It underlines that Pottery have made a record meant for a party that never stops. Bobby’s Motel is surely a place with more to it than meets the eye.

With Chapel Perilous, Gnod have managed once again to create something that is both liberating and, at times, terrifyingly oppressive. 


Admittedly, it isn’t a particularly easy listen, but love isn’t always easy, even if it is always worthwhile.

It's an ethereal end to an album that is both exhausting and exhilarating. Sisterworld is, in musical terms, an interesting place to visit, but you'd definitely not choose to live there.

The Solution Is Restless, by its title alone, does not have all the answers – but its musical debates are gripping. The spectacle of three creative identities finding common ground in a divisive world is both priceless and inspiring.

Love Your Dum And Mad is certainly not an easy listen and demands close attention. But give yourself over to the close, fascinating world Shah inhabits and you will be utterly enthralled.

Most of all though, Wanderer is an album about developing your own identity in an ever-changing, often troubling world. Arguably more than ever before, Cat Power has achieved that goal here.

Whilst retaining the heartfelt beauty of his debut album, it is the subjects tackled on Love And Other Planets and the experimentation with which this is done that really shows Adem is reaching for the stars.

Lonely At The Top is a complex and elusive album: indulging in the sensualities of aural texture whilst retaining a depth of communicative potency.

Songs From Isolation is a gorgeous collection that hits home in these bizarre times. Intense and distinctive, it’s the sound of someone finding solace in music – and that’s something we can all relate to right now.

Maximum Balloon is by no means a perfect album, but there are some fantastic performances to be found (Karen O, Ambrosia Parsley's sultry Pink Bricks). It's a shame that Sitek never steps up to the mic, but when you've got friends like these it doesn't really matter.

On one level I Love The New Sky is simply a collection of engaging songs but on another it’s a call for togetherness, an appeal to stay strong and embrace life. Whichever view you take it’s very much a record for these times.

Lewis has made a striking debut that delights in the most surprising of ways.

While there’s nothing on Electric Lines to match the heart-stopping brilliance of Gabriel or even be as sheer fun as much of The 2 Bears record was, it will satisfyingly sate anyone who feels they’ve been waiting too long for a new Hot Chip album.

It is at once assured and endearingly self deprecating. It has an open hearted appeal that just might make Withered Hand a household name.

Whenever Carpenter sings, the music seems to adopt different qualities--more reflective and melancholy perhaps – but not in an introverted way. Her tone is also brighter and more outward reaching. It is this further meeting of worlds--unforced and compelling--that makes Motorcade Amnesiacs such a successful work.

Blue Hearts finds him upping the ante yet again.

As the last dance at The Afterparty it’s a pretty effective one. If this is to be Lykke Li’s final album, she’s going out on her own terms – a masterful, if rather short, distillation of late night sadness.

The band are renowned for (occasionally controversial) storytelling, with lyrics artfully crafted, stretching their old English vocabulary like the most wordy of literature students; this is still evident but it’s generally less adventurous.

Their debut album is a riotous cacophony of perfectly sculpted indie boisterousness.

It is just one of the many avenues Bowie could have gone down, but the effect of what he has done is fascinating and wholly satisfying.

Big | Brave’s music doesn’t feel in the slightest contrived. This is rock music, for want of a less reductive term, at its exhilarating and imaginative best. In Vital they have created something you can’t quite grasp or capture, yet the invitation to attempt it is all too persuasive.

Chants For Socialists is full of beautifully written and well-crafted tunes.

Chaotic, energised and thrilling, this is Demi Lovato at her very best.

It's tuneful, well-written and beautifully played, and throughout there's no getting away from a Coldplay-esque earnestness.

This is a remarkable album in every sense.

The powerful Santiago Sunrise closes the album, confirming Even In Exile to be an undoubtedly impressive outing, both in terms of being an engaging, impactful set of songs but also as an educational exercise in shining further light on an important musician and cultural figure.

Delphic have started 2010 as we all hope it will go on - with superb music.

Even when the pace becomes more middling and unified towards the end of the album, there’s still a sense of a band taking risks and exploring sound.

It doesn’t quite compete with their very best albums (Ignore The Ignorant and Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever) but it’s at least as good as the next tier (The New Fellas and For All My Sisters). More than anything else, Selling A Vibe is a fantastic entry point for new fans to get on board.

The quality, depth, and otherworldliness that Halstead has achieved here elevates it above being just another folk album.

Hawk represents the finest moment of the Campbell and Lanegan collaborations thus far.

Captivating in all its eccentricities, evocative and groovy in equal measure, with this album Augé well and truly proves himself as an artist in his own right.

Humbug is another intriguing step in the evolution of Britain's most exciting guitar band.

