What the south London quintet have made is an album full of delicious dream-pop.

Britain’s foremost whiteboy funkateer has learned enough since his 2005 major label debut ‘Multiply’ for ‘Compass’ to pull off a neat trick. With his heart as his guide, Lidell gives us a tour of soul through his geographically-removed ears.

This is a colourful, energised collection of work from an artist who could comfortably stay in her own lane, but chooses not to.

For all its musical philandering, unbridled excess and shrouds of irony, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a record with more musical depth and warmth all year than this one.

Inevitably it’s also an adventure in need of an edit.

Poignant package-holiday dance, sun-drunk but urgent with passion.

Yet the easy chemistry between everyone on Amok means that more often than not the record is beautiful.

As California dreamin' goes, this is almost as good as heading for the hills, reaching for a hand-tooled native American bong and calling yourself Moon Unit.

Screws Get Loose is best listened to live in a mucky kitchen at your mate's cool older sister's amazing house party.

Epic guitars, crashing drums and intense keys--it's a dramatic record that will shake your bones.

Hang is propelled by two principal forces--star-quality musicianship and the will to trespass beyond tradition. And, crucially, at a third of the size 
of its predecessor, it allows 
Rado and France--who wrote and produced every song--to fully focus. Rado’s keys are particularly outstanding.

While it’s far from a dramatic reinvention, there’s enough on display here to ensure that long-time fans will be more than happy, with a consistent array of the arena-ready riffs and post-rock choruses that cemented their name in the first place. This time, however, we’re given a welcome glimpse into the darkness that seemingly exists within.

Gray’s newfound penchant for ’80s pop doesn’t come with a notion of irony – he’s fully embracing even the era’s most ostentatious elements. But despite his own sincerity, there are moments that drift closer towards a caricature of the era than a true homage to the decade’s most innovative pop.

Follow-up Ready For The Magic is just as angry and their sometimes gauzy alt-rock is beefed up to ferocious levels.

At the moment, her music is best consumed in blog-sized chunks, not as a stodgy 48-minute album.

We say: just give in, it'll be the best vomit of your life. [20 Jan 2007, p.29]

'Algiers', their seventh album, is far less surface-level appealing, but the sad twang of a pedal steel and Joey Burns' rich lyrical imagery draw you in, and depth and craftsmanship is slowly revealed.

Its mix of clanking rhythms, bleeps and whistles is certainly insistent, although it's the vocal tracks that stick.

It's business as usual on the whole.

Like ‘The Girl And The Robot’ from Röyksopp’s 2009 ‘Junior’ album, and it begins with a stunner--‘Monument’, a winding and mystical 10-minute epic containing startlingly self-confident lyrics.

While an ambitious selection of productions have reinvigorated his approach, as the album rolls on, the same solo call-and-response hooks, and methodical, self-effacing verses show that, vocally, he’s content sticking to familiar, functional turf.

In places it’s a bit samey, marred by a shortage of songs. But The New Life is, nonetheless, a must-listen.

Opening track ‘Petrichor’ is certainly a trial, layering ominously ringing notes with clarinet blasts and coming on like the soundtrack to your worst nightmares, while the rest of the five-track record flits between welcoming and uncomfortable.

During the rousing, blissfully noisy one-two of ‘Chicago’ and ‘Upon Sober Reflection’, ‘Fate & Alcohol’ has the juice to make you forget the lights are about to go out, harnessing the energy that once made Japandroids’ reckless, romantic barroom epics so at odds with the real world.

For all that his songs brim with melodic invention, in the end style trumps content.

Albarn pulls you close and whispers the codes of his life into your ear. Switch settings to ‘decipher’.

The tunes, too, are as lush and anthemic as ever.

Beneath the plasticky politeness is the same old wry fatalism that the likes of Smog continue to strive for.

Although not as immediate as his collaborators’ work, his introversion pulls you into his unique soundscape.

Adrian Toubro sings like every word causes him a jolt of pain, but his songs are literate and fine-crafted, reading like distilled existential dramas.

To all intents and purposes McKenna is a teen breakout star, but describing him that way feels reductive after listening to his debut, on which he proves himself a serious lyricist who deserves more than to be put in a box.

While it’ll take more than four songs for any veritable flashlight to irradiate Skullcrusher as the answer, this EP will at least start us asking the question.

By taking what worked about Lungs and amplifying those qualities to a natural, satisfying conclusion, Florence has made a near-great pop record that should afford her the creative freedom to do whatever the hell she wants next time around. She may be away with the faeries, but she knows exactly what she's doing.

