Although perhaps a bit overbearing at 11 songs, Bachelorette is a worthwhile collection of distinctive orchestrations that should propel Annabel Alpers even further into the limelight.

Ultimately, depending upon how you felt about their last record Mirror Mirror is either a return to, or continuation of, form.

I can't say if you liked Preteen Weaponry and Rated O then you will like this for sure, because it is a departure. Nonetheless if you were minded to like those two records and if you are after a record that is in pretty much every sense a 'challenging' listen then Absolute II should tick all your boxes.

On its own terms, Ear Pwr is a record that, while occasionally poorly structured and a little draggy, offers a rapturous sundown forestfull of perfectly nice pop nuggets, and perhaps the most unexpectedly 'normal' album of the year; a breakneck jolt and a right-turn for the conventional.

Overall, D is a measured if occasionally overcooked beast that proves difficult to digest as a whole.

The Errant Charm is marked by subtle beats and expansive drones that underpin most of the tracks and add an interesting new dimension to the band's sound.

Musically speaking, it's a perfectly logical progression from Fucked Up's second album, 2008's The Chemistry Of Common Life, which itself strode recognisably onwards from their 2006 studio debut Hidden World.

For all its awkwardness, for all its outrage in major chords, it's ultimately hopeful. Sure, there are some bum notes, but it's music with passion. It makes you want to DO something, and that is what a real protest album is really about.

The lack of any real experimentation does mean that it fails to match the very best of the Joan Of Arc, but the consistency and restraint on display puts Life Like in a lot, lot better light then some of the group's hugely varied output

Yet despite being a busier effort than …To The Beat of a Dead Horse, it's probably on the whole more accessible due to a sharper production job and a new found clarity in the vocals.

Hayman's production has resulted in a noticeable evolution in the band's sound. Unlike the off-roading experience of their previous albums, Beer In The Brakers is an often much smoother ride.

Burst Apart deserves all the plaudits that can be thrown at it; albums are rarely as unashamedly, gut-wrenchingly, genuinely emotional as this.

The majority of the album is the future of all dinnerparties, the dinnerparty that never ends, a spooling aeon of trite politeness, as your dry android host projects his Facebook photos into your retina for eternity.

By and large, fans of We Have Sound will find a lot to love about Leisure Seizure, as Vek mostly remains true to the style he patented in 2005.

It would be churlish to suggest Suck It And See is Arctic Monkeys' finest record to date. By the impeccably high standards they've set so far it ranks as a good rather than great album, and only deepens the mystery as to where the Arctic Monkeys may venture next, both as a group and in their various solo guises.

There is no question that this is a technically adept, well realised and urgent recording, but what seems to be a lacking is the je ne sais quoi that made Mirrored such a colossal debut album.

You can't help but think that The Felice Brothers were stuck in a Catch-22 regarding the development of their sound; damned if they did, damned if they didn't. On the strength of this offering it's clear that while the mix isn't quite there yet, the approach being taken is worth pursuing.

More often than not though, Seasick Steve is just as fun, lively and instantly likeable as ever.

While Aerial and Unbalance represented developments in Huismans' sound, Fever is more of a sidestep. If it is dubstep--which I'm not really sure it is--it is far more intriguing and individual than most releases I have heard in the last 12 months.

Circuital can't be marked down as a failure; it's just not as good as it could be, or as its best tracks suggest it might have been. A little run of the mill for a band that often hit such massive heights.

The problem is that throughout the record there is the nagging sense that this is ground that contributors have covered previously, either as 13 & God or in their separate guises.

Unlike Madonna who seemed to just ingest cool genres, it seems from the very concept of this album and woven into her manifesto, that Gaga gets far more about the modern world than she's letting on.

Despite an abundance of textures Codes and Keys seems somehow sparse, empty calories around a hollow centre.

