In the end, Keep Calm And Carry On is a forgettable, throwaway stopgap, a dog-eared blast of mediocrity in the career of a mainstay band.

There is some real chemistry here, but for the third album, it may be advisable to pay more attention to quality control in order to make the truly epic album that is doubtlessly lying somewhere within The Dead Weather.

The National have pulled off a neat trick here - an immediate, commercial album that grows with each listen. While High Violet is patently as good as its antecedents, it is also very much its own beast.

The music's catchy, sure, and this time round it's undeniably uplifting in both tone and substance, but there's precious little about Night Train that's surprising enough to elevate it out of the realm of song-of-the-moment radio pop.

It won't be to everyone's tastes and it's clear with a name like theirs they won't be appearing on Fearne Cotton's playlist anytime soon, but there's an energy and vitality to Latin that's impossible to deny.

Weird it may be, but when CocoRosie get it right, as with the cutesy pop and dark piano melancholy mix of Lemonade, or the beautiful ethereal balladry of the title track for example, they are unstoppable.

It's lo-fi at its finest and a contender for one of the more impressive debuts of the year so far. Fans of the genre will lap it up and with very good reason: it's short, sharp and straight to the point.

This is ambience in which to indulge, though occasionally the structure of the songs becomes ragged, as if a little bit too much late night medication has been taken on board. That doesn't spoil any of the songs, but it just makes them that bit weirder.

It's a rootsy album that is delivered faithfully and respectfully, but one where the strong, clear voice of its author cuts through powerfully.

This whole album holds together in a way that their debut didn't. It's a bold step forward that commands respect and suggests that they may have some longevity.

Their loud, rough and tumble early efforts on Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday have combined nicely here with a sense of southern rock and pop rock from the past few albums to produce another gem for an amazingly consistent band with plenty of room left to grow.

Your Future Our Clutter is a tight, coherent, rock-out album--and it's great to see some discipline back in The Fall after years of scrappy offerings.

Forgiveness Rock Record might lack the romance of Funeral but it's far more alive than Neon Bible, with an urgency and energy that invigorates rather than drains.

Proclamations of his greatness may be slightly exaggerated, but Cosmogramma certainly adds to a deservedly growing reputation.

Together is certainly far-reaching in its ambitions, and it often seems close to collapsing under the combined weight of all its collaborators, but it never falters, despite its dangerous dance. The New Pornographers have taken a risk in fussing with their sound, but in large part it's paid off beautifully.

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

These songs, penned by such as Ennio Morricone, Mina and Fred Bongusto, have been treated with the utmost respect. Patton has ensured that they are as authentic as possible by employing a 15-strong band together with a 40-piece orchestra.

There is little doubt they will be soundtrack composers in the years to come, but this is their bread and butter, and makes for an extremely impressive addition to an already formidable canon.

It's a work of craft from a continually rewarding, continually American, singer-songwriter.

If the world wants to point at the band's best album it's easily Planet of Ice, but if we're in the business of recognizing a group's ethos, Omni stands as the prime example of what Minus The Bear want to achieve.

Overall, this is a fine debut album that does exactly what it says on the tin. While they won't win any points for innovation, Two Door Cinema Club are going to find their way into a lot of people's hearts during 2010.

Like most Hole albums, Nobody's Daughter has flashes of inspiration but is generally weighed down by inconsistency and too many songs that sound like they were phoned in.

For those that can stand the fact that this lot really do possess some talent, this might be another slice of Sub Pop to add to the collection.

Gilmore has merely rendered Fever more American market-friendly and given it a strong flavor of stateside nu-metal. It's a pattern that is just too repetitious, too anodyne and just plain insipid.

Rick Rubin has shaped their songs, smoothing down some of their rougher edges, but the end result is as rich and diverse as ever, helping them fulfill their musical mission with more focus, yet without compromising their eccentricity or their trusted formula.

This may be her strongest set of songs yet and, even if not every one of its experiments quite comes off, at least these are indicative of an artist who's not content to cruise on auto-pilot.

V.V. Brown is a prodigious talent who deserves to have a hit record, even if it's just to reward all the hard work that has clearly gone into this debut.

Sleep Mountain, the second long-player from The Kissaway Trail, finds the Danish quintet embracing the more sweeping aspects of rock 'n' roll emotional grandeur. And, in large part, they succeed marvellously.