It's not perfect and there are two or three tracks that don't really work, but it's hard not to be won over by the LP as a whole.

Jens sticks to what he knows, combining his spry guitar playing and razor sharp pop sensibility.

Island Universe is a reassuringly confident and energetic album, and suggests a band with enough promise to make even stronger bodies of work in the future.

Do Things represents an admirable sonic development for May and co. Packed full of songs to wile away summers to come, it feels like an undiscovered soundtrack to summers past as well.

Horses And High Heels is another impressive entry in her catalogue, as genuine as anything she's done since the 1979 classic Broken English.

With its 16 tracks clocking in at 63 minutes, it’s the band’s longest album to date and, despite a smattering of classy highlights, it feels laboured and cumbersome. With that in mind, the album as a whole falls short of The National’s best work. Yet it is, in places, an admirable detour.

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.

Now there is an extra dimension, an extra frisson, for like their contemporaries this year (Erasure, Depeche Mode) OMD are bringing some raw feeling to the studio.

It’s unlikely there was any desperate clamour for a new Ratatat album during the duo’s prolonged absence from the scene. Nevertheless, Magnifique is a nice reminder of the band’s command of their tiny, unfashionable corner of the music world.

The addition of electronic elements to her sound here suggests Godmother to almost be like a set of vintage photographs that have been digitally restored. It might not be enough to move her out of the musical shadows (a place she may well feel content to stay) but it shows her capable of pursuing idiosyncratic alternative paths while consolidating her position as a distinctive, singular artist.

It's a curious, rather than classic, record - with the hooks to make the leap to the mainstream, but with enough residual oddness to maintain Goldfrapp's air of mystery a while longer.

Each presents a very traditional, very organically energetic arrangement of a folk standard performed by undeniably contemporary musicians--emphasizing just how current many of these songs have come to sound.

If there’s a critique to be made, it’s that All Worlds sometimes feels like a victory for a race that very few people ever saw. But maybe that’s the point, and the lads just did it for themselves? Like the Golden Record, it’s less about delivering a neatly packaged message and more about sending something out there.

It is in Anthony Gonzalez’ veins to make pop music where the listener will swoon, dream and ultimately smile. Despite the mournful lag in the middle of JUNK, that is what he does once again here--in his own inimitable way.

Hercules have furthered their ambitions on Blue Songs, drawing more of the late-great disco scene into a modern vehicle. Yet it's an album that does many things well but nothing to perfection.

They are a band who want to form a real lasting connection. Diver only sporadically does this, but this is still an album that shows vast promise.

Sudden Elevation is yet another solid display of Arnalds’ talents and is arguably the LP that most newcomers to the singer-songwriter should arrive at first.

Twelve years may have been time to labour too much over some ideas, but there are core moments to this that show an intelligent and important band still stretching the parameters of what’s possible for a rock outfit.

Native Sons is a surprisingly great piece of work by a band who know how to please their fans and accidentally make new ones.

Yet even with his occasional indulgences, No Sad Songs is an impressive comeback.

Renegade is lots of fun, even if it’sa few tracks short of its true potential.

The entire album takes a couple of listens to fully digest – the immediacy of Minimum Rock N Roll entirely depends on your level of excitement about this peculiar type of post-punk.

Flux is a qualified success, then – an ultra-cool album of moody music to listen to in ultra-cool places. Even if you might not be emotionally heated by the end, it subtly makes its mark.

The Golden Archipelago is an admirable achievement: a project that has been meticulously prepared and executed with passion and flair.

While Blue’s electropop soundscapes are hardly a great move forwards from their first two projects, there are genuinely majestic emotional moments to savour here.

This is an album that, once consumed, lies dormant in the mind of the listener, ingrained but not at the forefront, playing in the subconscious; more demanding than background music, but short of immediacy.

Diamond Eyes is an impressive offering from a mainstay band whose time should have already come and gone.

This isn’t the Coxon of Coffee & TV or Freaking Out, nor indeed the Dougall you may remember from the perfect girl-band pop of Pull Shapes. Instead, it’s a mediative, often beautiful record that often has the capacity to surprise and delight. Just be sure you like saxophones.