Park Hye Jin has crafted an affecting multi-layered debut that, rather than reaching a conclusion of fulfilment, manages to find happiness in just being alive.

This expansion of sound is also put together with the kind of meticulousness that makes Transit Transit doubly compelling.

‘Talkie Walkie’ deserves to do as well as ‘Moon Safari’. There’s no question that it’s a better record, a different record, written by a pair of supremely talented and greatly improved musicians enjoying total mastery of their studio and sound, who aren’t afraid to take risks for fear of offending their audience.

EGOLI is a scattershot and hedonistic diary of the collective’s week-long recording sessions, and each song offers an insight into the vibrant sounds of Johannesburg and the city’s unique twist on house, folk, jazz and beyond. Community and collaboration are a powerful force on this album.

The period-precise score captures the claustrophobic dread and paranoia of the fictional film shoot documented in Berberian Sound Studio.

Though the harder of heart might not be able to swallow the rock’n’retro stylings, Invisible Girl is an ice-cool, analogue-warm winner. Make like its creators and loosen up.

Her pipes can still be transportational, but mostly they deliver nice, docile music to stroke cats to.

Recovering emos Brand New have taken doing things their own way to the point of invisibility, but their journey into the widescreen ether continues with yet another breathtakingly accomplished record.

Cuba is just another tool for Mala, an outlet for his name-making style, which remains instantly recognisable and consistently listenable throughout.

‘The Whale Song’ may offer a solitary crumb for old skool Micers to nibble, but unfortunately this EP will not offer much else.

Real Hair works like a oujia board: dangerous, addictive fun with the potential for unwelcome answers.

There are moments of brilliance on both records. ... Thematically, ‘Everything Sucks’ and ‘Everything is Beautiful’ fail to deliver anything new.

When Wainwright leaves us hanging at the end of 'Everything Wrong''s soft chimes with the frank, childlike, "I have been really really sad/Except for having you with your dad," each sentiment is a choker.

So believe it: this is the real thing, no-one’s crying wolf, not even Alan McGee.

["Knife In The Heart" is] one of the most entrancing bops she’s made in years. .... Here’s hoping she’s got at least another round left in her.

Heralding the return of John Grant after the demise of his former band The Czars left him contemplating suicide, Queen...sees him back on top form and teaming up with labelmates Midlake.

The record as a whole is full of wan acoustic guitar tunes in desperate need of that mysterious quality of oomph.

The debut album from the London five-piece is impressive enough.

The volume remains punishing, but this record triumphs in melodic subtlety, political nuance and conceptual clarity.

Shame’s latest offering is a refreshing refuge for those thirsting for music that stirs you up live, and allows you to play witness to a band’s evolution of sound.

For all its slavering over archaic ‘80s production cheese, The Desired Effect is a consistently impressive collection--probably the strongest Brandon’s produced since 2006’s ‘Sam’s Town.’

It's chaotic and confounding. It will frustrate as much as it delights. And no, not everything they throw at the wall manages to stick. But my, what a lovely mess they've made.

You just can’t shake the feeling that the whole thing is just far too safe. You can’t blame team Adele for following a formula that has so far resulted in 30 million album sales--but here’s to a little more innovation on ‘29’.

None of the band’s bolshy character is lost on Bronx IV, but they do find new places to go.

It's the sound of a band once introspective but alive, now lost, depressed and completely unavailable.

This is a surprisingly decent album, as good as anything they've ever made.

Overall, ‘times’ is an incredibly cohesive collection of slide-across-the-kitchen-floor dance-pop bangers that encourage you to hold on to the good times. SG Lewis’ long-awaited debut album is a much-needed beacon of light.

Heroux may yet have an album in him that doesn't basically sound like his favourite '80s music stapled together, but this ain't it.

The pair attack a chunky selection of bluesy Wilko originals with gusto.

The result is a fourth album both back-to-basics in a Ramone-next-door sort of way, but with renewed purpose and attitude, and eyeing new paths of punk-rock progress.

The detail of individual tracks is almost irrelevant, as the album drifts from sunrise strings to rise-and-fall synths to piano notes as delicate as foals taking their first steps. But it creates an undeniably compelling whole.

Yes, there are jokes and doo-woppy moments of light-heartedness, but this is a soupy, stoned, distressed-sounding album at odds with the Lips’ image as the world’s premier party band.

Polly’s second joint album with Parish couldn’t be more eclectic in its breadth and scope.

On Field Music Play they bring their brand of clever and excellent to other people's pop songs.

Lyrically 2 Chainz knows he's no street Shakespeare, but as this EP shows, he can certainly knows his way around an arresting tune.

