When you consider the current crop of supposedly afrobeat influenced indie rock, Warm Heart Of Africa is, if you’ll excuse the pun, The Very Best.

Kudos doesn't so much follow on from the ragged density of songs like 'Mt. Kill' and 'Dickshakers Union' off their debut EP, but actually illustrates a band who've developed both a sound and identity all of their own in the process

Whereas previous Oneida albums could be criticised for being inconsistent and almost too art-rock for their own good, this sounds both absolutely complete and wonderfully concise.

Lush, cathartic and surprisingly brief, Promise Everything is the record that makes good on everything Further Sky promised.

Grandfeathered is another distinguished addition to an already impressive body of work.

Emperor of Sand, it seems, is a confident and timely step in the right direction. A balanced and well measured offering that might not revolutionise the heavy music landscape just yet, but positions them very well indeed for future greatness.

Definitely Maybe: Chasing the Sun provides a timely reminder why he [Liam Gallagher] and his former band are still held with such high regard.

In an industry that so often seems dizzily preoccupied with a desire for the shock of the new, real or wilfully imagined, we should be grateful that a bunch of steady-goers like Elbow have continued to perfect their craft and simultaneously achieve such acclaim and recognition.

CLPPNG makes a sterling argument for the intersection of noise and hip-hop tropes.

Stevens has a beautiful voice and a rare melodic instinct but it is the passion with which he performs these songs that causes them to communicate so much, so well.

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.

Mixing his ear for hits, like single ‘Hero’, with the political eloquence that marks the record out, this ought to be the album that promotes Nas back up into the super leagues that 1994’s "Illmatic" originally shot him into.

Sure, there are imperfections along the way, but this is an immeasurably intriguing and constantly developing journey that's best experienced alone.

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.

VanGaalen draws from familiar territory. What makes these songs truly surreal (and ergo, sublime) are his wacky scenes, both monstrous and endearingly human all at once.

If you like your pop music intelligent, layered and tinged with drama, this is an album you can’t afford to ignore.

Dissociation may not be the dream record for those who want Dillinger to return to the pure intensity of Calculating Infinity or Miss Machine, but it does make a suitably multi-faceted and powerful closing statement from one of heavy music’s most brilliantly insane bands.

Listening to Beings though makes one thing abundantly clear: Lanterns on the Lake are one of Britain's most crucial bands of the present moment.

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.

While there are inevitable parallels what with one album following the last so soon, this fourteenth LP from the fluctuating-of-membership Bad Seeds is a bolder creation that its predecessor.

North not only blurs the lines of genre, but it does so both effortlessly and convincingly. Darkstar took a risk in straying from a template that had already served them well, but nobody ever made a great record by playing it safe.

Casey Dienel and partner Shawn Creeden have created something that has a sense of the familiar yet also a simultaneous feeling of fresh investigation, a record with frequent moments of measured and finely balanced beauty but also a restive application of shifting textures to create a nuanced patchwork of sounds that keep their piquant flavour with repetitive listening.

Just as Shuman himself demands attention within the crowded QOTSA line-up, Mini Mansions should shine in their own right regardless of their imposing origins. All they require are your ears. It would be rude to turn down such a delectable request.

Chris is an album delivered for a wider audience, but still with a subversive and unique texture and emotion that loses nothing of the vacillating energy of the subculture whilst making a confident play for the biggest stages.

It's careful yet effortless, passionate yet distant but above-all, wholly unique.

The overall sound of The Foley Room is unquestionably Tobin's, even though it sounds like a step forward rather than a re-tread.

Although, Gough has always said that he finds music instantaneous and the lyrics the hardest part to write, It's What I'm Thinking showcases Gough at his most insightful to the human condition and himself.

It's an album almost too personal, too suffocating, to match the transcendence of Portner's best work with Animal Collective; still, his vision of sad swampland, and its beautifully intricate and melancholy soundtrack, is haunting - the sound of someone confronting their demons and coming away stronger.

Of course there will always be some who are sceptical and ultimately dismissive of mainly instrumentally-based, experimental rock albums such as this, and on hearing White Fields And Open Devices I'd say the five members of Vessels are almost certainly among them. Which is exactly why they should be commended on making one of the most forward-thinking, non-generic records you're likely to hear this year.

There's an intricate balance struck between analogue and digital, between raw confession and meticulously engineered sonic detail.

While it’s very much business as usual--groove-led-Stooges-acid-pop with added screaming--it sounds so gloriously Mudhoney it offers a thrill akin to Popping Candy fizzing in My Little Pony blood.

