If you’ve any interest, whatsoever, in rock music in any of its subgenre forms, you need to afford Blood Mountain some considerable attention.

Brilliantly inspiring while intoxicated, Gala Mill holds its own well under sensible, concentrated scrutiny.

Intelligent indie-rockers, look nor listen no further for your possible album of the year.

They’ve merely decided to exchange one set of quite transparent influences for another, less-effective set.

Damaged... rises to the same dizzying heights achieved by their last few long-players.

What makes the largest impression though, as ever, is Darnielle's ability to build the most affecting of scenes from the smallest suggestion.

A little too homogenous to warrant many a repeat listen.

While some tracks don't exude the same kind of enticing mysticism Ward excels at, Post-War remains a warm, enjoyable listen.

Perhaps the worst aspect of ONe is how on autopilot the band sounds. Even the flat-out rockers – like the opener, 'Teahouse Of The Spirits' – contain no guitar pyrotechnics and come off sounding limp and perfunctory.

Waterloo To Anywhere might not redeploy any cultural guidelines, but take it at its own merits and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Avatar may not be as intense or as out-of-loop as expected, but its otherworldy mix of prog-rock and freeform more than lives up to the expectations formed in the wake of 2004's Blue Cathedral.

As a starting point for Jim Noir, 'Tower Of Love' is a tasty entree that merely whets the appetite for the first album proper.

This is the most brutal metal record to see a release in 2006.

A few highlights aside, it’s hard to understand why at least a half-dozen of these over-glossed R&B-lite numbers ever made it out of their maker’s mind.

The twelve songs of Nightlife rattle by the listener with alarming speed, and at only thirty minutes long the record seems to be over just as soon as its begun.

This is one of the most rich and accomplished albums of recent times. Essential.

A truly delectably odd album of archaic echoes and future-classic choruses.

The balancing of ironic humour that raised a smile on earlier albums is absent here, which leaves us with almost nowhere to hide.

With Monochrome, Hamilton seems to have realised that stepping away from the majors and their requisite studio production sludge can only be a good thing. Now, if he can find a new direction to blaze in rather than re-tread thrice-covered ground, he may be on to something.

Once all is done and danced – in under 35 minutes – there’s no immediate desire to go around again.

The work of three individuals arriving at the peak of their powers, it’s likely to be the band’s OK Computer, their Music For The Jilted Generation, their Dark Side Of The Moon – the record that everything they produce subsequently is immediately unfairly rated against, ‘til time’s own sands sit still.

So far as newcomers are concerned: hop on here, while Oneida are perhaps at their most accessible, and discover one of music’s most inspirationally inventive outfits.

The Avalanche is a great record, but one that may have benefited from its creator learning to be a little more detached from his compositions.

While The Eraser might not be a genre-busting classic like Kid A or OK Computer it's a good, solid record nonetheless.

Through the Windowpane maximizes and intensifies every moment, every muttered word and every touch of emotion.

A fitting eulogy.

While Liberation Transmission may be a lyrical vacuum, it is also a musical masterclass in how to create 12 tracks of killer with almost no filler.

That Keith is capable of better records is a point proven by his past, but so far as 2006-born hip-hop goes, this is head and shoulders above much of the loudmouthed, uncouth and generic rabble.

The drawback of News and Tributes more relaxed pace, is that the underdeveloped side of their work is more exposed.

'The Warning' will claim your souls and break your hearts.

Rather Ripped is what you'd expect from a Sonic Youth that's getting back to the cool rock 'n' roll sound they trademarked years ago, completed by a tagline of frenzied feedback and chiming guitars.

If the elitist few who hold Regina almost too close to their bosom can get past the shiny façade of the first few tracks, they'll find a whole new Regina to love.

The Only Thing I Ever Wanted is a true album, a coherent trail of interlinked melody and domestic adventures.

Quite simply, this record is the devil's spawn incarnate.

Asobi Seksu are a band possessing talent and ability far beyond their years and with Citrus they have fully realised their potential in a particularly short time. It is difficult to see how they will be able to better this sophomore release, but you wouldn't bet against them having a few trump cards left up their collective sleeves.

It holds some charms, but Peeping Tom is overshadowed by Patton’s previous work.

By aiming to sound like U2 and Pink Floyd, AVA ends up sounding like an emo version of an even more plodding Coldplay.

This is all Broken Boy Soldiers was ever meant to be: an off-the-cuff collaboration between two friends and one which, despite its imperfections, is an effort worthy of applause.

With the genre oversaturated beyond belief, bands need to produce something special and original to stand out from the crowd. Radio 4 fail to do that.

While Dulli’s working from his usual palette of muddy grooves, guitar-scree and leering swagger, the new album sounds more urgent and lucid in intention than its predecessors.

Guthrie's creative spark is as bright as ever.

Take the receipt and lose it--you won’t be returning this record anytime soon.

It's astounding that AB can reel off so many downright enjoyable songs that it almost hurts.

It's no contender for end-of-year honours, but so far as pop goes in 2006, this may well be the pinnacle.

At the purest of all levels, this is a presentation of sound in detail, which, to listen to carefully reveals surprise after surprise.

To sum them up in one word, "reliable" would be the most appropriate.

Precocious, other-worldly and vividly ambitious.

By marrying the subtle ethereality of bands like MBV with the swashbuckling pomp of a modern-day Iggy, they are a band at once single-minded and confused.

It's probably the most engagingly brilliant heavy metal album that'll be released on a major label all year.

Deliciously downright dirty.

'Capture/Release' may not be the jolliest record in the world, but perversely, it’s damn good fun and a heck of a lot more.

It is all too easily consigned to background music if you stop paying attention.