It sounds a bit too much like it was made a year ago for Cloud Control's folk-rock to really stand out against new releases from, say, Okkervil River, or altogether newer acts like Grouplove. That doesn't mean Bliss Release is impossible to enjoy--far from it--but it does make it hard to imagine many new listeners making the time for it, and that's a shame.

The result is a pleasant, occasionally beautiful, collection of singles that doesn't take itself as seriously as the buzz surrounding it (so you don't have to either).

Ukulele Songs is an album brimming with integrity and enthusiasm and, most importantly, it boasts great tunes.

Alegrias never sips the same poison for any length of time, like a cocktail that doesn't care how it gets drunk. It should be noted that like anything meant to satisfy innumerable tastes, Alegrias is likely to impress and frustrate in equal measure.

It may have taken Long and Kroeber some time to crack the tough nut of a thoroughly radiant album but unlike their namesakes, The Dodos have only ripened with age.

Although Heavy Rocks is a palpably different album to its release-day sibling, it also covers a fair amount of ground, and there are moments which would have made perfect sense on Attention Please (and vice versa).

The USP of Attention Please lies in Wata, Boris' lead guitarist: she sings on each of the album's ten songs, the first time a Boris full-length has been entirely female-voiced.

At its best Director's Cut is a dazzling affirmation of Bush's genius as songwriter, performer and producer. Maybe one day we'll take her for granted again. But not today.

Nobody is suggesting that Brilliant! Tragic! isn't a flawed album, but it is also one which delivers some of the richest, fullest thrills of Art Brut's career.

What's instantly charming about Paddywhack is its welcoming aspect as Friley's honesty and sincerity creates a warming romanticism.

The fact this singular Brit-hop record's "indie" production is the least interesting of its selling points is quite the testament to Dels and his masterful verbal/lyrical recoil.

For once, he can consider the game well and truly played.

She's made a solid album of pleasant, though slightly conventional, country pop songs, and done a good job of it. But after showing such early promise, it seems like a shame that more people won't get to hear what Alessi Laurent-Marke is capable of.

Thirty years in arguably the most significant act to come out of the American alternative underground of the Eighties has clearly not dimmed Moore's desire to explore new territory, and this record is as much testament to that as any of his many others.

Cape Dory is a more than satisfactory introduction to the world of Tennis and their travels, and perhaps unintentionally, one of the more unique additions to the current penchant for all things lo-fi in a Spectoresque kind of way.

Less pretension, more tickling the perimeter of pop perfection next time please, Planningtorock--you can skip the beer belly though.

If debut In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's was the giddy spin of a colour wheel, then Nursing Home feels ever so slightly more unified in tone and shade, and, if not exactly refined, than certainly a little tighter and more focused in its abandon.

This is the sound of a gang who've never been tighter, and a postcard of their journey that couldn't have captured them at a higher peak.

What we have in Pala is not some great band reinvention, or some desperately profound effort; it's giant choruses, relatable lyrics, a million earworm riffs and 11 dance anthems.

With the musical inspiration behind it all available to hear, the whole exercise ultimately seems a bit pointless and leaves Danger Mouse looking more a dilettante than a genuine auteur. Nonetheless, Rome remains an occasionally breathtaking pastiche.

There are muddled, muffled messages here, whispers of golden horizons and awards cluttering the shelves; it's just a shame that the filler is so predictably repugnant and the brilliant gems so widely scattered.

What ultimately makes Feel it Break such a pleasure to explore is their inclination to consciously move away from making this a record that only works as a showcase for a distinctive singer.

I was expecting a record full of opportunities to hang BFS out to dry, but there aren't any obvious faux-pas. Fishin' for Woos is solid because when a band is together this long they know what they're doing.

There's an absolutely great EP somewhere amongst the length of Darwin Deez's debut, it's just unfortunate that it's been distilled into a sub-par full-length.

What it will do is fill your ears, mind and spirit with a little shaft of sunlight that causes you to delight in the moment and experience.

