The music of Amplifying Host blends baked American blues with the ghosts of this island's folk tradition to wonderful effect, especially on 'Tessellations', which is like coming across a bedraggled family cooking beans around a campfire in the tinder-dry ruins of what was once a chocolate-box timber-framed cottage.

Big Talk is a record to be roared while stood atop the bar, and then deny all knowledge of the next day.

Young Rebel Set are as comfortable and enjoyable as a Mumford-wool blanket, but when was the last time you got really excited by a woolly blanket?

It's an itchy, difficult listen, but then it's hardly easy being original.

Needless to say, it's totally fucking rubbish.

As ever, the all-female pop-punk trio finds its inspiration in the seemingly mundane.

They don't quite conjure the heart-slowing plod of Pecknold's mob on their second album.

Although they might be lacking teats, their creative juices are nevertheless overflowing.

It's still wordier than a second-hand bookshop and the screwy mental tics remain. But it's also one of the most heart-lassoing '70s radio-pop records since the death of flares, its psychedelic oddness leavened with big gnarly hooks, the emotional thwack of a shattered heart and intimate and bloodied narratives.

Within And Without hangs oppressively, saved only by fleeting moments of clarity like the title track's stabbing outro, or the jump-rope glitter that opens 'Before'.

All in all, a weird brew, set to confound anyone who likes their music to fit neatly in a box.

Damned if they do and damned if they don't, it seems, but never sounding damned enough.

The first long-play offering by these Pennsylvania teen punks might just be one of the best punk rock debuts of the year.

If all you can see is a tangle of influences then you're standing too close to the picture, and when Skying's visions come into focus, it not only reaffirms that Primary Colours was far from a fluke, but that they could go so much further.

London duo Mount Kimbie are stronger than the latter temptation; this six-track mini-selection bows to no imagined commercial pressure.

If only the other half of this album didn't spiral off into wretched reggae stylings, this would be alright.

At times, it's too lovely and woozy for its own good--but when the mood sours, as on standouts 'Devil In My Mind' and 'Erie Lackawanna', it's really rather intoxicating stuff.

Complex and slightly schizophrenic, 100% Publishing is a winner, even if the man himself is a PR's nightmare. Long live King Wiley.

Benjamin Power, on his first record as Blanck Mass, isn't really breaking their spacey, rushing mould, instead slowing it down and ironing out the thrills.

Though Gary Barber's half-spoken, oh-so-London urchin coo brings a little quirk to proceedings, for the most part Native To is a pleasant but not memorable listen.

Total couldn't be more mid-noughties if it came dressed in a geometric hoodie, and the result is a chopped-up, sample-heavy stew that's a whole load of fun if the Tales Of The Jackalope shebang was your Hacienda.

What these tracks are, though, are lovingly programmed, laser-dappled, preening--thanks to Sampha's buttery soul voice--and glossy reduxes of late-'90s two-step and twitchy post-house that should be filed next to James Blake and Jamie Woon.

A few of the songs stick too closely to the originals, going to show that it's best to do something daft and unexpected rather than just trace the lines of greatness. You can't improve on perfection, but you can certainly play around with it.

It's difficult to believe Limp Bizkit could return after all this time somehow even more hateful than before.

There's all sorts of other excursions as well; the benefits of having a home studio to get lost in.

Yet cringingly vibed-up first words aside – where we're also leaving the Eurovision cheese of 2 Hearts--the follow-up to 2007's debut, Idealism, is not all bad.

Equatorial Ultravox is undeniably lovely, and the title describes the vaguely early '80s Mediterranean synth vibe pretty well. It's just not exactly essential listening.

Evan Patterson's lyrical turns of phrase are still subtly unsettling, and the overall collision of punk and blues is a bit like Grinderman, without the spectre of ironic smirking.

There's no escaping it: Foster The People are a great pop band, and Torches pop production accentuates every handclap and harmony for maximum effect.

It would be alright if they believed this stuff, but it's all done with the detached sneer beloved of hipsters worldwide. They're faux-hippies, not real ones.

Its nine tracks were composed solely on keyboards as the duo – Wolf Parade guitarist Dan Boeckner and wife Alexei Perry – forced themselves into a new songwriting regime.

On his Sub Pop debut, he's sliced off the excess, preachy rhetoric for something inventive, bold and brilliantly fresh.

There ain't too much here that's going to add to her legacy. Rather, there's the unmistakable sense of someone treading water, with even the OK bits here sounding uninspired.

