This is a delightful record, plain and simple.

This is a collection of solid, excellently-produced and sporadically brilliant alternative songs, and nothing more.

There are some mis-steps--California English employs Auto-Tune about two years too late--but overall this is a fine follow-up to their successful debut.

Fridmann's production has given the band a whole new environment in which to play, and they've had their fun whilst making great, powerful music in the process.

Heartland is nothing new and in no way groundbreaking. But no-one else combines such intricate classical styling and technology to such pop-savvy effect.

Laura Veirs makes an excellent case for herself as one of the most under-recognised singer-songwriters working today and the album's summery soul lingers long after first listen.

Eclectic, calming and yet strangely energetic, his music is well worth getting acquainted with.

Arguments of purpose and meaning aside, Animal is an infectiously good dance-pop album, and by all meaningful estimations, a towering triumph

Chant Darling is an album that won't leave a massive impression on first listen, but there's a definite charm that keeps you coming back for more.

Stronger With Each Tear, as with most R&B albums, attempts to cover all bases and as such feels a little all over the place. Thankfully, there's enough here to cover the cracks that appear when she's taken out of her comfort zone, which, as much as it shows diversity, seems an odd place to want to leave when the results are often so spectacular.

Throughout the album's remaining 13 tracks, the experience is not unlike watching a flower bloom in time-lapse; this one's about Keys stepping away from safety, and the whole thing benefits beautifully from her sense of daring.

Snoop blends the old rap feel with the new style and adds some things to the mix along the way.

Plenty of time is wasted on auto tune, to the detriment of almost all the album's vocals.

These are very much Shakira songs, not merely songs produced by The Neptunes.

We have an album that opts to cater for the variety of fans that flock to support Rihanna in her time of trouble. It's a diverse work. But this so happens to be its biggest setback.

It's taken a while to get here, but Ultraviolet finally introduces a fresh talent who may not have too much to say just yet, but what's going on in the background goes some way to making up for such deficiencies.

Comparisons with Older are revealing, for Robbie sounds a bit world weary here at times, and the orchestrations are layered on thickly in an attempt to bring some brightness to the grey. Sometimes this works--with the electro swagger of Bodies a case in point--but other times the colour is a pasty, codeine white.

Featuring some of the most inventive producers in pop and steered by a singer who knows her way round a catchy melody or five, Don't Stop is one of the best pop albums of 2009.

Less predictable was her now clear desire to take risks and step off the all-too-well-forged path of safe, agreeable background music. Instead, on The Fall Norah Jones chooses to defy categorization.

The ingredients, and the musical personalities, combine to make a very intriguing and invigorating listen.

Considering the album starts so strongly, Them Crooked Vultures could have delivered a classic, finely toned EP; but, as it is, it's a little flabby.

If you relish a challenge, and like music to brace you as much as entertain you, then this should fit the bill. Like no-one else very much, but very much herself, it is one woman's raw, open and compelling testament.

The Cribs have always been a cut above their Yorkshire contemporaries, and Ignore The Ignorant demonstrates exactly why.

After 30 years since their first incarnation, has the flowing fountain of creative inspiration finally run dry for the Bunnymen?

Only Revolutions is just the kind of record to turn a cult following into a fair market share of the collective rock 'n' roll unconscious.

When you get him on his own he's up for a big night out. Just don't expect him home til dawn.

This is yet another one of those records about escapism, yearning for a bolt of light in the dark, an end to normality. And it finds it, to almighty effect; producing the kind of rapturous charge that no bedroom-dance record has ever assembled before.

Overall, Phrazes For The Young is a successful departure from The Strokes' straightforward brawn, but it's not as different as it's been billed.

Overall, this one's largely forgettable, and plays primarily as a jokey--if not well produced--one-off continuation of The Red Album.

Morrissey's non-album material has traditionally been impeccable, but Swords is not complete in terms of extra material from the past decade. Nevertheless, taken only as a somehwat arbitrary collection of songs, Swords still excels.

World Painted Blood may not be Reign In Blood, but it finds Slayer close to their best.

It shows more strings to his bow, with full on reckless hedonism mixing freely with cool electro. It's a heady, intoxicating brew.

Night Music is the sort of album that demands an active listener, that brings all those lurkers in the lobby of the mind into full view.

