There are no secrets, just affecting music. Paper Airplanes is another breath of fresh air from a now legendary band.

Tomboy once again sees Lennox creating a distinctive, hypnotic sound-world - but it sometimes feels too much like a world from which there is a strong desire to escape.

C'Mon is a pause for breath, a likeable but slight addition to an impressive back catalogue.

Nine Types Of Light is another strong early contender for album of the year.

Wasting Light sounds like the work of a band with something to prove, rather than the work of one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

Alexander is a thoroughly enjoyable LP, but one that comes across as ever-so-slightly lightweight.

There's the sense that Wild Palms are a band who desperately want to create their own world but Until Spring never quite manages to draw you fully into its bubble.

The final results are of such subtle beauty they take the breath clean away.

Euphoric Heartbreak is a more accomplished, interesting piece of work; a brutal but exhilarating listen. Yet without the hype that surrounded its predecessor, and with a distinct change of tact, it might struggle to find its natural home.

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

For the most part however, this is a focused and enjoyable stomp.

Hunx And His Punx are happily basic, and that has resulted in a half-hour of impeccable golden-age pop, but there's certainly no great cosmic significance here. Yet it's still easy to get excited about a half-hour of impeccable golden-age pop, and in that mindset it's well worth a few spins.

For the tale is only partially told here - which, when you compare The Most Incredible Thing perhaps unfavourably to the great ballets of the 19th or 20th centuries, is the one thing most obviously lacking. For now we should admire the abilities of Tennant and Lowe to move from structures of four minutes to those of an hour and a half, and hope this encourages them to continue in a form in which they have made a very listenable start.

This album ought to further Bibio's reputation as a talented producer, capable of bending his music to fit several styles at once without making it sound forced, which is quite an achievement.

Cold Cave are not shooting for nuance; the tracks here all beg to be the highlights, striving for anthemic bliss without any modesty.

It's an album that deserves the limelight, regardless of how it got there.

Kassidy have proved they're as serious about recording as they are performing and if their debut album is any indication, they're in it for the long haul.

Submarine is the sound of the real Turner emerging to the surface, and it offers a depth charge to the age of the lazy movie soundtrack.

Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis (a husband and wife duo from Madison, Wisconsin, the latter formerly a member of Numbers) have toned down the noisier elements of their sound without sacrificing interest or depth to create this, the most successful of their two full lengths so far.

Four square club rhythms are jettisoned in favour of a series of weirdly compelling sound collages, in which percussion and electronics combine together in natural and seemingly effortless improvisations.

Much of, if not all of What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? suffers from a complete lack of intelligence, candidness or originality: elements that help make guitar-based music interesting.

Any one of these songs has the potential to be a dance floor filler and that's what they've been designed for. There is nothing too original here, nothing big nor clever neither, but then if you like guitars and songs about teenage love you're going to be well catered for.

For a record that veers between hit and miss, there is a certain amount of charm and vibrancy that keeps one coming back for more.

All Eternals Deck sees The Mountain Goats deliver their most assured sound and Darnielle his most profound poetry.

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

Stark yet still overtly dramatic, it's an astonishing showcase of confessional songwriting.

Though it has become something of a tired old format in much incidental music for the moving image, Greenwood shows how the string orchestra remains a descriptive force in the right hands.

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