Here, on her most consistent work to date, she’s still dramatic, seductive and theatrical, but fully cut loose. This is Khan’s own heroic moment.

The ambition on show throughout ‘Household Name’ is to be lauded in itself, and Momma deserve to be viewed like the rockstars they sing of.

This is delicate dreampop rendered without the usual disorienting layers.

This is an album of long, mysterious love songs to get lost in for days--seek it out.

It’s been a long wait, but Wye Oak are beginning to blossom.

He dissects his 20-something malaise with a dry and eloquent wit like a K-Mart Morrissey. [6 May 2006, p.33]

Unlike their debut's thrilling-but-ramshackle garage rock, this time round the words are harnessed to the kind of big, bold tunes that will lodge the five-piece in the mainstream consciousness.

They’ve taken finest pop moments of the ’70s and laid them out with all the retro flair of a fondue set.

It's a lot to take in, sure, but each listen is as fresh as the first.

‘The Ballad of Dood & Juanita’ is not just a faithful, fun celebration of a traditional sound, but that of a traditional form, too.

An oddball pleasure.

On an album that rarely shakes off its shroud of unease, Suuns paint a pretty bleak picture of all our tomorrows, but their own dazzling Futur looks assured.

The 15 impressively arranged tracks on ‘Tracey Denim’ will only bolster Bar Italia’s discography to date, ushering them, whether they like it or not, even further into the spotlight.

The reality is Free Energy sound like ’90s rock berks Terrorvision. It’s not all woe--‘Bad Stuff’ is like an FM rock Pavement--but it makes us worry that Murphy might be losing his edge.

A fine record from an ever-impressive band.

A debut that will endure.

Clearly, still in love.

We know what we’re getting from here: effervescent pop-punk smashes with a political edge. The lyrics are more personal here than on previous Sløtface albums, as Shea dissects her experiences growing up in Norway with American parents.

Album number three from Just Mustard is a more three-dimensional, glorious noise – reaching for euphoria while capturing the rollercoaster of comedowns and the spaces in between; driving melody through the malaise on a psych-driven neon bullet train.

To be completely honest, it's no revelation – at times the music feels incomplete, like a lonesome Portner is missing his bros – but it's played out beautifully, sunny in disposition and just a little wild around the edge.

It’ll be under your skin in no time.

iii is probably a couple of tracks too long, but Banks has created another supremely intriguing musical world filled with ear-snagging lyrics and quirky production flourishes: the lone dog-bark sound effect before the final chorus of ‘Gimme’ is a classic Banks touch. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion “that bitch” is a pretty apt description for her after all.

What's most pronounced is the subtlety of it all, the tastefulness, the lack of bombast and histrionics.

A raw blast of electric power that serves as a career coda, of sorts.

'Trust' is a reaffirmation of far more than a vow of silence: it's a commitment to beauty that precious few modern bands capture.

An authentic graininess permeates In Camera, like you're listening to the whole thing in sepia-tone - from the coy country call-and-response of 'Come to View (Song For Neil Young)', which could have soundtracked a Jane Fonda film, to the lolloping 'Afterglow', and tambourining of 'Lion's Mouth'. Lush.

‘Welcome 2 America’ is an album that speaks to today’s problems and demands to be heard.

caroline’s masterpiece might be yet to come, but this formative debut album opens up a world of possibilities.

Confidence is channelled in compelling directions, as The Chats come for everyone and anyone trying to ruin the feel-good party vibes. Poking fun at ticket inspectors, beach racists and boy racers, this record finds them fighting jobsworths and ignorance with laughter.

At their best the Young Knives can write as good a pop song as anyone in the country, but this is a disappointing second effort ironically weighed down by the English eccentricities that once helped them stand out from the pack.

‘Afterglow’ might be ‘Eusexua’ offcuts, but FKA Twigs’ B-sides are so good they can outrank entire discographies. Does it live up to the lofty marketing of its predecessor? Perhaps not. But it still proves that Twigs is one of the most prolific and original alt-pop icons of our times.

Basically, the album's a mess of melody, noise, stupidity, screaming and big choruses that does its bit for the all-important Campaign Against Intellectualism In Rock. Fun.

This is just one long squelchy fart of a soundscape that Reznor himself admits is probably too long. It's certainly too unremitting.