Adamson mixes genres and sounds, blending and pitch-shifting, looping and deconstructing to create his most focused (though it may not sound that way on first listen) effort to date.

The Mary Onettes have mastered the art of writing catchy four-minute tunes without compromising themselves, but nor do they take any risks.

One can't escape the feeling that, for a writer and performer of Banhart's undoubted talents, this album sees him rather treading water, and failing to match the originality of his persona with correspondingly original or engaging material.

If you're in the wrong mood it can be a touch wearing by the end, but more often than not this is 21st century funk gone right.

It's primal, life-affirming and powerfully personal, demanding to be heard.

The loud, distorted, lo-fi West Coast tone dominates the album, and this is the terrority where Goldstein performs most engagingly. Where he attempts a more stripped-down approach (on Fall, or the ukelele-led title track) the results are less successful.

Cosmic Egg is the kind of album you'd quite happily pop on for the first part of a road trip while you're full of enthusiasm, but it'd quickly get changed at the first toilet stop.

Producer Will.I.Am's contributions are, for the most part, utterly bland and lacking in bite. The sanitised R'n'B of Heaven is embarrassing with a generic construction that feels as if he went to a superstore and it took it off the shelf.

On that first listen, then, Fits is unlikely to come off well....By the third, you're clamouring for tickets to see them live.

It's a bold, inventive record that bristles with energy and passion.

Turning The Mind represents something of a disappointment.

And such are the music's joyous highs, subtle thrills and rich and deep layers, they can undoubtedly be judged one of the most worthwhile and special bands currently at large.

Logos doesn't displace Microcastle as Cox's masterwork to date. But it's an intriguing, often beautiful addition to a rapidly expanding body of work that has seemingly boundless potential.

For the length of the album, at least, Kings Of Convenience do a standup job of convincing the listener that loud is long forgotten, and in these violent, uncertain times, quiet is king.

The BQE is a lushly extravagant score that merges quite easily into Sufjan's grand catalogue. All who lend an ear to his opus will look upon the titular thoroughfare with a kinder eye, even if that view does not have the benefit of reminiscence.

I Told You I Was Freaky is a smart, funny, musically vast album, giving everyone's favorite kiwis a chance to broaden the canvas of their twitchy, awkward, displaced brand of comedy.

Pavement fans expecting similar lo-fi experimentation may be disappointed with The Real Feel, but anyone who appreciates organically structured rock songs should love this album.

There's nothing here that's going to surprise anyone in the slightest, but this is sleekly produced, brilliantly written and expertly executed radio fodder.

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

To write it off too early would be criminal, as Embryonic represents The Flaming Lips at their most awkward, most engaging, and most creative.

The attention to detail where texture and colour is concerned is the crowning glory with the Engineers.

This is a truly astonishing effort; a crowdpleaser and a call to arms--now let's go and change the world.

For a debut album it's brilliantly realised and contains not an inch of flab across its 11 songs. Debut album of the year? It's beyond doubt.

On the strength of his recent chart performances, Harris is currently riding a crest of a wave, so he's clearly doing something right. But it feels like he's sacrificed some of his creativity in favour of simplistic and unimaginative output.

At the moment, though, it appears as though this is one twee-pop album that simply doesn't pop.

It's a second album that builds on the success of the debut, expanding the sound without losing any of what made Jamie T so interesting in the first place.

Love 2 is a triumph, effectively representing a now veteran act capable of returning to its roots yet managing still to produce novel results.

For the main part, The Life Of The World To Come is so familiar as The Mountain Goats that it seems rather lazy.

Listeners who enjoy acts such as The Flaming Lips, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, Superchunk and Neil Young would also enjoy Built To Spill. No, really, they would. And There Is No Enemy would be a pretty good place for those listeners to begin their investigations.

It turns out to be much more than just the sum of its influences. It's evocative when it could just be shamelessly retro.

This is simply a collection of well-crafted songs, honestly and simply arranged and delivered, and as such very much worth a listen.

This is a definite progression from their earlier material and if this is an indication of where the band is ultimately headed, then Exploding Head is likely to be the first of some very exciting albums.

Hockey are not yet the finished article and are still finding their sound, but judging from Mind Chaos they're having a bloody laugh looking for it.

Kurt Vile: 50% Velvet Underground; 50% The Jesus And Mary Chain. Childish Prodigy: 50% Velvet Underground & Nico; 50% Darklands.

