This is a delightful record, plain and simple.

This is a collection of solid, excellently-produced and sporadically brilliant alternative songs, and nothing more.

There are some mis-steps--California English employs Auto-Tune about two years too late--but overall this is a fine follow-up to their successful debut.

Fridmann's production has given the band a whole new environment in which to play, and they've had their fun whilst making great, powerful music in the process.

Heartland is nothing new and in no way groundbreaking. But no-one else combines such intricate classical styling and technology to such pop-savvy effect.

Laura Veirs makes an excellent case for herself as one of the most under-recognised singer-songwriters working today and the album's summery soul lingers long after first listen.

Eclectic, calming and yet strangely energetic, his music is well worth getting acquainted with.

Arguments of purpose and meaning aside, Animal is an infectiously good dance-pop album, and by all meaningful estimations, a towering triumph

Chant Darling is an album that won't leave a massive impression on first listen, but there's a definite charm that keeps you coming back for more.

Stronger With Each Tear, as with most R&B albums, attempts to cover all bases and as such feels a little all over the place. Thankfully, there's enough here to cover the cracks that appear when she's taken out of her comfort zone, which, as much as it shows diversity, seems an odd place to want to leave when the results are often so spectacular.

Throughout the album's remaining 13 tracks, the experience is not unlike watching a flower bloom in time-lapse; this one's about Keys stepping away from safety, and the whole thing benefits beautifully from her sense of daring.

Snoop blends the old rap feel with the new style and adds some things to the mix along the way.

Plenty of time is wasted on auto tune, to the detriment of almost all the album's vocals.

These are very much Shakira songs, not merely songs produced by The Neptunes.

We have an album that opts to cater for the variety of fans that flock to support Rihanna in her time of trouble. It's a diverse work. But this so happens to be its biggest setback.

It's taken a while to get here, but Ultraviolet finally introduces a fresh talent who may not have too much to say just yet, but what's going on in the background goes some way to making up for such deficiencies.

Comparisons with Older are revealing, for Robbie sounds a bit world weary here at times, and the orchestrations are layered on thickly in an attempt to bring some brightness to the grey. Sometimes this works--with the electro swagger of Bodies a case in point--but other times the colour is a pasty, codeine white.

Featuring some of the most inventive producers in pop and steered by a singer who knows her way round a catchy melody or five, Don't Stop is one of the best pop albums of 2009.

Less predictable was her now clear desire to take risks and step off the all-too-well-forged path of safe, agreeable background music. Instead, on The Fall Norah Jones chooses to defy categorization.

The ingredients, and the musical personalities, combine to make a very intriguing and invigorating listen.

Considering the album starts so strongly, Them Crooked Vultures could have delivered a classic, finely toned EP; but, as it is, it's a little flabby.

If you relish a challenge, and like music to brace you as much as entertain you, then this should fit the bill. Like no-one else very much, but very much herself, it is one woman's raw, open and compelling testament.

The Cribs have always been a cut above their Yorkshire contemporaries, and Ignore The Ignorant demonstrates exactly why.

After 30 years since their first incarnation, has the flowing fountain of creative inspiration finally run dry for the Bunnymen?

Only Revolutions is just the kind of record to turn a cult following into a fair market share of the collective rock 'n' roll unconscious.

When you get him on his own he's up for a big night out. Just don't expect him home til dawn.

This is yet another one of those records about escapism, yearning for a bolt of light in the dark, an end to normality. And it finds it, to almighty effect; producing the kind of rapturous charge that no bedroom-dance record has ever assembled before.

Overall, Phrazes For The Young is a successful departure from The Strokes' straightforward brawn, but it's not as different as it's been billed.