By turns danceable, blissed out romantic, familiar and new, it's technologically and musically fascinating. Its juxtaposition of orga and mecha is one of its many well executed contradictions. Packed but sparse, thrilling, complex, innovative, simple. Without even a dud bar never mind a filler track, In Rainbows is more than any fan could hope for.

They are like nothing you've ever heard before and everything you one day hoped you would, too strong for the charts and too corrupting for MTV.

Sex, Death & The Infinite Void resembles The Rocky Horror Picture Show if you were to watch it on a rollercoaster in the dark: it’s thrilling, coquettishly idiosyncratic, and filled to the brim with palpable pride at their lack of creative limits. If it’s one thing no critic could ever say Creeper lacks, it’s ambition, and here it really pays off.

Strange Boys are not revivalists, and they're not out of touch. Instead, they offer exactly the kind of rock 'n' roll slap in the face we need in this angular, post-modern 2010. The garage hasn't sounded this good in a long time.

No Thank You could be forgiven for resembling a victory lap, but it is a triumph in its own right, cementing Little Simz’s position as one of rap’s essential voices.

Not since The Strokes exploded into our consciousness in 2001 with Is This It has a band delivered such a sharp and concise debut.

The simple truth is, you won't find a sadder yet more uplifting album all year.

Endless Arcade might be an album of recalibration and evolution, but it’s also one that more than holds its own against the lofty peaks scaled earlier in their career.

It’s a vital record that’s a blast of clarity in a muddy, chaotic world.

X is their 10th album, and although some of the youthful bombast contained in the likes of Richter Scale Madness or Perfectly Natural might have been toned down somewhat, the band has managed to retain the essence of what made them such an exciting proposition back at the end of the 1990s.

The whole record is exhilarating, a bustling house party where the aux is only ever passed judiciously.

It’s possible that Oczy Mlody will disappoint those looking for an easy hit, or the sound of old-school Lips, but for those willing to persist and explore, it’s a work of nuance and intelligence.

If Afrique Victime tells us anything, it’s that Mdou Moctar’s fire and passion are drawn from his homeland. The results are staggering.

Whatever El Guincho's debt to Panda Bear, the decision to keep Alegranza! in the mama tongue lends it a genuine other-wordliness unlikely to be found in the well-traversed topography of American music.

We find Omni changing the formula only slightly and having incredible success with it. Highly recommended. Underrate them at your peril.

Voices also feels like a celebration and validation of music itself – its capacity for profundity and to be a conduit for ideas. The world may be going through an unprecedented period of difficulty, but Voices is an album that will no doubt prove a worthy, supportive companion throughout.

With Pilgrimage Of The Soul, MONO have given us an album that can confidently stand alongside As The Love Continues and G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!

This music is restless but keenly aware, finding common ground and intersections between a range of source material and contemporary contexts and, most importantly of all, delivering these songs with honesty, conviction and genuine feeling.

Miraculously, the whole thing hangs together perfectly, each song complementing the last and what should be a mess of disparate influences, becomes a cohesive whole.

This is a difficult album to find fault with--not only on an immediate, aesthetic level, but also on a more considered, objective one.

Fortunately the lack of ambition displayed during the album-naming sessions doesn't correspond to this work's contents. It's a bold, dramatic, more than a little screwed-up and stunningly exciting statement.

On only a few listens, it’s clear that Mediation Of Ecstatic Energy is by far the most dynamic of not only these releases but of Wong’s entire career, not only on an instrumental level, but on an emotional level.

If you like your music with the psychedelic layers of The Field and subtle atmospherics of Joy Orbison, Blondes have so much to give.

This is a remarkable album, even for an artist as consistently strong as Susanne Sundfør has been to date. It reaches into the centre of the human heart with primal connections that probe at its very existence. It is another striking addition to the discography of a singer who just keeps getting better and better.

These intense, dramatic songs are the perfect companion to these times – at long last, The Anchoress is stepping out of the shadow of her famous friends to show that she’s an almighty talent in her own right.

Where its predecessor found Plant operating in a finely-tuned genre, Band Of Joy gives him an opportunity to explore his influences, and to colour a few choice odds and ends from the rock 'n' roll canon with his indelible mark.

Never content to hinge on traditional modalities, this surprisingly resilient and provocative collection reveals how Allen and friends triumphed against social barbarism and cosmopolitan functionality. As the title succinctly attests, there was seemingly no end to the late musician’s skill, and thankfully no end to the legacy he created for others to benefit from.

Gibbons and Penderecki deserve enormous credit for their approach, which is at once determinedly studied but also gloriously instinctive, Gibbons getting to the very heart of the music and the way it is made with her whole heart.