World Painted Blood may not be Reign In Blood, but it finds Slayer close to their best.

It shows more strings to his bow, with full on reckless hedonism mixing freely with cool electro. It's a heady, intoxicating brew.

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.

Adamson mixes genres and sounds, blending and pitch-shifting, looping and deconstructing to create his most focused (though it may not sound that way on first listen) effort to date.

The Mary Onettes have mastered the art of writing catchy four-minute tunes without compromising themselves, but nor do they take any risks.

One can't escape the feeling that, for a writer and performer of Banhart's undoubted talents, this album sees him rather treading water, and failing to match the originality of his persona with correspondingly original or engaging material.

If you're in the wrong mood it can be a touch wearing by the end, but more often than not this is 21st century funk gone right.

It's primal, life-affirming and powerfully personal, demanding to be heard.

The loud, distorted, lo-fi West Coast tone dominates the album, and this is the terrority where Goldstein performs most engagingly. Where he attempts a more stripped-down approach (on Fall, or the ukelele-led title track) the results are less successful.

Cosmic Egg is the kind of album you'd quite happily pop on for the first part of a road trip while you're full of enthusiasm, but it'd quickly get changed at the first toilet stop.

Producer Will.I.Am's contributions are, for the most part, utterly bland and lacking in bite. The sanitised R'n'B of Heaven is embarrassing with a generic construction that feels as if he went to a superstore and it took it off the shelf.

On that first listen, then, Fits is unlikely to come off well....By the third, you're clamouring for tickets to see them live.

It's a bold, inventive record that bristles with energy and passion.

Turning The Mind represents something of a disappointment.

And such are the music's joyous highs, subtle thrills and rich and deep layers, they can undoubtedly be judged one of the most worthwhile and special bands currently at large.

Logos doesn't displace Microcastle as Cox's masterwork to date. But it's an intriguing, often beautiful addition to a rapidly expanding body of work that has seemingly boundless potential.

For the length of the album, at least, Kings Of Convenience do a standup job of convincing the listener that loud is long forgotten, and in these violent, uncertain times, quiet is king.

The BQE is a lushly extravagant score that merges quite easily into Sufjan's grand catalogue. All who lend an ear to his opus will look upon the titular thoroughfare with a kinder eye, even if that view does not have the benefit of reminiscence.

I Told You I Was Freaky is a smart, funny, musically vast album, giving everyone's favorite kiwis a chance to broaden the canvas of their twitchy, awkward, displaced brand of comedy.

Pavement fans expecting similar lo-fi experimentation may be disappointed with The Real Feel, but anyone who appreciates organically structured rock songs should love this album.

There's nothing here that's going to surprise anyone in the slightest, but this is sleekly produced, brilliantly written and expertly executed radio fodder.

Reservoir is a neat, considered, and polished piece of work that is unrelenting in its charm.

To write it off too early would be criminal, as Embryonic represents The Flaming Lips at their most awkward, most engaging, and most creative.

The attention to detail where texture and colour is concerned is the crowning glory with the Engineers.

This is a truly astonishing effort; a crowdpleaser and a call to arms--now let's go and change the world.

For a debut album it's brilliantly realised and contains not an inch of flab across its 11 songs. Debut album of the year? It's beyond doubt.

On the strength of his recent chart performances, Harris is currently riding a crest of a wave, so he's clearly doing something right. But it feels like he's sacrificed some of his creativity in favour of simplistic and unimaginative output.

At the moment, though, it appears as though this is one twee-pop album that simply doesn't pop.