Where some records are maybe just too personal for public consumption, it's the uneasy fragility contained within Get Well Soon that renders it such a fascinating experience, highlighting Sarabeth Tucek as one of the most candid songwriters of her generation.

Not easy, but often fascinating, wholly rewarding and genuinely cathartic.

That said, it's not all killer; a song or two in the final third fails to match up to the calibre of the rest, and at times the lyrics can descend into mild cliche, but overall it's evidence of a young man with a great understanding and love for a particular period giving it his best shot.

It's challenging yet fairly catchy beneath all the layering. It's abstract vocally yet painfully direct musically. It's not for most yet potentially has crossover appeal at its heart.

Stopping short of outright pop and heading in a direction that has yet to fully materialise, let's hope things eventually progress for Ra Ra Riot as well as they started.

They seem satisfied enough with their place as one of the underappreciated underdogs of the American alt rock scene, and it's hard not to get a kick out of hearing such an independent spirit raging through this album, even if commercially, Simple Math doesn't quite add up.

It'd be reductive to try and describe a timeless album like Smother as a step up from its two predecessors, or even as a surefire Mercury contender--although it is, on both counts.

Wells and Moffat have created a stunning album that assures us of the death and decay that is to come, but equally, they tell us, as long as we are still around, there is life to be lived, and music like this to be heard.

With greater vision Sea of Bees may one day become a more substantial proposition, but for now Julie Ann Baenziger's solo project barely papers over the cracks.

A voice like Maguire's deserves infinitely better than the calculated dross on display here.

Both a likely contender for the finest indie rock record of the year, then, and a breathtakingly chaotic venture far beyond that genre's remit.

While their earlier records managed to keep you drawn in through a direct manner via the rippling intricacies they both possessed, Tunnel Blanket keeps you at a distance, favouring an emphasis on the reverberant aspects that they had touched on previously.

The group's palette is widening promisingly.

When it's good, it's very very good, and when it's bad, it can veer from dull to irritating and back again over the course of a single verse. Thankfully though, there's enough of the good to make this a hugely enjoyable album overall, and more than deserving of your attention.

Black Noise was one of electronic music's recent highlights, and if XI Versions is by no means as essential to anyone's collection as Black Noise, but is a fine addition nonetheless.

This album is a good introductory statement to a new world for the novice, and in that sense it's a solid first step and pretty much a success.

If you can get on board with Harvey's uniquely theatrical songwriting style, then there's a prismatic world of life, love, indulgence, abandonment, betrayal, and ultimately, death in this record. Sadly, for those of you happier to be six months clear of pantomime season, it's maybe a struggle to appreciate these songs as much more than histrionic fiction.

With Ghost Blonde, No Joy have chiselled all the shoegaze basics into a formidable account of themselves. An indispensable album of their own is not far off.

As 'The Little Death (In Five Parts)' started I questioned whether this record would start to fall down a slippery slope and plummet to the ground faster than a lead balloon falling from the sky. Fortunately 'The Little Death (In Five Parts)' reinstated my faith and any trepidation and scepticism I had is instantly diminished.

True Widow have laid down an album so strong that I can't see anything usurping it as album of the year for me (or anyone else who gives it a few listens). And at the end of April, that's a mighty bold claim. But the glove is on the floor now, and everyone else will simply have to step up or cower away and hide.

The album never fully soars either imaginatively or musically, and for all the virtues of its crisp, bold path through the blood and ice of wherever Edenloff is in flight from – or towards – this means that it's a disappointment.

Lollipop is the sound of three relatively _cheerful old men continuing to ignore and deride contemporary fashions and faddisms, playing the music they like to play and having a ball doing it. And what could be more punk rock than that?

Dye It Blonde has unexpectedly crept into contention for being my favourite record of 2011 so far.

My problem is that AIH don't really give much away. There isn't any real personality on show. It could be any musicians.

Fleet Foxes might have put a lot of worry into the making of Helplessness Blues, but thankfully it was worth it.