Overall, Stars Are Our Home is a delightfully mixed bag that does rare justice to the term 'supergroup'.

This EP is a welcome reminder of James’s ability to utilise decidedly avant-garde ideas in a manner that, although acutely alien to our idea of musical normality, is nevertheless engaging and inspiring.

There's an inner beauty--no, honesty--to this debut.

Though no longer flavour of the month in 'cool' circles, as far as The Warlocks are concerned it's business as usual, and The Mirror Explodes is up there with their finest works to date.

Each listener should find their own things to contemplate, relate to and enjoy in these thoughtful, ornamental and fantastic songs, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

Whilst a complete reinvention of rock this may not be, a beautiful soaring record for messy nights and hungover Sundays, it most certainly is.

Actually listen to Tough Love and you’ll realise that Ware has made a record that is totally ready for chart success, should her label promote it accordingly, but also deeper and more thoughtfully-considered than any British pop album that lingers in recent memory; the fact that it seems so reserved is nothing more than an indicator of Ware’s confidence in the potency of its sensuality.

Lanterns is Lott’s most cohesive work, his music a prism refracting light onto the spectrum of change.

This album ought to see Kate Stables recognised as one of the most compelling voices in alt-folk.

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.

Luck In The Valley is a brilliantly strong record that reminds you both of Rose’s own majestic ability, and the playful power of these seemingly ancient and ‘primitive’ musical forms, something Rose understood as well as anyone.

In essence this is their most fluid recording, unbroken by exploratory concerns.

This is a fast-tempo, punk and metal-tinged homage to days gone by and those yet to come and, as a result, may well be the band's best effort since their much-lauded debut.

The real power of this album is not only the showcasing 1-800’s collective musical prowess and their ability to mix and merge genres and style effortlessly to create music that sounds like nothing that has been released commercially in recent month, but of Trim’s vocals. Throughout the album he is the glue that holds everything together.

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.

As extraordinary and original as the film itself, Berberian Sound Studio is both a bona fide film score and consistent electronica album, and in the wake of Trish Keenan's tragic death carries the very real air of a requiem.

It’s clear that the 33-year-old has lived and lost, and drunk and cried, but has emerged from it all as a special talent.

This isn’t an album to expand musical horizons, as much as it might expand a few minds. Yet it’s deeply enjoyable and more often than not thrilling to hear a band mouthing “We don’t care” over and over before showing two riff shaped fingers to the naysayers.

The Earlies are like a stripped-down take on the [Flaming] Lips: psychedelic, lo-fi and indie in the purest sense of the word.

This is a record that nurtures and works around feeling, clawing its hooks deep wherever you lay most vulnerable. Sensual is most definitely the word.

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.

Approach this record with an open mind and you'll be surprised at how easily you can get caught up in it.

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

This record may well work as ambient escapism, but in its serene tenderness it’s also a reminder of the fragility of all that surrounds us.

Year in the Kingdom may not be a feast of eclecticism, but it is a lesson in the construction of compelling, stripped-down folk.

Jaumet might have Carl Craig hovering over him but he’s not entirely in his shadow, and Night Music is his own diamond-encrusted carriage, which he rides through the small hours with no risk of ever becoming a pumpkin.

Listening to 'Blueberry Boat' is a little like careening around an enormous multicoloured funfair - joyous, unpredictable, kaleidoscopic, tacky, and at times scary and sinister, sometimes all in the space of one song. But even if it occasionally makes you sick, it’s a thrilling ride nonetheless.

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.

Channeling both experience and innocence into his first solo collection. Against all odds, Omori has conjured up a solid debut that should ensure a bright future lies ahead.

These climactic moments help Belly Of The Lion to ultimately feel more consequential and less of a project for a moonlighting soundtracker. He’ll need some help to recreate it live, but on record David Wingo has shown that he can pull it off on his own.

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.

What’s interesting about A Productive Cough is how accessible it is compared with the band’s past work.

Most impressively of all, it comfortably lives up to the promise that Auerbach apparently made to the Doctor that he would help him craft 'the best record you've made in a long time.'

Reportedly taking as much time to arrange harmonies as write the music, Gorilla Manor is a definite labour of love, and you know what they say; you get out what you put in. Though it may not be revolutionary, for me, this album is a little gem.

Painful as they may be, Crutchfield's lyrics are perfect all over her fourth album. Instantaneously direct, but not without using imagery that is both recognisable and relatable.

The conviction put into every moment of this record, much like that they put into every second of their original reunion shows, makes Freedom a more than worthwhile comeback.

