This is a blissful, radiant, rewarding listen; one recommended without hesitation.

It might not quite pay off as an album in the traditional sense, but in the era of iTunes playlists and vanishingly brief attention spans, Mugiboogie comes packed full of valuable ammunition.

Where Adele sounds like a method actor, Marling weaves secretive threads of thought that suggest she’s agonised over things long enough for them to come together with a thud in plain-spoken full stops.

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.

The cumulative effect--somewhere around being lifted into the heavens by sunrays--is at odds with the continuous black clouds that come before. Yet it’s a necessary chink of light to conclude a journey so oppressive you may just forget to breathe through its duration.

By its very nature this is a more cohesive work than "Cassadaga," and a fine, true one at that: evocative, sporadically inspired and resoundingly enjoyable, repeat plays paying dividends.

Preteen Weaponry’s psychedelic rout may be far from their finest hour, but it serves to remind all that these jesters should belong as part of the furniture.

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.

Okay, so it’s a bold change in direction, and while that’s laudable, there’s very little differentiation, which makes for a frustrating, often banal long-player.

It’s this seamless motion and playful interplay that makes Polar Bear such a thrill; they seem to know exactly what to do and when – when to surprise, when to comfort, when to excite, when to calm.

Four albums in thirteen months may have led to a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but it still feels like the first half of this album is treading water from a songwriting point of view. The second half is a fine musical journey, and if this were a vinyl record (it soon will be) then maybe you'd just put side two on repeatedly.

It's an album peppered by moments of brilliance and not held back by its few brave failures and one that no one can have reasonably expected the talented quartet to have come up with.

This debut--while not a technically poor album, boasting as it does pop hooks aplenty if you truly focus in, beyond the sometimes irritating vocal tennis--sags where it should soar, dips where it should peak.

It’s not as good as its makers’ first, given the flatness of the overall production which falls well short of capturing the dynamism of the band’s live show.

Something For All Of Us isn't going to change anything for any of us--Canning will go back to doing whatever it is he does in Broken Social Scene, Drew will remain its fire eye'd leader, and the Presents... series is profoundly unlikely to shift a single unit to anyone not already a BSS fan. But in his own quiet way Canning has both proved and defined himself.

Even when 03/07 – 09/07 seems too cute or too pussy it’s still kind of heartening. Sincere environmentalism isn’t the sort of thing the ironic, narcissistic hipster hordes usually go for, so High Places must be doing something right, right?

It’s a five-tracker with bite, with venom; it’s a reminder that while de la Rocha might age like the rest of us, the fires in his belly haven’t come close to being doused by mundane revivals of his most famous group’s mosh-happy hits.

Well, there is a lack of faults, sure, but there’s not a lot that grabs hard.

They turn critics into gibbering wrecks unable to write proper reviews and leave us forced to just string together our favourite lyrics like a damn teenage girl scribbles Tokio Hotel choruses onto her bed headboard. But, y’know. Hairier.

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.

This is not just the band’s worst record, it’s also the worst record with any profile to be released this year.

It sits alone in his cannon as being slightly uncomfortable but in turn is a brilliantly concise work (it runs to a little over 30 minutes).

Hammond does successfully replicate the pop-rockin’ sounds of the past and does it with considerable style to spare.... But like many students attempting to impress their teachers, much of ¿Cómo Te Llama? fails to push things past the established curriculum set by the originators.

LP3 will keep a handful of indie-rockers happy but may not satisfy listeners looking for Daft Punk danceability.

Nude With Boots is an enjoyably acerbic listen, with a decent spread of compositional variety, that empties its acid bath just occasionally enough to give its audience time to towel off the waves of tumultuous noise.

She could drop the dodgy cover of ‘Norwegian Wood’ and probably should, but that misstep aside this record’s an engagingly oddball, enchantingly out-there piece of avant-pop that could, with just a little more exposure, be celebrated as one of 2008’s best leftfield albums.

The man wants so much to create a ‘70s-apeing epic, but fails. Yet that's not to say this is a bad record per se, it's just that Knapp's whole Son, Ambulance project has a good few obvious clangers dragging it down.