Even on a album where they might not produce a one off moment to rank up there with the best of their long career, the Beastie Boys are still inventive enough to make a rhyme about a shawl or "coming together like peanut butter and sandwiches" engaging, and by extension. Things wouldn't be the same without them.

Just another chilled, spaghetti western-atmospheric SoCal indie rock venture then? Glad to hear it, keep 'em coming.

Let's not pretend that an excellent lead track and a handful of perfectly agreeable additional songs is bad going for an odds'n'sonds EP. Still, in both its strengths and weaknesses, thecontrollorsphere is suggestive of a band in need of some renewal.

The most positive thing to say about Walk the River is that it shows that Guillemots are still capable of producing beautiful, indefinable pieces of contemporary songcraft when the mood takes them. The most concerning aspect is that they're finding these diamonds increasingly scarce among the dirt.

For all its clever-clever effects and pose-throwing, In Love With Oblivion is a big fun record meant to be blasted through the loudest speakers possible.

The era of setting aside an hour or so to sit and listen to an album is anathema to some in the age of mp3s and YouTube distribution models, but that's exactly what you need to do for Beyond The 4th Door. It's for that reason that this one goes down as a (very slightly) qualified success.

Don't listen to it because it's dubstep, or R&B or soul or from a singer-songwriter who isn't a David Grey clone, although it's all those things. Just listen to it because in any genre, it's a great album.

The Airborne Toxic Event can hold their heads high safe in the knowledge their supposedly difficult second album is a resolute triumph in the face of adversity.

At 14 tracks Dancer Equired is at a glance their second shortest record, with the added bonus that the cleaner production job makes subtler variances more discernible and the record as a whole a more varied experience.

Essential only for Alexis Taylor's fanbase? Yes, but an intriguing and easily loveable record for many more.

While Woomble has a gift for an engaging lyric, the same perhaps cannot be said tune-wise.

Original? No. Enjoyable? Yep.

One hopes Raven In The Grave doesn't signify the last post for The Raveonettes as they are a joy to behold in this mood, and more than capable of producing a belter of an album when least expected.

The shorter production time of this album is perhaps reflected in the lack of variety. Of these ten songs, pretty much all of them are piano-or-guitar-led lamentations that veer conservatively in tone from vaguely melancholy to vaguely upbeat (more of the former than the latter).

Despite a magnetically bitter prescription, this album's strong dosage of darkness is tough to swallow in one sitting and even more difficult to actively enjoy.

It's always impressive when the ballads on an album neither slow down its pace nor detract from the rest of the album. It's a true testament to how well-rounded this album really is.

Up, Guards And At Em is powerfully akin to going back to a club you haven't been to in years, only to find the same soundtrack playing. And there's few people out there who wouldn't find that boring.

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is the auditory equivalent of a strawberry ice-cream on a sunny day and, however many times you might have tasted one before, it still counts as a treat.

Here Panda retreats to inscrutable, heavenly distance, and while force of emotion might not suit an album whose foundations are laid on force of sound, I still find myself wishing he'd fully explore his more human side someday.

The combination of Mercer's lyrics and indie-boy-who-can-actually-sing vocals, paired with Danger Mouse's undeniable ear for awesome pop, means it's always going to be well above average. Very good, in fact. Occasionally great. It doesn't need to be anything else.

Genius, as you know, is all about the detail. The backing vocal on 'Revolving Doors' – if you're still struggling with the 'song' thing, this and 'Amarillo' offer consolation in the form of two of Albarn's loveliest unfinished melodies.

Silesia is still a relaxing listen: and all of its intense sound swells still leave you with a feeling of peace.

One can only hazard a guess as to what her next venture will sound like, but if whokill is anything to go by, tUnE yArDs' prospects are endless.

In these 28 minutes, Badwan underlines his determination to expand beyond traditional patterns, creating an album that's absorbing and rewarding.

Dave Grohl is a veteran -- the world does not need another record from him. The world needs Obits.