It grows, fades and breathes like an album should, it provides enough singles to make it the envy of many a record, and it also demonstrates what a perfect stem the original TKOL was.

Yes, it sounds like you're now entering Bluejam, but Lynch discovered the place, and instead of quitting cinema to make an album that's being called his debut, it sounds more like he's coming home.

Remarkably the chuck it all in and see what happens approach works, mainly because the superb sheen of production papers over any cracks. What we are left with is an inescapably solid album.

Dulli isn’t in Johnny Cash’s league yet -- then again, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits are the only people who are -- but 'She Loves You' marks him out as a fellow traveller.

A New Nature breathes more freely than anything this group has ever produced before and, as such, showcases a more confident and coherent band than one may reasonably have expected.

If All I Was Was Black contains performances as powerful as any she has given.

This is not a wild departure from either of the duo’s bands, but it is a pleasingly fruitful one.

With rave reviews in Venice, The Master will undoubtedly earn its share of awards, and, if this soundtrack is anything to go by, it deserves to.

Consistently, from beginning to end, on Suck My Shirt, The Coathangers have shown themselves to be songwriters of real ability.

It’s hard to know whether he’s released the most cohesive, and immediate, collection of songs first, or as the series goes on it’ll get more abstract and ethereal. Either way this is an artist, and series of releases, to embrace and get excited about.

It's intrinsically a strange album though, trapped somewhere between The Knife, Nineties acid house, Kraftwerk, New Order’s Technique album, and literally anything Eno did in the Eighties, but the warped pop sensibilities and gloriously plastic production make it a hidden gem.

Nothing Valley is carefully orchestrated disarray, and it’s a hoot. Melkbelly have created a thrillingly unprocessed debut bursting with noisy imagination.

The overall effect is that of a fully original piece of music, extremely relaxing and imaginative, which effortlessly creates the suggested atmosphere of haunted places for the listener.

El-P has masterfully used New York’s dark corners as a productive muse on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead.

Whilst they dream of a home that can no longer be found, there is some comfort to be found here in the new family they are building around them with the power of their music.

The record is alive. It has punch, guts, heart, all the things you would hope for really, whilst at the same time maintaining the central potency of what made Ghostpoet so great in the first place: that voice, delivering paeans to lost love and the reality of life like really no-one else can.

Human Performance sees Parquet Courts deliver ideas with laser accuracy.

Indeed, as their debut for Kills Rocks Stars, Now We Can See is an album fit to carry the torch in 2009 for one of the underground’s most fearlessly exciting labels.

A fun, but deeply human, record.

Hummingbird feels wiser, grander, and more knowing.

You Want It Darker is a succinct journey into the psyche of a man who knows his career is at an end, but that isn’t going to stop him going out on a high.

Unflesh is a truly brilliant piece of work, and the sound of an artist trailblazing through as of yet uninhabited territory--here's hoping it's only the beginning.

Maze of Woods is a superb record and one that should give confidence in the continued potential of the band.

At its core, Bad News Boys is a joyous celebration of all things rock'n'roll by two guys who seem to have it running in their blood.

This is one made like they used to make 'em--and it's utterly gorgeous to boot.

The Lost Tapes isn't an easy album to listen to, but then that was never the case with Can. Nonetheless, as the years pass and more bands form, by default their influence grows, which makes this a fascinating addition to any collection.

Brutal, violent and disturbing though it may be, its surreal hybrid of human and simulation has some strange beauty to it.

Complex of subject matter and sound, Player Piano could have been weighed down by intricacy.