If it was all such axe-grinding, Disaster Piece might flag--but it has vision too.

It’s a fizzing piece of hard-rock magic.

Loud, weighty but oddly civilised.

Much of the reason for bothering with BYOP lies in the absolute glory of hearing Pearl succeed in making every lyrical couplet she spews forth sound as if she's been drinking cider since birth and is ready to hurl... anytime... now!

There’s not much variation between the melodies of ‘Defender’ and ‘V Formation’--and the closing title track feels like a bit of an anticlimax--but the album’s nine tracks are mostly enveloping soundscapes. There’s a distinct journey through Murmurations, and you might get lost--in a good way--in the middle.

On the whole, Red Hot + Fela works both as an introduction to Afrobeat, and as a reworking of the genre, making it a fitting tribute not just to Fela’s music but also his indomitable spirit.

Simple but sensational.

It’s perhaps not the best month to be showing such unabashed love for Phil Spector, but timing aside, this is an outstanding album.

Full of fraught, frivolous fun. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

There is a sense that Lifeguard will only kick on from here, finding greater balance between the competing elements in their music while also growing in confidence when it comes to taking creative leaps.

Hope In Dirt City is the most soulful and hazy he's ever sounded.

His ninth leaves behind the wearing synth experiments and lo-fi oddities of recent years for a set of witty piano-pop songs.

Peggy Sue’s fourth LP impresses throughout, a record of soulful depths and heady, emotional highs.

Sex & Food comes with a handful of missteps, like the forgettable ‘Not In Love Were Just High’ and ‘This Doomsday’ in the album’s final third. But by and large, it sees UMO pushing their sound impressively, bending the rule book as crudely as they can before the spine break

It’s a slow-burnin’ collection that’s certainly less immediate than their debut, and often feels like a retread instead of a progression. But that doesn’t make songs like ‘Friend of Mine’ and ‘Song For Ty’ any less enjoyable, as Elrich’s and Kazacek’s songwriting bond appears stronger than ever.

Country, spiritual, rock both voodoo and drivetime; it’s a masterfully messy mash-up, yet the contemporary grime and gravel caking Crosseyed Heart is quintessentially Keef.

It all harks back to the word-in-your-ear confessionals of ‘Fevers And Mirrors’. Were it not for the whimsical, country-tropical jangle of ‘Hundreds Of Ways’, Upside Down Mountain would very nearly be its equal.

With 4everevolution Smith continues to avoid the genre's default Americanisms and instead dabbles in proggy electronic wizardry ('In The Throes Of It'), warped R&B ('Takes Time To') and sleekly produced, astute socio-political commentary ('Who Goes There?').

It's those constant and predictable superstar interjections that prevent the album from standing out as much as it had potential to do.

Those looking for a live greatest hits-style album will be a bit disappointed by the CD portion of Voltaic, which misses as many of Björk’s big songs as it hits. The DVD, however, manages to get to almost all of them.

That's not to say this is a bad record, just one that's clearly in love with pop music, and one that'll require another leap of faith from the band's hardcore fanbase.

'Bavarian Fruit Bread' represents a towering piece of morphine-induced self-indulgence.

Despite Thom Yorke's assertions that 'Amnesiac' stands alone, it complements 'Kid A' so beautifully, develops it with such conviction, that the idea Radiohead ever cut themselves off to spite their fans suddenly seems irredeemably churlish.

For their righteous dance moves alone, these guys are for keeps. [5 Jun 2004, p.56]

What's so impressive about Xzibit is his rhyme flow, which is one of the smoothest in rap and provides a wonderful contrast to his profanity-led ghetto dwelling lyrics. With Dr Dre providing beats for three of the tracks and overseeing the whole project, Xzibit now has the perfect musical canvas to accompany his underrated skills.

More an obscure self-portrait than a Picasso masterpiece, The Life Of Pablo retains its author’s status as the most interesting man in music. But he makes it seem like harder work than the effortlessness we’re used to.

His music has always had as much empathy as it has had political fire, and it’s the former that dominates here. ... It makes for a record that can occasionally get exasperating in its lack of momentum. ... Yet it is also album that leaves plenty of room for nuanced, compassionate songwriting that never loses grip of its sense of empathy.

Yes, the Secret Machines do prog, but vitally they do so much more.

Cohen’s obvious enthusiasm for his music humanises the man behind the headlines.

Cupid Deluxe is a shop window for the future sound of pop. But perhaps he should quit trying to be a Prince-like polymath and concentrate on being a nimble-fingered production wizard instead.