Scots veterans turn up the orchestra knob and rock.

Icelandic eccentrics grasp for greatness.

Jack the volume up and let Fields suck the air from your lungs.

Great ambitious, hyper-real psychedelia.

Canadian sisters examine love's deceitful ways.

Mark E. Smith successfully negotiates that difficult 28th album.

A thin line between revelation and revivalism, Adams and the Cardinals make an album worthy of high praises.

The Calling will test your emotions, making you feel glowing and comfortable, then useless and helpless.

Comprising 11 beautifully varied trad numbers, The Rocky Road is a big-hearted tribute to the enduring power of Irish folk songs.

‘Amarillo’ Man records Richard Hawley-produced album of songs from Sheffield.

Though this hook-up frequently pushes at the boundaries of plausibility, there's lots about Scream that makes perfect sense.

The rave revival starts here!

Stonking new record from former Lad rockers. Who’d have thought?

West works because it juxtaposes a sense of vulnerability with a desire not to stay down for long, and is tinged with a sense of realism not always present in her rivals.

Hold On Now, Youngster is the proverbial promising debut, brimming with attitude, ideas and oomph. We await their next move with interest.

Chicago duo ride to the rescue of hip-hop--on pimped up BMXs.

Pop go the classics with Sufjan Stevens.

Electro-pop wizards deliver cracking third album.

A powerful collection of passionate, anthemic rockers that will no doubt please their hardcore following whilst winning new converts to the cause.

Erudite, Whiskey-Soaked, alt countryish maverick just keeps getting better.

Middle-aged indie jinks for NYC mainstays.

Former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman channels Alice In Wonderland with tingle-inducing results.

Phillips’ vocal style is of the quietly devastated Erin Moran/Aimee Mann school, backlit by Bacharach-and-Wilson-ish arrangements on ‘Another Song’, ‘Little Plastic Life’ and ‘Flower Up’.

If Lullabies To Paralyze was a strange forest fairytale dusted with desert blues courtesy of Billy Gibbons, Era Vulgaris finds the band holed up in an abandoned funkhouse in the centre of a shady copse, waiting for some strange sexually-contracted fever to pass.

And as folksiness, indieness and bittersweet mournfulness set the tone, it also becomes apparent that this is much better than the words ‘folk’ and ‘indie’ on their own suggest.

The girls play to a new beat in this album, as they focus on evolving their sound while changing up their lineup.

Melody takes precedence on Roots And Echoes, and this makes it stronger and tighter than The Coral’s previous releases.

Zany jinks anew from Hip-hop’s Awkward Squad.