Death Is This Communion slays in all the right places, but had it ventured into some of the wrong places we might’ve had an album really worth dribbling about.

Talbot’s vocals mix with the music about them to become another instrument proper; messages are lost in the murk, but the fug’s an appealing blur nonetheless.

The State Of Things will no doubt be a big hit. But if anyone ever takes the time to give it a good proper listen they will find that it’s a wafer thin album of posturing and poor word play.

'Cuckoo Cuckoo' is another moment in which Animal Collective reach a new level of compositional mastery and broaden their territory.

At heart, he's still a producer not a rapper (which explains how badly he hits the mic at times, more on that later). He's got that hit-making part down pat... it's just that he can't make good hits anymore.

Apparently, lightning does strike twice. It has for The Go! Team at any rate.

There'll always be a suggestion that Rise Above is just namby-pamby, pretentious, art-for-art's-sake bollocks, and those whose ears pricked up at the Black Flag connection may well be disappointed that it rarely bears any similarity to its 'parent' album, but either way, at least it's interesting.

Attack Decay Sustain Release defies such trite categorization and, ultimately, what it is or isn’t doesn't really matter. All you need to know is this is quality.

So, far from rehashing in a genre where that danger is always lurking, The Good Life remain reasonably fresh. A few more steps towards something else might be welcome, but for now their poise and position is utterly lovable.

Love’s Miracle is an oddly enjoyable affair on the whole, although in a time when US bands are working through a Fantasy Football League-like transfer system (I’ll swap your an ex-Jesus Lizard singer for a Helmet drummer), it may take an album or two for them to completely work out their sound.

Whereas the band's 2004 long-player was a studied exercise in melancholic understatement, melded to some mightily addictive pop hooks, this ten-tracker is an immediately gratifying affair that pulls not a single punch in the catchiness stakes.

Out with the old and in with the new, so to speak. Which is exactly what Pollock has attempted and, for the majority of Watch The Fireworks, achieved.

It's frustrating, because if you took Our Ill Wills' best moments and condensed them into an EP we'd easily be talking an eight or nine, but as it is, the second Shout Out Louds LP is a Jekyll and Hyde record that ultimately flatters to deceive.

There’s filler for sure, but with the 13 tracks being sleek as they are such fluff merely makes for a more rounded proposition.

Leave this to collect dust in the bargain bin. Or, better still, the bins out the back of HMV.

Far more accessible than anything the act have produced in recent years, Liars shifts perceptions in the way most have come to expect, but with the dense conceptual themes and boundaries limited it is as if they have met most listeners halfway only to lure them back into their own sordid comfort zone, littered with the contents of a fifteen-year-old's bedroom.

None Shall Pass envelops the sounds of hip-hop’s spiritual home more than any album in his notable career.

Initially underwhelming, as samples and tape loops are pieced together, Level Live Wires retains that same eternally unfamiliar tone that, as with "Donuts and Person Pitch," keeps you hooked to these patchwork pieces.

With his debut record Jamie T has--whether he meant to or not-- sound-tracked perfectly the condition of being, as described in Michael Bracewell's book "England Is Mine," today's ‘suburban dandy.'

With such a sprawling array of instruments on offer, Places Like This is surprisingly one dimensional.

With its mix of Tamil pop, Baltimore beats and, yes, funk carioca Kala succeeds best in pulling genres together to make something both unique and identifiable --a 'hip-hop' record that explores what it means to sing about "hip-hop things."

While no one can argue that it’s not an accomplished and distinguished collection of songs, the doubts still remain--albeit fainter than before--as to why one would choose this collective over at least half-a-dozen similar-sounding yet ultimately superior bands.

So slick is the production and so smooth is the transition from one moment to the next that Andorra suffers from an apparent reluctance to take us by the scruff of the neck and rattle us out of our mental Laconia.

Planet Of Ice is an oddly sour letdown, a high-quality album that suffers only from the reception and perception of its forefathers.

Ditherer also displays sneak-up-on-you tendencies, initially bewildering, tough to get a handle on, eventually beguiling and beautiful in a manner magnified by casual boundary obliteration.

Simple, patient, dreary (in a good way) music dominates this soundtrack, providing the perfect accompaniment for Sheff to wail off about doctor and patient sex in a shrink office, society’s pervasive attraction to celebrity and the plights of aging, among other topics.

A patchy return, then, from a band whose prolific status never looked in jeopardy before. While it's good to have The Coral back, it's unlikely that Roots And Echoes will win them any new converts.

