At just 35 minutes in total and with just one track exceeding the three minute mark, the record is a grotty mess of a quickie which nevertheless gets the job done.

It's an anarchic mix which is fun, exuberant and passionate.

Almost certainly his best effort since 2001's "Labour Days," None Shall Pass finds Aesop Rock at the top of his game with a consistent piece of work rather than simply a passable album.

An album which on occasion fails to inspire ends with a sense of unbridled pleasure.

One of the year's early musical highlights.

Here she is doing what she does best--weaving the sounds and statements of the people she's writing about into the song itself.

Long-term Rilo Kiley fans may take their time to warm to Under The Blacklight.... This sees them develop their sound and mature with it.

Hayes has hedged his bets, and it shows. Somewhere amongst these 25 tracks is probably a halfway decent album. It's just swamped.

It's a roots record alright, with a few crumbs of hope amidst the looming sense of armageddon.

Nevertheless, for fans of searing white noise A Place To Bury Strangers will pretty much seem messianic: anyone of a slightly gentler disposition might want to run the other way.

While Roots & Echoes has some ace moments, it steps back from the brink of insanity in a way they've never done before.

Fur and Gold announces Natasha Khan's Bat For Lashes as a talent impossible to ignore and beguiling to behold, an album that, time and again, plucks one away from the mundane and offers a bewitching alternative galaxy of delights.

Cookies is a fairly typical debut album, in that it sees a band define their style and stick to it. No doubt in time they'll develop their sound, but in the meantime if you're after a good soundtrack to a party grab this album, kick off your shoes and get your rocks off.

There are enough excellent moments on War Stories to judge it a success, but there's another sense of missed opportunity hanging over the album.

Overall, Planet Earth is a competent collection of songs that are certainly too good to be given away free.

It's a deserved retrospective, and serves a reminder of how, in the mid 1990s, the band had album buyers eating out of the palms of their hands.

There are too many tracks on here that seem unfinished in a way, content to noodle around for far too long without making too much of an impression.

While you may know what you're getting with a Chemical Brothers album, they remain damn good at what they do.... You get the impression that their next album may have to be a bit more adventurous if they're to survive.

By producing a more polished, more accomplished sheen while The Killers have roughed themselves up and forgotten to shave, the two bands have moved towards a middle ground where they're virtually indistinguishable.

There's absolutely nothing indecisive (or indeed shit) about this album. It's swaggering, full-throttle, full-throated genius.

While the lovely melodies and Vega's hushed vocals make it perfectly good background music, to achieve the full effect you have to listen to those lyrics--she's one of the finest lyricists of recent times.

A record which stares back at you with the appeal of an ex you'd rather not have bumped into.

But for both ["The Heinrich Maneuver" and "Mammoth"], and indeed elsewhere, it's the way in which the elements of the track click into place with a Swiss watchmaker's precision and artistry that really hits home.

There are moments of sheer brilliance on Ga... and due to the band keeping things short and sweet (the album clocks in at about 36 minutes) those moments are rarely far apart.

It stops short of SMD's effort by quite a way, but it's a fine and much welcome showing for a pair of self-professed amateurs.

It's really rather good.

As singles, most of these songs would fly off of the shelves, but taken as a whole album it can get a bit tiring.

Right at the end, they redeem themselves with a romantic little pop ditty that strays into Colourfield territory, with Clarke's scowling, angry young man tones wrapping themselves as well as they can around gentler, less confrontational sentiments. It's the most interesting thing on the album and if they can harness this flexibility a bit more in the future, they might just find themselves lasting the course.

This comeback effort is a huge amount of fun and a reminder that it's great that the Happy Mondays have never completely disappeared.

Whilst Ash's signature energetic punk-pop pastiches are very much in evidence in the shape of "I Started A Fire," "You Can't Have It All" and "Princess Six," it's fair to say that they have managed to explore acres of new territory.

No matter how careful and careworn Bry's immaculate vocal takes are, the band chug along with their muted guitar chords and thudding drums as if it were a mere run-through.

One of the freshest, funkiest, tragic and joyous albums in recent times.

It's eccentric, it's exhilarating, it is, in parts, absolutely insane. Yet it's never less than absolutely compelling, which is what makes The White Stripes one of the greatest bands of modern times.

Kurr's claustrophobic sound causes a restless reaction. For all its fragile beauty, it's at its best in small chunks.

The Queens treading water is still better than watching so many others horribly drowning.

Version is destined to become one of the great party albums of the summer - just playing it once is guaranteed to cheer you up.

With Wild Mountain Nation they present a raucous and varied constellation of souvenirs, rough-hewn but lush, crackling with a weird and lucid energy.

An excellent debut album, full of brash confidence and seductive charm.

An album full of perfect pop songs, which borrow and rework musical themes and motifs from across 40 years of McCartney's career.

The fact that neither side needs the other is why Tromatic Reflexxions works so obscenely well.

With its frequent emotional crescendos, then quiet dying away, Ma Fleur is more than a match for its predecessors, and will undoubtedly cement The Cinematic Orchestra’s reputation as intellectually sustaining performers of beautiful, emotive music.

He has spectacularly failed to make an album that has any bite.

The National were worried that they wouldn't be able to follow up Alligator, that fans would be disappointed. Boxer proves their fears ungrounded - and that Alligator was no one classic wonder.

Where before they gave the distinct feel of a quick side-project for a bunch of talented musicians who were currently in other bands, on Mirrored it's clear that their hearts and souls are in every one of these songs.

Most of the tracks here could have emerged at almost any point between the late 60s and now, but when you're confronted by the sheer bittersweet enthusiasm that van Pelt manages to squeeze into each one, it would be a little unfair to draw up a family tree.