A masterclass in why Galaxie were such a great band. [18 Feb 2006, p.36]

The entire thing is an absolute, unerring joy.

It doesn’t sound like the work of a band who might inspire legions of fans (among them, apparently, Kristen Stewart) to get tattooed with their logo, but these world-weary yet radio-friendly ballads imply the band might achieve longevity after all. Three chords and the truth never gets old, and ‘Marigold’ vividly paints the knottiness of adulthood.

Blips aside, ‘Rare’ is a beautifully confident return from one of pop’s most underrated stars, and a quietly defiant wrestling back of the narrative surrounding her.

Playground misogyny aside, ALLA is a thrillingly focused follow-up that betrays its anxieties even as it mostly makes do with extolling the virtues of vice.

It’s difficult to share the singer's awe when the musical backdrop sounds so tired.

An underground delight. [13 Nov 2004, p.57]

Songs begin fully-formed before spiralling into abstract drum loops punctuated by slicing guitars and vocal drones (‘Mess Your Hair’). At other times, the most perfect moments of Small Faces psychedelia or Velvet Underground basement pop will emerge from the most unlikely formless squalls (‘Sitting’; ‘Heart From Us All’).

Valuable remainders from last year’s Ferndorf sessions, these playful-yet-stark instrumentals beckon us invitingly into the terribly clever worlds of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Can you hear it? It’s here! Biffy finally make that sprint-burst into the rock stratosphere and trample over the competition like badly tattooed elephants smashing through dead branches.

The songs compiled here were the public face and sound of that--all-inclusive, heroic and, for the most part, bloody catchy. As eulogies go, it's not half bad.

A gloopy cheese-feast of sprightly psychedelic pop, served with a dollop of wanton James Brown funk on the side.

Johns’ 10-track debut solo album is a placid but gutsy amble that pitches him as Bill Callahan dealing with a lazy hangover the morning after a pub crawl with Guy Garvey.

This is folk music transmitted from the far corner of the universe.

A dusky delight.

The cream of their output is undeniable--the Air-like stringed beauty of ‘Les Nuits’, gut-wobbling soul wailer ‘I Am You’ and early singles ‘Dextrous’ and ‘Aftermath’--but there’s an awful lot of so-so wallpaper here, especially for a Best Of.

This Is My Hand should see her join him, her other collaborators and St Vincent in the US experimental pop pantheon.

Two Door’s fourth effort is far from a wall-to-wall success, but for a band who could so easily continue to tread their affable, well-worn path around arenas and festival main stages without a sideward step (as many of their indie contemporaries have and will continue to do), the risks and experimentation here are very welcome.

The result is a fulsome, heroic thing.

Throughout the album, Fredo doesn’t necessarily get as deep or introspective as audiences may demand. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does create superfluous tracks across the project.

‘Back In Love City’ refutes that assumption [being past their prime] emphatically, presenting instead a band still at their very best and still brimming with ideas, invention and – most importantly – a knack for writing great songs.

‘Sunburn’ still acts as a love letter to the place he was raised in, however, allowing Fike to return home not only to the relentless humid state but to himself.

‘Altar’ is a beautiful portrait of working out what you’re willing to give up and how to keep pushing yourself forward despite the aching within you.

It's more chillout room than chillwave, all dub and little step, and the better for all of that.

Ultimately this is an album to dance, not cry, to.

Throughout, you get the sense Greentea is defiantly doing everything in her own sweet time. Lucky for us, then, that her sense of timing is in sync with the universe, because this hazy set is ideally suited to the long, lazy summer days.

These sparsely arranged folk songs are hauntingly pretty. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

If the Dutch producer's last album 'Great Lengths' was an exercise in contemplative, spacious dubstep, then Ghost People is instinctual; muscles tensed in observance of the cerebellum's basest of commands.

This is an incredibly sharp return.

[M83] create some of the freakiest European-horror-movie soundtracks ever to see the light, all covered in Warp Records futuristic electro-plasm. [22 Jan 2005, p.50]

Only a few tracks come down with showtune-itis--‘All The Young Dudes’ and ‘Changes’, which morphs from a breathy, jazz-flecked ballad to an over-emotive Liza Minnelli cabaret piece in the hands of Cristin Milioti. Otherwise, invention reigns.

Fool’s Gold might mine a rich vein, but they rarely forge anything more than mere tourist trinkets.