Saving Grace is just a testament to the joy of making music – a true ensemble piece where every voice and every instrument serves the songs.

It’s a glorious anthology of affective, brutally precise top notch electronic pop.

In the face of this conflict, the only other option is to face up to the now, with all the problems and issues that go with it, and the album is at its best when it does just that.

Hysterical marks a significant return to form and fortune for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

The downbeat tone may put some people off, and with the average track lasting a good five or six minutes, it’s true that some degree of patience may be required to get the most out of Yawn. For those willing to invest that patience though, the rewards are vast: Yawn demonstrates just how well Ryder-Jones is evolving as a songwriter.

While some may find the almost gossamer light touch a bit insubstantial, repeated plays will find Radiate Like This weaving its way into your heart. Despite it being a long time in the making, it almost feels like Warpaint have never been away.

For every sledgehammer track, there’s a garlic crusher, destructive in a lightweight and cosmopolitan kind of way.... It’s this lightness of touch and ecleticism that makes the album such a refreshingly undemanding listen.

There are moments on Good Souls Better Angels that recall mid-’90s Neil Young in its focused fury and righteous anger – some may be put off by the rather grim tone, but if you’re seeking a soundtrack for the end of the world, you’ll find none better than this.

They’ve stopped acting the comedian, and with this album they’re practically demanding that the world at large takes notice.

Nevertheless anyone wishing to appreciate not simply the overwhelming skill of a drummer at the very top of his game, but also one of the cleverest, best-constructed, most arresting releases of the year, should certainly pay this album a visit.

It will be intriguing to see where Cass McCombs goes next. A little more light and shade wouldn't go amiss, yet even his dark side is eminently loveable.

While Mumford And Sons may not excel as urbane, multi-dimensional songsmiths, they succeed by virtue of their sheer, unabashed wholeheartedness.

The Big Sleep have presented a collection of often excellent songs of real substance, making for an album that warrants, for the most part, unmitigated attention; preferably through some decent speakers.

In The Shadow Of Heaven, Money have unveiled themselves as an ambitious band, who owe a fair bit to the influences of the city they live in as well as the generations of artist who have been inspired to write thoughtful rock music there.

Beautiful, sad, uplifting, and thoughtful, American Football’s return is definitely something to get excited about, but in a subdued way.

From bow to stern The Chicks take us on a musical boat ride, with infectious top lines you’ll be humming long after the album has ended – just make sure you don’t leave your tights.

With prevalent lyrical themes of death and loss, Ceremony is not music for those seeking sunny summer escapism. Yet when compared to UK gothic revivalists such as Esben And The Witch, it’s an album of striking confidence, immense compositional flair and colossal, richly cinematic arrangements.

While no record of this nature could have presented SOPHIE’s music exactly the way she envisaged it, the album is enjoyable and a fitting addition to her legacy.

This is an occasionally beautiful, often strange album that deserves a wider audience than Christinzio’s previous releases.

Office Politics is, as with most Divine Comedy releases, a record with its finger firmly on the pulse of this zeitgeist.

Reservoir is a neat, considered, and polished piece of work that is unrelenting in its charm.

There might be a song here entitled Failing At Fun Since 1981, but this album is stupidly good fun and, on top of it all, an unmitigated success.

There are very few albums being made quite like this, so do partake.

All in, this is quite a cathartic affair, as Ferry weaves in and out of his enviable back catalogue with vim and vigour and with dashes of melancholy and darkness. Symphonic, cinematic and touching.

Kendrick’s lyrics are as erudite as ever, and he has thankfully backed away from the excessive voiceplay of DAMN., though a few tracks could have been cut to create a more consistent listening experience. That being said, Mr Morale & The Big Steppers should be applauded for its intimacy, a remarkably detailed self-portrait of his unique, troubled mind.

His craft here does have more to do with storytelling than it does with music making, but these haunting, desolate narratives are very much complemented by the lo-fi, repetitive, yet meditative backing tracks, which are ultimately presented like the lost soundtrack to a movie.

By the time we reach final track A Hollow Skeleton Lifts A Heavy Wing it’s noticeable how familiar the songs already seem to feel, a special quality that confirms the album to be significantly greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Of all of the guest-heavy Gorillaz albums, this is by some margin the leanest, meanest and grooviest set of the lot.

It has a satisfyingly gritty texture, more stripped back than a Stones album, and reveals a surprising amount of vulnerable feeling underneath the gunslinger swagger.

This is a band working at the very top of their game, and this album is a beautiful, brilliant beast.

Despite the intro being borrowed from the trailer to American Gangster it essentially reclaims the genre Shawn Carter helped to pioneer from the studio gangstas and plastic pimps that hip-pop is swamped with.