Naming a band The Very Best may seem like posturing, but on the evidence of Warm Heart Of Africa they're on to something.

A welcome snapshot, for it is that, of the Brakes live experience, in which there is absolutely no padding, total passion and commitment, and the odd wistful aside away from the bluster.

Go Hard is worth a listen, if only to laugh at all the bravado.

The Liberty Of Norton Folgate may just be the best thing they have ever recorded.

So far 2009 belongs to La Roux, the rest are just playing catch-up.

Though it's commendable to stick with one set of producers to give a sense of cohesion, Memoirs could have done with some variation.

With instantly infectious attitude and a seemingly unending supply of irresistible hooks, Brand New Eyes comes close to perfecting the emo-rock art.

With fewer studio effects and electronic twiddles, Crash Love is a simpler rock record than its US number one predecessor "Decemberunderground." If anything, it's better however, and shows that while fusing goth, punk and pop doesn't need to be rocket science, when AFI are involved it's very definitely an artform.

Here's hoping that the pleasant-at-best Yeah Ghost is but a wispy, passing apparition, and not a haunting omen for similarly ineffective work in the future.

Never judge a book by its cover, they say, but with Cymbals Eat Guitars it's fine to do just that--the lush green grass and dense vegetation of their own artwork accurately reflected in their own music.

This soundtrack is a successful exercise in painting pictures with music.

The Collective may have broken up, reformed and been on the comeback trail for the last 18 months or so, but it is heartening to see that they are still putting out material as strong as this, and are still capable of being an off-centre, welcome and relevant voice in 21st century hip-hop

So in summary if you are looking for an album that could almost double up as an engrossing series of short stories, with tales from the darker side of life and love, then you could certainly do worse than dip into this album.

This new project is hardly a bandwagon-shaped whim. Instead, Fool's Gold, the album, has been made with genuine passion and a desire to pay homage to something its creators clearly love.

Ian Brown just keeps on getting better. As it stands, his way seems like the only way to go.

It's an LP wrought for enjoyment, and whichever peers it name-checks, whichever influences it acknowledges, it meets its remit with flair.

These twelve tracks make for diverting and beguiling company for the fifty or so minutes spent with them.

Like its predecessor, The Boy Who Knew Too Much is an eclectic work, lurching between exuberant pop, vaudevillian knees-ups, disco and sombre ballads. Mika would probably describe the album as 'kaleidoscopic', but it can come across as scattershot and unfocused.

The end result is a pleasing, intimate experience by no means out of context with the rest of Gray's catalogue.

There's a breathtaking array of bleeps, quirks, bits and bobs popping up to keep the boogie busy and the mind attentive.

It is because of this collaborative rejuvenation that Monsters Of Folk is a worthwhile endeavour, a stirring album and an outfit that is as nourishing for its constituent members as they are for it.

Created by two genuine outsiders and made with a refreshing lack of irony, Album is a welcome addition to the very best albums of 2009.

It desperately needs some kind of visual accompaniment to, at least, add a cinematic legitimacy to the sound's sporadic mood swings. Worthwhile? Probably. But the world waits for the proper return of Bon Iver.

Truelove's Gutter is yet another showcase for Hawley's subtle genius. Every sound on the album, from the notes to the vocals, is warming and rich with sensations.

Sure, it is unfocussed and diffuse in places, but it still succeeds in deploying the several and varied voices of its collaborating creators to produce something that ultimately just about hangs together with a valiant, if tattered sort of coherence.

It has been a long wait for a British album like this, the kind that transcends age group appeal and inspires cool kids to form bands and geeky kids to lose themselves in music's history.

Forget The Night Ahead is the reassertion of The Twilight Sad's brutal art. But reassertion can so easily slide into repetition, as is occasionally the case here.

Overall, there's nothing much here for even Wainwright obsessives to get excited about. Buy it as a companion for the far superior DVD, or if you're desperate for a souvenir of the Release The Stars tour. Otherwise, this is strictly for completists only.

A compilation of soundtrack pieces shouldn't work on paper, but these evocative tracks stand up well after being separated from their original context.

The Pains are unquestionably good at what they do. It's just that the dreamy Scandopop thing is rife, and this band don't really bring anything new to the table.

There's a party to be had and Dizzee's in charge, but don't forget to engage your brain for at least some of it.