There's something impenetrable about it, an obtuse level of abstraction and a slightly joyless delivery that really leaves this listener with no point of entry at times.

Initially addictive and tantalising, an hour of consuming their slickly engineered autopop leaves you with little more than a faint sense of emptiness.

What is most interesting about this record, apart from it’s self-assured collection of off-beat laments is the amount of exciting doorways it flings open for the future.

It’s not rocket science, that’s for sure, but there are tunes here that most million-selling bands would give away all of their mansions for.

As an experimental project, it's clever and varied, and a vital chapter in the history of electronic music and sampling. As a pop record, it's tantalising, sensitive and essential; if you don't already own My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, the reissue's extra tracks make now as good a time as any.

It sees Mono edge closer still to the classical spectrum, incorporating strings to great effect.

It’s pleasantly like listening to a lost Bobby Darin or Andy Williams recording session where they took the wrong medication for shits and giggles.

That it’s a certainty for inclusion in critical end-of-year top tens is a given.

While it may be the most proficient musical record that Morrissey has put out in aeons... it doesn’t quite measure up to the high standards set by You Are The Quarry or the superlative debut that was Viva Hate.

While there is nothing even marginally groundbreaking here, Placebo have still returned with another steady record in Meds.

If this is The Vines’ vision then they have set their sights on something remarkably mundane.

Parts of this record sound more like final clasps of desperation rather than any forward progression.

It’s how Interpol would sound like if they dealt with universal themes and reflection rather than singing about fellatio fantasies with Stella, or their length of loves.

A deeply personal, occasionally lifeless but equally insightful passage into the latest chapter of Richard Ashcroft's life story.

Repeated listenings reveal the record for what it truly is - the most human of comeback records.

With their third album, Liars have succeeded in creating the near-impossible; a conceptual work that speaks to the emotions and the intellect simultaneously.

It’s not often that a side-project produces an album that deserves anything more than a footnote mention. Loose Fur deserves its own cult.

Like many of his records, it's more of a collection of songs than a 'play from beginning to end' affair.

Despite the variety of influences which went into the making of this album, Band of Horses have a characteristic sound which can occasionally become samey and slightly dull, yet for the most part it gives the album a comforting continuity.

It's true that guitar-pop is all this is, but it's still bloody good stuff.

The rock these four men so easily brandish is every bit the equal, if not the better, of that deployed by so-called peers half their age.

If you like Mogwai for the sounds they make, for their instrumental dynamic and ebbing/flowing moodiness, you'll probably like Mr Beast - there's certainly little to object to. But if you love Mogwai... perhaps Mr Beast isn't for you.

Any fears of a dangerous liaison are soon sent packing as opener ‘Deus Ibi Est’ thud-thuds its way to attention.

Brilliantly elegant.

Ashworth earns sympathy aplenty vocally, but his mechanical compositions occasionally jar awkwardly against his heartfelt outpourings.

The formula established in track one is repeated in the combined half hour of the other two tracks here to less devastating effect.

If you ever enjoyed the accessible moments of long-standing US indie-pop acts such as Modest Mouse or Built To Spill, but longed for them to stop with the eight-minute wig-outs, Skeleton is probably the album you’ve been waiting for; from Denmark via America.

Everything’s well executed, but nothing sinks in; it’s all surface, no feeling.

Bypassing traditional melodies and obvious aesthetics, Mystery Jets have arrived at an unusually original pop album of the most exuberant order.

NBA's sole but major problem is that so many of these songs - 'Unsatisfied', 'Shot Down', 'Ironside', the list goes on - lack anything like major soul.

The happy-go-lucky, Casio-plated sheen surrounding their elegantly crafted pop songs disguises what are, by and large, tales of bitterness, regret and longing for things that are impossibly out of reach.

It's feverish, unbalanced, disturbing, and for the most part captivating.

Destroyer's Rubies is an inadvertent Guide To Destroyer - every defining quirk, every 70's pop nod and ill-advised but forgivable falsetto is condensed and framed, only without becoming something fans of Bejar will have all heard before.

In What The Toll Tells we’ve been served up an In The Aeroplane Over The Sea for ’06 – full of misty-eyed dreams and incredible characters.

It sounds like The Zutons trying to record one of their more out-there b-sides having just lost the ability to play music.

It's an exceptionally accomplished piece of work that should place Matchbook Romance at the forefront of the cutting edge, POST-emo scene.

Sounding somehow perfectly modern yet refreshingly and celebratory retro, The Life Pursuit is Belle And Sebastian at their freest, delightfully spilling over with great ideas and perfect pop know-how.

Difficult second album? In a way. In that it's difficult to listen to it without smashing your CD player to make it stop.

It's sweet, comforting music with a nice warmth to it. Not too political, nothing too clever. Not as good as Trailer Park, but her best thing since.

Below The Branches is, maybe, the first perfect summertime album, absolutely brimming with brightness and charm.

Overall the LP falters too often.

A number of songs suggest brilliance before stumbling rather into the bland.

At times they near the hybrid jazz of The Mars Volta or even the plentiful jam bands that can be found on the boulevards of certain Eastern European shores, but Tortoise's effortless ingenuity and Prince Billy's sensuous and aged voice raise it to a much higher plane.

What it lacks in instant appeal it makes up for on repeated listens as the hidden gems shine through, and whilst the different styles it adopts can make From A Compound Eye feel slightly untidy and overstocked on occasion, the ambition and craftsmanship present makes warming to it hard to resist.

While the songs on their third recorded set are confident, compositionally astute and capable of slotting into any indie-disco DJ’s mid-set surge towards an electric peak, they more often than not sound like the sum of parts, rather than the frenzied party jams deployed by the band at their scintillating live shows.

A substandard, second-tier album with some strings thrown in for good measure.