With everything from the classic symphonic sounds of brass and strings to the creative dimensions of electronic sampling, synths and the violinophone, Mum certainly are experimental. The ambitious nature of which could be too much for some people though.

In less capable hands the results could be unsophisticated and cringeworthy - as it is, they team the neon luminosity of Duran Duran with the camp, boyish charm of Dexys Midnight Runners - and are as likeable as either of them.

It’s a swaggering, pyschedelic road album, which we’ve generously been allowed to ride shotgun on. Buy the record, take the ride.

This is music that you dive into wholeheartedly when there's time to examine its mutilated layers.

While it’s tempting to disregard ‘Never, Never, Land’ as a frantic attempt to usurp its predecessor in the celebrity stakes, the big-name guests this time around are infinitely more suited to the mood.

All in all, the album is unremarkable, showing only rare flashes of lyrical prowess, and melodically unadventurous. Bugg fails to push boundaries and flounders outside his recent comfort zone, resulting in a record that fails to impress, delivered without vigour.

This is an album that can (and I think will) transcend musical taste and age range... 'Lifeblood' may well live forever as one of the best commercial albums of the bands career.

Although by no means a bad record, Driving Excitement And The Pleasure Of Ownership would probably work better whittled down into a pair of EPs rather than a whole album.

If the refusal to play to old strengths has a slightly scattergun effect, it’s hard to begrudge this slightly mad record. There will be those Everything Now alienates, but Arcade Fire are not your corporate product.

There are moments where the album shines, absolutely, but it doesn’t match up to the same level as Okereke’s previous work, both with Bloc Party and solo. However, it’s still a worthy piece in its own right, and a testament to the idea that a musician changing their sound is a gamble that can pay dividends.

One day the mainstream is going to claim him and he'll lose a little something, but for now he's still the prince of the misfits and the martyrs, the waifs and the strays, Sundark and Riverlight is him at his distilled best, tears in his eyes, glitter on his cheeks, tragic, magnificent, ours.

Ready to Die isn't the missing sequel to Raw Power, but it is a masterclass in writing a big, dumb punk album with occasional touches of emotional depth.

American Goldwing isn't bad, but it's not particularly exciting when you consider the band's usual standards.

It’s also not a record where you’re instantly gripped round the neck, it’s more a gradual clamping before nails start to dig deep into the skin.

This is one of the greatest rock epics to drop through our door in a long while.

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.

All too often, I'm From Barcelona are either forgettable or just beyond cloying.

At times the sheer weirdness and creepiness of the record can be a bit much, but that’s also what makes CocoRosie so great.

It is churlish to dismiss a band after one record, however: there is potential here for so much more. This record, however, is the most irritating one you will have heard in a while.

The general malaise that characterises Outside manifests itself in many forms: 'Mighty Long's overwhelming dearth of meaning, the sluggish pacing of 'People You Know' or the shortlived kick-back against mediocrity that is 'Freak Out'.

Despite the harvest festival charm that carries the record, its heart is here, at its starkest, most honest moments.

What's striking from the outset about Hymns is that little has changed in Davies and Matthews' elegant world of classically-inspired chamber pop.

Falkner manages to set up a sort of production halfway house, which raises everything out of the bedroom, but still burrows deep to the tender core at the heart of Daniel’s songs.

As debut albums go--and while compiling the record the band disposed of nearly thirty songs--this is a fine, upstanding introduction to the tormented world of The Airborne Toxic Event and one that vivaciously whets the appetite in anticipation of what might come next.

This album is full of emotive and nuanced performances, the aches of her heart resonating powerfully. However, the sheen and the bombast of much of the production reeks not just of a kind of entitlement, but of desperation.

Violens have achieved their sound and successfully executed their technique, but are still wanting for purpose.

'Rock N Roll' is the worst record Ryan Adams has ever put his name to; a mess of identikit garage buffoonery and amateurish production, filled with rushed lyrics and written-in-a-weekend tunes.

Although 'Winchester Cathedral' is quite obviously Clinic doing what they do best, it also represents the sound of a band who've clearly broadened their horizons.