Soppy nostalgia that bares little else.

It was a coming together of people and community, and it's therefore fitting that Lupercalia the album is a celebration too.

It's an album full of the sort of drippy ballads and droopy soft rock that should induce an involuntary gag reflex in anyone under the age of 45.

Pummelling electro punk at it's finest.

Bon Iver is the sound of a man making peace with the world, saxophones and all.

The swagger is really what drives that point home. Casual, not-bothered insouciance drips from Go Tell Fire To The Mountain.

Sweeter than its landfill-conjuring name suggests, Diaper Island supplies the harsh guitar harmonics, reverb and claustrophobic atmosphere VanGaalen does best, but aligns them with some of his prettiest songs.

Bejar creates an astonishing world in just nine songs; it's his finest work to date, and excessive, but irresistibly so.

White Denim (now a four-piece) have never been less than terrific, but as they move further from the garage and embrace their real love – early '70s Americana – they defy all probability.

A record that's every bit the sonic departure it had to be, it nevertheless recalls its forebear's themes, seeing matters of the heart from a more reflective stance.

Produced by metal guru Ross Robinson, There Is A Way is a slicker beast than the Danan of yore, yet that rickety collision of a million ideas remains.

With the standard set, Turner brings an almost literal meaning to the notion of 'traditional English punk' and, as always, it's a fearless venture for an artist with something interesting to say.

Vek truly exploits the benefits of being in a one-man band: all instruments and ideas can be used as often or as sparingly as he likes; the feelings of the Mellotron and crumhorn session musicians do not need to be taken into account.

In an age where even Britpop corpse-botherers Brother trumpet their desire to collaborate with Odd Future, the Monkeys have made a record heavily indebted to late-'80s indie and a small group of white, male '70s singer-songwriters: Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen.

Behold their evolution: while 2008's 'The Chemistry Of Common Life' album was drenched in religious connotations and spiritual euphemisms, this time, their rock opera about romance and death at an English lightbulb factory (seriously) is theatrics personified, taking listeners on a quest while still abiding by their precious DIY ethic.

A similar slide into the mainstream for Jim James and co certainly wouldn't be out of the question – not least because Circuital, despite stiff competition, is possibly their most impressive work to date.

Though by no means a disaster, they needed to hit back, and Arabia Mountain doesn't disappoint.

Gloss Drop is powered by a tireless, ingenious sense of play. Admittedly, it is sometimes the sort of playfulness displayed by quantum physicists and pure mathematicians. But hey, get the numbers right and everything else just slots into place.

Individually the tracks have a removed piquancy, but an hour's solid exposure leaves you yearning for a crackle, some fuzz, or any human intervention.

Four years on, his fifth album just feels stodgily generic.

It's a fine album, but signposts a possible future rather than taking us there directly.

Attention Please is the first to feature just guitarist Wata on vocals. Her breathlessly beautiful singing style calls to mind classic Stereolab on the title track and one of My Bloody Valentine's more sublime moments on 'Hope'.

Musically it's the cream of nostalgic pop, and the lyrics exhibit a wafty elan; but in purely conceptual terms, Cults is too busy flying on clouds of giddy adolescent wonder to plunder the depths of its pretensions with conviction.

The Saturday Night Live trio pick up where they left off with 2009's Incredibad.

They've set themselves up nicely here, already nipping on the heels of fellow slacker extraordinaires Surfer Blood and Yuck.

This could have been a vanity effort to prove their worth, but instead they prove that not only does crisis work--so does collaboration.

It's all solid stuff, but if Murderbot wants to be an ambassador for the genre, then perhaps he should try tackling less divisive subjects, such as politics or war.

This album was their biggest and best opportunity to change that perception, but no matter how many freight-loads it ends up selling by, it hasn't succeeded.

If your relationship with Sonic Youth chiefly consists of boozily chucking yourself around to their sprinkling of indie-disco floorfillers, you may be surprised to know that Thurston Moore can 'do tender', let alone do it very well.

On 'Brilliant! Tragic!' all the usual themes crop up – loving Axl Rose, feeling sexy, the Republic of Sealand – but there's something strangely self-conscious about it all, like the way that Argos is trying to drum up, Big Brother-style, ever-stranger ideas, but without quite believing in them.

This, their third album, continues the Atlantans' slow but upward career trajectory to date, almost akin to an American Elbow in that they're grandiose, utterly lovely, but unlikely to sell any records for at least another couple of releases down the line.