Better then anyone could have hoped.

It is different in many ways, but never neglects the melodic, vocal and lyrical genius that has established, and will continue to establish, his status as one of the all time greats.

The 10 tracks that make up Tales Don't Tell Themselves brief-though-engaging narrative are deeper, more accessible offerings that need those vital extra two or three listens to really sink in.

An album which makes you feel like Maxïmo are parked when they should be in the fast lane.

Björk's mind remains artistically open to just about anything, and on this album she sounds like she's enjoying recharging it with another tranche of skewed new ideas.

What we ultimately get with New Moon feels in part like a Best Of retrospective, but also in part a surreptitious and rather voyeuristic peek at Smith's innermost workings and thoughts.

[They] have returned sounding pretty much exactly the same as they did three and a half years ago.

They manage to create a hefty mass of synth'n'guitar led sound, while remaining friendly and accessible.

This is something we've been waiting a long time for - a truly great Manics album.

A true work of genius by a true eccentric.

If American Doll Posse sees her remain an acquired taste, those who have already been converted are in for a treat.

Given it's gestation, it's fairly amazing that Baby 81 wasn't stillborn. To find it's kicking with such vigor is little short of remarkable.

Mascis' ear-bleeding guitar soloing is ever prevalent, but there's a dynamism in the music here that was missing in previous efforts.

This is a fine album and certainly Feist's best yet.

Everyone involved seems to work well together.

What is most startling... is the amount of emotional depth that Turner's injected into his songs here.

The Nightwatchman is a Molotov cocktail as volatile as any he’s thrown at the barricade of injustice in the past 15 years.

This is a taut, epic and well-rounded piece, dripping in atmosphere.

A fun, engaging record.

This being Cave, classy lyrical dexterity is never far away. But here the fire and brimstone preacher is a little less po-faced than much of his back catalogue, allowing humour (still black as coal) to gain the upper hand.

Cassadaga is everything his fans would expect from him - mournful, moody and full of lovely melodies.

It's a testament to their talent that by their seventh album they're still continuing to develop and reinvent themselves.

This album provides a gateway to a spine-tingling and thought-provoking experience which more than compensates for the intermittent poor man's Bjork moments.

It is also one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful albums that I have heard since its predecessor.

It's lyrically depressing, but if you're down in the dumps about the ills of the world and frustrated by a lack of personal achievement, there's surely not a better companion piece to have to hand as you wallow.

Because Of The Times is Kings Of Leon's best album yet, their most fully realised and mature work to date.

It all makes for a captivating listen or a dreamy forty minutes, whatever your preference - though a possible failing can be found in only occasional glimpses of the human soul.

If it weren't for the big three singles... and the habitually contagious Golden Skans standing well above the rest of the album, there would be nothing new or interesting about Myths.

Like its predecessor, the Kaisers' second album is patchy, but does have moments of brilliance.

You're left feeling like you're listening the audio equivalent of a normally classy mum dressing up in her daughter’s clothing.

At times, it's so relentlessly bouncy and upbeat that you feel like mowing down an entire shopping centre with an AK-47. Yet there's enough promise here to confirm that the hype about Mika is pretty much on the money.

Outlandish and of infinite humour, Octopus is an LP to die for.

Taken end to end, Sound Of Silver is a thrilling, exhilarating ride on a fast machine.

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

Music this sparse, this abandoned and this beautiful... you can never have too much of it.

Thorn's voice will always be a thing of undimmed charm and emotion, but the gulf between the music styles on display here, which flick from 70's disco, piano ballads and electro-pop seem like trying to keep a foot in both camps of the simpler days of her youth, and the ‘hip' dance crowd.

In buying in so emphatically into a US pop/soul template, Stone has effectively erased what made her so intriguing in the first place.

The songs aren't in a hurry to stray beyond mid-tempo and occasionally the production is stodgy... Ultimately though it is a beautiful melancholic album.

Comparisons with his subsequent work are inevitable and this feels like a disappointment when put alongside the more accessible likes of Donuts.

There's enough talent here to suggest that the hype around The View at the moment is thoroughly justified - hats off to them indeed.

It's a superb comeback, and one of the best albums of the year.

The numbers which populate Costello Music are a darn sight better than Carl Barat and Pete Doherty's solo exploits.

Mostly, it's gorgeous stuff.

At some points, you listen and think 'my God, this is actually better than The Strokes'.

Much like their debut, it'll take a few listens to be pulled towards Myth Takes by the force operates at its core.

You could make a fair case for it not even being as good as Funeral – but my oh my, it's close.

Qualities like intelligence, eclecticism and imagination sometimes seem to be in short supply in the music industry - Candylion encapsulates all these qualities and more and deserves a far wider audience than the cult status it will undoubtedly settle into.

For Idlewild fans, especially of the older school, there is more than enough here to warrant a pilgrimage to your local record shop.

One man's pop is another man's weirdness. And weird, The Third Hand certainly is.

Like Oberst, the strength of her songwriting sometimes overshadows the rather interesting things going on in terms of production.

Whilst it might not reinvent the wheel, Vessels is a rewarding slice of indie rock with a pleasing amount of dark psycadelic twist.

Well, in many ways it follows the same tried and trusted formula of their previous three albums - dramatic, emotive and melodic, with guitars very much the centre of attention. Yet this time around the band have progressed to produce a more varied collection of tracks.

Pop Levi is an oddball, an eccentric in the finest English tradition and a man who evokes the effortless, timeless cool of many and varied heroes of modern music's life and times.