Fleet Foxes doesn't leave the stereo. Three, four, five times through-–these songs resonate over and over until they stick for good. A sign of a great record: words fail but a feeling remains.

It has resulted in a not-completely enchanting experience, but an involving and worthwhile one nonetheless. Explore for its many corners of interest.

The Cool Kids’ revivalist format might not remain flavour of the month long enough for their debut LP proper, "When Fish Ride Bicycles," to have much of a commercial impact when it’s released later this year, but this taster ten-tracker of older material certainly leaves a pleasant aftertaste.

Here, all percussion devastates; it pounds away at the insides of Life… The Best Game In Town like a beast caged, packed ready for shipping. Let it loose and all hell’s coming your way.

In the end, what was once an exceptional record is now merely a rather good one. That’s a real shame, but it can’t entirely derail Alphabeat and their purist pop vision.

Truth and parody meshed together in an altogether confusing and ill-conceived manner.

Album two may see an outline of refinement established, but for now their doldrums meanderings are more exhilarating than many acts’ most-accomplished must-haves, making this a two-from-two contender for a top-ten year-end finish.

Perversely given the record’s comprehensive musical overhaul it’s perhaps a surfeit of respect for the source material that proves Anywhere's undoing; for all its undoubted accomplishments there’s a lingering suspicion that this is too safe, too respectable a record to do justice to an artist who remains forever mid-topple from the bar stool in the popular consciousness.

It is a towering, complex achievement and startling progression to boot.

The brisk bout of choral sighing that rounds off ‘I’ll Be Glad’ provides an effective grace note for this hugely likeable record, if underlining slightly the notion of Lie Down In The Light as a worthy, somewhat minor addition to Oldham’s formidable oeuvre.

French Kicks cannot rightly be pegged as a one-trick pony but the formulaic organisation of this record emphasises lushness at the sacrifice of any surprises.

Does this mean Inherit is one for the better-luck-next-time pile? No, because while we’re right to expect more from these three women, their middle of the road still stands heads above much produced by the younger generation of noiseniks.

It’s a mixed bag then: sometimes they hit bull’s-eye, other times they miss the board altogether, but the erratic results reveal a band dragging themselves out of their comfort zone.

Thing Of The Past is a comprehensive collection that dispels any previous notions that its creators are mere one-trick ponies, and as for that other bloke, Devendra what's his name?, Vetiver's identity crisis is surely a Thing Of The Past.

By no means an awful record, but certainly a disappointing one.

Though an admitted level back on the recent disco-drone of "Growing’s Lateral" and even their fantastic EP release of "Living" from last year, these noise troupers have set up a decent new stall.

That’s not to say they don’t come across like an all-singing, all-banging Life Aquatic armed with pots, pans and whatever instrument comes to hand, but from the raw, stamping folk-punk to the string layered sea ditties, All We Could Do Was Sing is much more than it initially lets on.

With Couples they've managed to turn two years of inter-band heartache into an ambitious, forward-thinking pop record that tops their debut by quite some distance.

The Age Of The Understatement is as solid an idea in execution as it is in concept; a record unafraid to reach beyond its obvious limitations and produce a swashbuckling end result that might even broaden a few horizons for fans and players alike.

Nouns is truly psyched, soaring sound.

Awesome offcuts.

These wandering riffs, devastating drum rolls and rollicking motifs will stick with you, but primarily to serve as an appetite-whetting taste of where their makers may venture next.

So while Blue Lambency Downward may not be punk in body, it’s certainly filled with that same defiant spirit.

If French-born London émigrés John & Jehn don’t quite succeed in nailing the stroppy friction of their live shows over the course of their self-titled debut, third base is at least within groping distance.

Everything's The Rush isn't an awful record. Delays don't do awful; they just do okay, and okay might as well be called forgettable, because that's what the first part of this album is.

Both ancient and futuristic, a mildewed signal from a more advanced culture that failed to survive the ice age, Third doesn’t make you pay attention to its desolate contours, but rather stare out of the window, creeping panic causing your mind to dart in a million dark directions at once.

Here there can be no snobbish derision and calls of 'selling out' or playing to the average man; in creating an album showcasing the very best of the band’s talents they have created one so perfectly fit for, as Scott so vividly puts, “the soft, soft static” of popular radio.

Quite evidently her attempt to court an urban audience after the disco leanings of this record’s immediate predecessor-–whatever 'urban' actually means nowadays-–Madonna’s sidestepping outside of her shimmer-pop comfort zone has resulted in a well-intentioned failure of an album that will be a commercial success regardless of any critical indifference.