It’s neither poor enough to warrant a panning, nor progressive enough to deserve praising to a degree where recommendation to absolute beginners is necessary.

An entrancing, wonderfully surprising record which manages to feel both refreshing new and strangely timeless.

Planet Earth’ll leave you feeling decidedly short-changed.

The chronological running order of Absolute Garbage is also unfortunate as it renders the CD impotent halfway through.

It is the band’s frontwoman whose personality is carried in the weight of this release--delicately cryptic lyrics screamed with a force that betrays the fact they're either complete trash or wilfully personal.

While there are moments that have the summer days – and daze – of ’99 flooding back, too much of this sixth long-player proper sounds disjointed and manhandled.

<i>An End Has a Start</i> actually sounds like it was crafted as ten quite individual chapters of a long-running saga; surprisingly, though, it ultimately works better than its predecessor as a cohesive, flowing album.

There’s just very so little of merit here--glazed pop-rock staggers into itself as the whole album washes past without you realising.

Ultimately, Men’s Needs… is brighter, sharper and just plain better than anything The Cribs have produced to date.

Zeitgeist sounds like a watered-down version of the best bits from Mellon Collie…, meaning it just ends up being too similar to Machina… for its own good.

With giant gyrating reverberated guitars and a grandiose brass section, this is the sound of a rock band attempting the sweeping gallantry of Sibelius or Tchaikovsky and getting away with it. It represents a smugly victorious ending to what is a phenomenally strong and well-polished album.

What’s really on display here is a well honed, experienced band flexing their muscles and creating tightly controlled, good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll music (of a rather cerebral variety) on their own terms, free from the weighty plague of fashion.

Justice know when to curtail the industrial strike and dazzle you with some star-skipping pop-chime, or a warble of gloopy future funk, before tossing you back into the unlit mire.

On the whole Goodbye isn't really much more than a background music soundtrack, something that would probably sound much better in an elevator than on an iPod. That said, it’s good for running a mile to.

Beyond Hütz’s maniacal wail lies a bed of musicianship so textured, so emotionally captivating, it entraps you with the alluring gaze of an Eastern-block temptress under a blanket of silky unrestrained rhythm.

After the sass and bluster of the first half, the record settles into a rather one-dimensional groove.

That it still ends up being reasonably affecting is testament to the band’s essential likeability, but it’s not enough to escape the feeling that We’ll Live And Die... is a record that’s worryingly lacking in presence or character.

Twilight Of The Innocents is surprisingly, frustratingly, bafflingly good.

Despite its occasional charms, Easy Tiger feels like an uneven piece of work.

It’s purely incidental material that goes nowhere for a dozen tracks and ends with just as much fuss as it began, i.e. none.

Though occasional glimpses of that trademark Beta Band brilliance appear, Astronomy For Dogs fails to act as much more than a reminder to listen to Anderson and company’s former glories.

And there's a pleasing strand of experimentation running through The Fragile Army that, even though it could have been developed slightly further, suggests that the Spree are more than a one-trick, um, choir.

This is by far The White Stripes’ most peculiar record.

In truth, The Sun won’t be the hype-extracting second coming of Fridge. But it is infinitely more modestly spectacular than the majority would have dared hope.

Art Brut manage to retain a frenetic brilliance.

This is a missed opportunity to stand up and move forward with popular music, and comes off as a backbench cry for how good things used to be before we all started caring about progression.

The rest of this collection floats between funny and worthless, tending much more towards the latter by the EP's close.

Amiina now daintily rap at the doors of a larger audience with a sound that is as delicate as it is arresting.

The Queens’ music has always been a kind of battleground for the proverbial devil and angel on Homme’s shoulders – with the devil winning, of course – and that continues to be the case here, with Homme’s bewitching falsetto croon acting as the spirit to the band’s tattooed, hairy flesh, and bruising, cactus-dry workouts giving way to lush, psychedelic oases of darkly reflective sound.

Riot sounds like a crunching, flashlight-white amalgamation of Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson, save for token ballad "We Are Broken" that echoes the enchanting eighties sounds of Belinda Carlisle.

Wild Mountain Nation stands alone as something of interest and disregard to the normal guidelines and restrictions in guitar pop.

An honest, forthright and accomplished LP.

What could so easily have been an obtuse exercise in wilful eccentricity actually ends up an engaging, focussed listen that’s deserving of a wider audience than its somewhat cliquey appeal might suggest.