There's so much beauty on Let's Go Extinct that it could hardly be anything other than a delight.

I'm Up represents Thug's most accessible and immediate work to date.

These are all songs that, just like the rest of Phair’s finest moments, have a delicious knack for becoming lodged in your brain.

It’s to the LA based quartet’s endless credit then, that they manage to not only make their revamping of the sound fresh and funny, but poignant too.

Wooden Shjips obviously aren’t interested in the same progressive spirit as the likes of fellow travellers Oneida but they’re still damn effective at what they do.

An album to be remembered for? Probably not, but it’s bold, it’s a laugh, and he’s done it his way.

Lynn throws things back even further with a spirited version of ‘Keep On The Sunny Side’, written by Ada Blenkhorn and popularised by hillbilly originators – and two-thirds female – the Carter Family in the late 1920s. There’s new material too, but the message is always the same, with the focus on women’s innate strength and capabilities.

There are times when the album feels strangely medicated; the positivity, when heaped upon the listener in brutal doses, makes you feel trapped in one of those American self-help groups.

Together Through Life sounds loose and informal, and you get the impression that its creator had a lot of fun making it. A shame, then, that it’s not quite as much fun to listen to.

Despite some misfires--notably 'Blue Neck Riviera', which features a strange programmed hip-hop beat and a Diiv-style jangle accompanied by some semi-rapped verses--it's an admirable listen.

The place where the anthemic, the noisy and the epic meet is where The Men sound most naturally positioned.

It's not as unified as previous records, but with fewer meanders towards the mainstream and more of the electronic adventures of last year's freebie 'Shearwater Is Enron', Animal Joy may herald a bold new incarnation.

Typically minimal and monochrome but beyond the dirge-like pace of tracks like 'Say Valley Maker' lies an unlikely optimism. [28 May 2005, p.64]

This first instalment is impressive, but thin at eight tracks. Would it not have been better to hold back, and release just one, truly stunning record?

‘Headful Of Sugar’ sees the band more confident and more in control. Using those feelings of helplessness as fuel for the fire, this album is full of enough strength, empowerment, resilience and joy.

There’s a fine line between blues authenticity and pub-rock tedium and, accordingly, Attack & Release often falls victim to parody.

If there's a problem, it's that... it all sounds rather familiar and comfortable. [22 Jan 2005, p.51]

In many ways Boys & Girls it is as note-perfect an album as you'll hear all year, yet it's also often perfectly inert.

For all its weird beauty, this is very much Damon's record - much more so than Gorillaz. Or indeed, Blur.

MM flash their heavy roots on ‘Miracle Temple Holiness’. They come close to pop brilliance, however, when they go full hillbilly hustle on 'White Sands.'

Shopping’s sound is minimal, and almost every song kicks off with a Spaghetti Western guitar riff before being met by a steady beat and chanting vocals by various members.

Cabic's alt.blues vocals sometimes sound disinterested, but they merely act as a device for the music to take over the listener. [1 Jul 2006, p.36]

A very weird album, but a very intriguing one too.

There’s something so deliciously wrong about hearing these usually graceful instruments and sounds turned wicked in Iceage’s hands, like being read a nursery rhyme by Jack The Ripper.

As a platform for Taylor’s softer side, ‘Silence’ is a success, but it’s not the sound of him firing on every single cylinder.

Skip ["Last Song" and "Desperanto"], and you've something very much like a classic. [9 Oct 2004, p.57]

Nothing especially groundbreaking here compared with compilations such as the Kitsuné Maison series, but listenable nonetheless.

Undersexed and over here, let's send them back to where they, indeed, belong.

On Ores and Minerals, they ditch the giddy sounds of their early material and adopt a broader palette.

The nostalgic nods become wearier in the second half, but Beauty & Ruin is strong enough to add weight to the argument that alternative rock belongs to Bob Mould; everyone else is just borrowing it.

What's most intriguing about Content Nausea is listening for possible signposts as to where the next 'proper' Parquet Courts record might be headed.

It feels like Maximum Balloon is a project that could inflate infinitely. Let's hope it does.

Here's music for the twilight hours - feverish, contemplative, nostalgic. It resonates with the force of a thousand passionate post-club conversations in darkened, smoke-filled rooms, of intense, doomed liaisons, of youthful arrogance undercut by fear and failure.