Luckily Planningtorock, alias Janine Rostron, has delivered 'W', a masterpiece of art-pop experimentalism that gleefully expands on her debut.

One Thousand Pictures is pop in a tar-pit--black and sticky, but wonderfully pure at heart.

On a scale of Speech Debelle to Klaxons, they're more towards the Gomez end of the list. Definitely loveable. Largely inessential.

Problem is, there's a dearth of ideas here that means the whole shebang clings to cloying, torturously repetitive pastiche rather than doing anything particularly innovative.

Micachu brings all her talent for earache soundz to bear on 'Violina/Bread Before Bed', while 'Shapeshift', the collaboration with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, might just be the best electro-hop banger since Roots Manuva's 'Witness (1 Hope)'. Which is weird, 'cos the UK rap don also turns up for a spot of Cameron-bashing on 'Capsize'. Tasty.

Noise music has been content to let its harsh aesthetics do the talking alone for too long; with Laced, Whitehurst has challenged that paradigm.

Her second, now with indie Bella Union, is a precious mix of childlike insouciance and adolescent anxiety.

Her vocals now sound stately, and the impression is of a grande dame breathing new life into work made as an ingenue.

Because rather than an exercise in hype, what Born This Way really is an exercise in the pushing of everything to its ultimate degree. And for all the black, white and silver, it passes that test with flying colours.

A little shade among the sugary rays might not go astray, but maybe that's just the goth in me talking.

Big, bounteous of hook and packed with more senseless beauty than an acre of rainforest, Pala offers the sort of agreeable nonsense every good summer needs as its soundtrack.

It's all strung together with punk-drunk pace and some properly good melodies. This is the real deal.

It's an album that leaves you in no doubt that Odd Future's leader is a rare talent.

The astonishing thing is that on any other record, the two above low points [Snaps and Invincible] would be stand-out tracks. With Tinie, only the best will do.

The odd misfire aside, Feel It Break is self-assured and utterly consuming. At this rate, she'll be leading the pack soon.

Hopefully, listeners who have had their tastes whetted by Cat's Eyes and the cult Italian Beat At Cinecitta compilations will fall in love with this entrancing and gorgeously out-of-step album.

It's a more honest title, for starters [Astrological Epochs & The Sands Of Time]--with 10 songs that, like the starry-eyed indie pop of Constellations, rather than cosmological in scope, are uniformly short, sweet and were recorded on a laptop.

Nobody's pretending this lot balance on the razor-sharp blade of the cutting edge. Even so, their orchestral whimsy presses the 'lovely, bordering on twee' button.

Convalescent, and luminescent.

A new, added tunefulness makes this a much-welcome Exile In Nihilist-ville.

Colour Of The Trap isn't quite a perfect debut, but by stepping out from the shadows, Miles Kane has come away smelling of roses.

Forget their poor punctuation: this debut LP is awash with bittersweet romance and deadpan derision.

As well as the miasma of Lush and MBV, the likes of 'Heedless' have a skewed Breeders-ish growl that keeps lines satisfyingly defined amid the sun-bleached, soft-focus beauty.

Smother is deeply sad and lonely, but still a barbed invitation to intimacy; like Coleridge's albatross, an extraordinarily elegant, stunning, (near)-perfect portrait of how terribly bad decisions can turn out.

Okkervil River comes into its own when he forces some particularly oblique and unique strategies into practice.

Eye Contact is a piercing glimpse into an imagined Utopia of infinite possibility, as if they've focused their years of digital psychedelic jamming into a single beam, and fired it beyond a horizon peered at in vain by their peers.

For now, though, she's no better than one of Cowell's ventriloquist dummies.

As an instrumental album it's vaguely impressive, but overall it's incomplete and lacks the pop touch to transform things from cerebral to listenable.

The album lacks that bouncy, bratty energy of old, while never really nailing a more grown-up emotional register. Even so, glad that they're still there.

This a forward-thinking, original British album that has captivated a new generation of music fans, not simply by rehashing the old, but by giving the young something that belongs to them and taunting them to do better.

He calls love and life as it really is: occasionally sweet, rarely trouble-free and often so suicidally routine we could all become the man he speaks of on 'Ballad Of The Bastard'.

Sadly, a lack of focus in melody and structure means it's not quite as atmospheric as Mick seems to think.

Their head-fuckable tunes warp and distort everything into a kaleidoscopic pulp.

He barely has to try and, to be honest, here it shows.