A surprisingly excellent singles band.

At once Herndon’s most accessible and most adventurous record, this is digital age avant-garde sound art put through a pop prism, and it’s all the more exciting as a result.

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.

It's not a perfect record in any sense (the occasional lyrical couplet falls awkwardly), but within such punk atmospheres, flaws perversely become strengths.

Marilyn Manson has always possessed the ability to write and produce music that can speak at its own compelling length and pitch. Here he unleashes that side of his frayed character for the first time in about 14 years.

This album has a scale to it that occasionally transcends the intimacy one may associate with much of Youngs’ back catalogue.

Niches, of course, tend to hide most of metal's jewels, and Iron Balls Of Steel is the genre's first great album of 2012.

The result is an album that is often brilliant, sometimes breathtaking, and never dull.

There aren’t many musicians in the country as creative and as interesting as her at this point in time, and Welcome Back To Milk represents another triumph in her weird and wonderful saga.

Legacy collects about a decade of Boo recordings under one roof, although there’s no obvious arc of progression here--he’s consistently out on a limb, and with very few exceptions (‘There U Go Boi’, ultra-pitched-up and relatively linear ghetto house), this could only have come from his brain.

The real genius of Tomorrow’s Hits is its shaking off not just fan expectations but the almighty shackles of credibility, innovation and, for want of a subtler term, corporate buzz-band etiquette.

Deeper represents an exquisite documentation of post-punk's darkest hour.

Volume 3 is essential listening and another triumph.

It might not be much in the way of a surprise for those who’ve listened to ‘Thrown’ or ‘Looped’, but working from divergent influences is rarely simple, and Kiasmos iterates on the ideas explored in these earlier tunes with serious skill, electronic and traditional influences so tightly woven together that the LP maintains a very definite sense of identity throughout, and is pretty much impossible to poke holes in.

There is much to enjoy here and if you have the slightest interest in contemporary classical music or you’re a soundtrack buff, give this a whirl. Jonny Greenwood may be one of those scruffy oiks in a pop group, but he’s proved once again that there is an incredibly musical mind under the haircut.

It’s a beguiling mixture of the unknown and well established, and as a cohesive whole it demands your utmost attention for the duration.

While Deerhunter may not be a solo project--though a couple of the songs here were recorded solo--this band is the musical realm of Bradford Cox. And if he hasn't found the same amount of fame as Win Butler or even Avey Tare, then probably it's because the lethargically gorgeous world he has crafted isn't inclusive enough allow large numbers of people in.

Women write songs, but they tease us by keeping them hidden, interspersing the teeniest seconds of dazzling clarity with cool sounding sonic murk. And credit to returning producer Chan VanGaalen for whipping up an ambience as dense and seductive as that sepia blizzard on the front sleeve. His proteges are writing good songs, but it's not so much a production job as a sleight of hand trick--VanGaalan stops you from seeing Women's full workings.

It’s esoteric and unsettling, because he’s done trying to reason with us.

As it stands, it’s an emphatically rich and addictive work. It does sound a whole lot like Dylan, yes. But it’s a whole lot of excellent itself, thanks very much.

The band sound relaxed about who they are, what they do, and how they work best alongside other people.

It will be interesting to see where Protomartyr go from here and if they can sustain this incredible level of output, but if nothing else, Consolation gives hope that this band will continue to be the real deal (pun intended).

There are no preconceptions about an album acting as a whole piece of work, and it’s certainly allowed him to be a little less bogged down in all that and freed him up to just try stuff out.

Sick Scenes isn’t a doom and gloom exercise, nor miserable thousand-yard stare. Instead it is the sound of a band doubling down on what brought them to their particular dance, peppered with unflinching honesty and conviction, all dressed up in requisite ‘take us or leave us’ glamour.

Even when downcast, Love & Devotion is a sensual, lively record and anyone mourning the death of Air France should find much to enjoy here.

There’s only one test a live album has to pass, and this one stands up to it: if you were there you’ll be prompted to bask in the memory, and if you weren’t you’ll be wishing like hell that you had been.

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.

At its best, it’s the purest yet expression of Garbus’ exploration of the corporeal: an album with sounds you can see, a voice you can feel, and music you can all but touch.

With nothing masking itself as filler here, it would be difficult to trim anything off without Mauve losing any of its impetus or impact. Indeed there's very little negative to say.

A welcome, and ultimately pleasurable return.

We have instead been blessed with an embraceable record from a contemporary dance music auteur and a partner who proves a skilful wingwoman.