isn't really an awful lot else to say. Famous First Words might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless.

Having played with Wild Nothing, Titus Andronicus, Crocodiles and Male Bonding they are finely adept in the art of live performance and worth catching. But the album? Yeah it's alright: simple and catchy fuzz pop.

The beats, hooks and overall feel of these tracks is of a welcome high standard, sitting somewhere between the tried and tested aesthetics of yore and slick reinterpretation.

Thematically, Organ Music… re-visits all-of-the-above, but Spencer's more lucid in his metaphors than ever before but loses none of the mystique for doing so; listening to this is like realising you can suddenly speak horse, or whale.

Cerebral Ballzy is an album too desperate for your immediate attention to have any concerns beyond the last bar of 'Anthem'.

Though their own spirit may have mellowed and darkened over time, on Wild Go Dark Dark Dark couldn't be moving more resolutely towards the light.

Yet none of this is enough to relieve the air that everything on Curse Our Love has been intentionally dumbed down to make it as easily digestible as possible. Above all this album's great many sins, this is what offends the most.

All in all, the overriding impression left by The Lateness Of The Hour is that Alex Clare is a fairly gifted gentleman. But here his talents have been squandered on a collection of songs that fail to establish him as either a dance-pop titan or an emotive warbler.

The momentum and joie de vivre is intoxicating, and unlike many a transitional record, it's a genuine hoot, an unexpected blast of sunshine between the darkness of Fables… and the fires of Document.

With Little Dragon, you get it all under the one roof: a groove-powered producer's band with a little edge, an indie sensibility and a soul singer at its helm, able to turn out a pretty melody on the right side of cloyingly doe-eyed.

If Paris, Texas concerns itself with flat desert landscapes then Amplifying Host makes the sea its home, with a too-steady rhythm always threatening to halt the potential for a clear reflection on the infinite horizon.

It's all tension and release, with barely a second wasted to gasp for air amidst the squall of a band on invigorating form.

Konkylie is an impressive, accomplished collection of songs from a band coming into their own. They've succeeded in accomplishing what all so many artists strive for: cleanly synthesising their feelings and thoughts into sound.

Crystal Antlers have delivered a record that, rather than making good on the promise of their early work, is simply serviceable. But there's evidence here of a band still finding their feet and defining their sound.

If you love Zappa, Unknown Mortal Orchestra could be your artist of the year.

This isn't quite there yet for The Phoenix Foundation; there remains the nag that they haven't quite satisfied the need for more infectious hooks, although to their credit efforts have clearly been made.

If the results are as finely crafted as The Harrow & The Harvest, she can take as long as she likes with the next one.

The great magic of this record is that while acclimatisation to Zombyland is taking place, there's so much depth to explore, be it the bizarrely effective tonal shifts, the diversity of musical style, the sense of simplicity that, no doubt, veils immense complexity.

Washed Out always stood above his supposed peers; the more he progresses out of his shell, the farther his voice will soar clear of the soon-to-break wave of generalised chillwave nonsense.

As a temporary deviation from Incubus's core sound, If Not Now, When? is satisfactory.

As inconvenient as it may be, even if you already own this album it is well worth purchasing once again in its new form, if, of course, you can afford the ostentatious extravagance of buying the same Nineties lo-fi record twice within the same lifetime.

Complex of subject matter and sound, Player Piano could have been weighed down by intricacy.

Okay, at times the journey might seem a little too long--Miss Tambourine Wrist' does grate with repetitive ideas--but for the most part, the pacing between the slow death like marches and the adrenaline injected thrash falls are executed brilliantly.

Representing UK production at its best, SBTRKT's self-titled album is playful yet gritty.

Skying is very much a record of polar extremes boshed into close proximity. Withdrawn and welcoming; subtly bold; gently hyperactive.

It's mostly a stately, minimal affair.

Music doesn't always need to be about preaching, grand-slam bombastic leanings or pushing the envelope forward – that's a fallacy. Sometimes it can just be sonically gorgeous, layered and pleasing to your hearing and thought - just as Marissa Nadler ends up being.

I like it a lot. Much better than their first.

Artists who operate within a distinct or limited musical template can risk getting stuck in a creative rut, but on this evidence Junior Boys are just too damned good at this game for any such risk.

. This isn't an album you listen to in a conscious sense: it's an album you put on and switch off, allowing it to carry you on a journey through the wilderness. It's O'Death's most accomplished work to date, and a fine piece of work at that.

It will do for the festivals but not without considerable help from their back catalogue.

Above all, I can't help but feel that Wiley is still too much of a creative character, one relentlessly trying new and different things, to offer the sort of polished and succinct singles that would stick with a daytime radio audience. This unrelenting originality at least is something to be celebrated.

With the best of the bunch already out there, the rest simply feels disposable by comparison. You can't help feeling Is Tropical may have made a mistake by playing their aces too early. Lucky they've got that video then.

Even in the context of what is turning out to be a stonking year for electro-pop, YACHT have concocted a record to match their peers in Metronomy, Cut Copy and Friendly Fires.

The first half of Torches is its collective zenith, and although things pick up towards the end of the album by the strategically placed 'Pumped Up Kicks', you can't shake the feeling that Foster has simply stretched the party vibe over as many songs as he can before the momentum runs out.

It is wistful in tone, but it's no nostalgia trip and summer or not it's a consistently blissful and thrilling EP that bodes well for any forthcoming album.

Sound Kapitol is a successful, if slightly creatively stifling refinement of a fruitful and unique musical partnership.

Sugar Daddy Live reveals a picture of a storied band that is still finding ways to reinvent itself.

If At Echo Lake hit the jackpot, Sun & Shade is more hit and miss. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Family Sign is a strong continuation and addition to a powerful series of modern rap albums. It's bigger than past records and heavier, a nice combination that genuinely puts the listener into an emotional flux.

There are a few weaker offerings scattered across There Is A Way, 'Good Time' and 'Apostrophe' are the main offenders, but nothing that spoils a clearly accomplished record.

While the ground The Coathangers find themselves treading is well-worn, it's their approach and general unpretentious demeanour that makes them and Larceny & Old Lace a delightfully engaging collection, even if the underlying message bears a hallmark of sadness and loss.

Indeed with such a raging fire burning through their bellies, this stands up alongside 60 Second Wipe Out as possibly Atari Teenage Riot's most potent collection of songs to date, and what's more, in a climate besieged with apathy and despondence, their relevance today cannot be underestimated.

It might tend more towards solid songwriting than reinvention, and might not quite reach the heights of lunatic brilliance of its predecessor, but as far as most people's dream of what a proper pop album should be, Lupercalia certainly comes closer than most.

Justin Vernon and his crew have changed things up here for sure, but the results are every bit as beautiful as you might expect.

Now stripped of their manufactured aura, WU LYF no longer have a platform but instead stand naked and shivering alongside hundreds of other bands with debut albums that don't satiate the need for instant greatness.