It’s the sound of a band who have slowly taken the time to consider how their evolution should develop, and this deliberation has borne fruit. Wildness may well have grown, but for Gengahr, something rather more long-lasting may have also taken root.

In A Dim Light is a wonderfully challenging, disorientating and immersive work.

More than half of this album is mind-blowing, so it would be nice to leave Sholi with a brain buzzing with that same intrigue, confusion and happiness.

The songs in this collection serve for a timely reminder that hope and consciousness through music still contains some currency - with the added bonus that it's also a fine piece of work in its own right.

Callahan is never anything less than consistent, however, and Apocalypse has an identity of its own.

It’s not quite her Blood On The Tracks, but it’s a record that’s similarly compelling to listen to.

Sleep Mountain, the second long-player from The Kissaway Trail, finds the Danish quintet embracing the more sweeping aspects of rock 'n' roll emotional grandeur. And, in large part, they succeed marvellously.

It’s stupid fun, but In My World is also a surprisingly intelligent release with quite a few surprises.

Altogether a belter of an album, then, as their reputation for consistency prevails once more.

The Main Thing offers no grand statements, no needless experimentalism, no left-turns or tacky rebranding. It’s just Real Estate, doing their thing, and doing it better than anybody can do it, no matter how hard they try.

This is red wine music, no doubt about it, but red wine music for the discerning indie intelligentsia, perfect for a long night where the only ambition you've got left is to sink so far into the floor cushions that you'll never get up again.

A moody yet romantic triumph, The Defenestration Of Saint Martin is far better than anyone could hope to expect from a long-dormant Britpop survivor.

Lease Of Life succeeds in being every bit as bold and accomplished as its much touted predecessor.

You can slice up its track-by-track constitution--a gently sung, interesting turn of phrase here, an evocative chord progression here--but it is a beautiful, haunting creature as a whole, and a poignant testament to the power of simplicity.

The Cornshed Sisters display moments of Joni Mitchell's exquisite songcraft, the choral elegance of The Roches and witty buffoonery of John Grant amalgamating Tell Tales into its own refreshing niche in the ever-expanding folk cartel.

This is a fun indie pop record that will not change anyone's lives but will get you bouncing off walls very easily.

It’s a record that you have to take in as one complete whole. You’ll enjoy individual slices, but won’t be truly fulfilled unless you take a deep dive straight in and luxuriate in all its sonic weirdness and insane brilliance.

Happily The Early Years’ renaissance has been well worth the wait, their second coming blossoming through music that frequently dazzles.

They're bright, breezy, accomplished and catchy, indie-pop at its best.

A Pilgrim’s Tale admirably tells of a fascinatingly swashbuckling adventure into history, but in shining a light on the fate of this people it contextualises how so often that history is authored by the victors.

If you know what's good for you, however, you'll drink the whole album in, because intelligently constructed and musically thrilling records like this are a rare, rare find.

Their end product is one of the freshest and most exciting guitar records since... well, since Field Music (Measure).

Every track is dripping with smooth chords, funk-influenced rhythms and a retro quality to the production, and is all the better for it.

It is pop music for the future – unpredictable, forceful, winsome and primal in equal measure. As long as Aurora is allowed to keep her eyes wide open, the sky really is the limit for this powerful creative force.

They've made an album that is bold and commendable, and nothing like as preachy as it might have been.

Dead Cross is basically a straight up adventure into Hardcore. The result is an album that clocks in at under 30 minutes and doesn’t just sound dead cross, at times it’s positively furious.

With great pop hooks a-plenty, Daydreams And Nightmares amply demonstrates that growing up doesn't always have to be boring.

After almost 20 years together, they’ve produced a record which is both an essential addition to their back catalogue and a hugely rewarding starting point for anyone who has yet to become familiar with their work.

Lyrically, gone is the amusing petulance, and in its place are tales that tug on the heart strings by creating patchwork mind pictures with words. And when Los Campesinos! hit that sweet spot, the results are stunning.

Those who have followed Warp and Nightmares On Wax since their inception will be reassured that all is well in both camps. If anything Shape The Future is one of George Evelyn’s finest achievments, and is all the more affecting for its refusal to be dimmed, keeping a zen-like stance in the face of adversity.

Apparently the band's sixth studio album is their first to be written from electric guitar since their debut Good Feeling, and this shows strongly in the end result.

Out Of Control is, generally, yet another excellent album from a group who may have risen from a lot of people's 'guilty pleasure' to becoming full-on national treasures.

his is a mid-career highlight from one of the finest lyricists and sonic set-dressers this country has produced. It’s a little bit silly, a little bit raunchy and a whole lot of fun. ... Simply put, JARV IS… a winner.