While Ma Fleur is no better than The Cinematic Orchestra’s previous scores, it is equally gorgeous in how it responds to and ekes out intellectual quagmires of song.

Mercifully, this album shouldn’t even be a footnote – it’s no nadir, for sure, but it sure isn’t any good.

Our advice, then: pick and choose via online outlets to get the best out of this album, as in this instance Dizzee’s mathematical skills have failed to calculate a formula for another must-buy release.

Asa Breed feels too lightweight to recommend without caution.

Excellent Italian Greyhound is everything you’d want from a new Shellac record - terrific-sounding, expertly performed and gleefully atonal as ever, but it’s live that this legendary three-piece’s performance art really comes to life as more than the sum of its casually-displayed parts.

It is the subtle orchestral aspect to the record that stands out, with the same washed arrangements that Grizzly Bear and close cohorts Clogs manage to incorporate so casually.

Whereas before in their career the four-piece seemingly tossed myriad elements about with little to no regard for the actual acceptability of the composition at hand, here each and every piece – pieces that truly do flow into one another quite magically – sinks into the listener’s synapses silkily, short-circuiting them through disbelief rather than a simmering intolerance.

Plague Park possesses an unsightly surface layer of cluttered sound and alien screeches that require swift penetrating to enjoy the sticky gooiness that resides within.

Five Roses is certainly not a poor album--it's largely enjoyable, in fact--but it fails to inspire awe or create any sense of joy. It’s too slight, and too meandering

After eleven songs, the band’s inability to stretch their sound starts to take its toll.

By no means is this a bad album, it is just one that in the modern day holds little relevance and offers nothing significant.

The Beatific Visions is one of the most enthralling, deceiving and delightful albums of recent times.

Doesn't quite have the same impact as their debut.

Initial listens leave the impression that Volta is a top-heavy release, but as with Vespertine repeat visitations see the record smoothing and flattening out, with consistency becoming apparent over a shorter period of time than with many a Bjork LP before it.

It’s a little bit adventurous, capable of surprising sidesteps, but remains safely at home in Electrelane’s own engagingly individual aesthetic.

It doesn't really matter how this record sits in comparison to the last few; it's gorgeous.

Mice Parade have never before been quite this accessible.

As fan-boy pleasing as this is, and as great as some of the songs are, it still feels a little like sneaking a peek at a director’s first draft, or rummaging through a scribbly, discarded diary.

For a band with such a legacy, and a pre-millennium back catalogue to die for, this record feels hollow and uninspiring.

Human The Death Dance is a little too boastful, a little too obvious; the subtleties that made Francis’ previous offering so enjoyable and provided it with plenty of longevity have dissipated somewhat.

The ten songs which make up Everything Last Winter drift along without saying anything at all.

Send Away The Tigers is the bloated swansong from a band that should have called it quits three albums ago.

It’s easy to overlook a few fizzles in an album stuffed with fireworks.

Baby 81 is simply BRMC doing what they do best, and for the first time since their debut record six years ago they actually sound like a band that enjoyed themselves while making this album.

Essentially the real joy is to hear the three original members locking in so tightly together.

Enough variety is here, and it all fits together as beautifully as Let It Die did.

Though inconsistent, this record is remarkably accomplished and immediate.

Think of Sensuous as like walking round a modern art museum: sometimes difficult to fathom, always a perverse thrill.

Thee More Shallows have, in a short time, perfected their sound to an extent that they can take multiple left turns without losing their way.

The result is an often crushingly heavy masterpiece that has true meaning with or without the music. It’s a rare thing these days but Porcupine Tree seem able to do it time and again. This album is no exception.

Listened to as a journey from beginning to end, this is a genuine attempt to progress to pastures new after With Teeth.

There’s a rawness to this record that most new bands – sorry, most bands made up of new musicians – would do well to soak up.

This is the next record you have to buy. Absolutely. Unequivocally.

This is CocoRosie's best long-player yet, and a sure contender for album of the year.

This is the most immediate album Cocker has put his name to in ten years.

He is annoying, simple as; his repeated ego-stroking irritates like a mosquito bite on an already sunburned forearm – it only adds to the pain.

It may not be perfect – there’s the slightest suggestion as the album draws to a close that ideas may be running thin – but for a debut record to sound this accomplished suggests a promising future, and surely they’re in the right hands.

This isn't a rave record. It was never supposed to be. It's a wildly varying catalogue of melody and energy that eschews genre and scene in favour of songwriting and awe-inspiringly beefy production.