Once upon a time it seemed like Grammatics had too many ideas, they couldn’t quite decide who they wanted to be. In the end, they just decided to be themselves, and the result frequently approaches bona fide genius.

For all its glum pronouncements of murder, mortality and loss, it’s an ecstatic listen, ponderous party music.

There are plenty of songs here you won’t want to listen to more than once, but plenty that’ll also lodge in your skull like fragments of glass from a smashed Coke bottle.

Peppered with hip-hop connections (E-40, Ghostface Killah, Freeway), equally informed by raw Chicago house and the riff-worshipping of Jesse’s previous (DFA 1979), and finally free of the omnipresent vocoder, it’s near-essential stuff.

This gallopingly demented album comes off like a battle between two gargantuan, city-pulverising, sci-fi beasts engaged in an epic ruckus.

So, while their Beach Boys on mescaline tricks won't rewrite the rulebook, for reckless frivolity they'll do just fine.

It is a one-trick album and they spunk away their best song, the incantatory ‘Shame On The Soul’, right at the start, but the aforementioned trick is, at least, an affecting, and very occasionally gorgeous, one.

In simple terms, then, the third Razorlight album is utter, utter cobblers.

There are flickers of funky light on the lush old school soul of ‘Ground Zero’ and the Motown-esque ‘Other Side Of Town’, but for the most part it’s all depressingly castrated.

The key word is ‘almost’, because what could have been mawkish and naive is instead deliciously raw, an album for when all else fails.

Much like the title of his debut, Indiana’s curious ringmaster Stith is a contradiction in terms. Don’t be put off--he’s a contradiction worth losing yourself to.

Perkins clearly has stories to tell of difficult journeys travelled, but unfortunately it comes across as yet another Yank putting out the roadside campfire with dribble from his harmonica.

If you've got patience it's a quiet joy; if not, it'll drive you nuts.

File under: ‘shoulda put a donk on it’.

Just when you thought Chi-town loner Owen Ashworth couldn’t trump his previous four efforts in terms of schmindie obscurity, he goes and wheels out a bunch of twee reinterpretations of oldies and rarities.

Even at best, though, something rings false about Better Than Heavy. It never sounds like a self-funded album made by angry people.

It has the pomp and arrogance of their best work, enough new sounds and interesting new avenues to satisfy the musos and, at its core, is a very good collection of very good songs played very well. A little more silliness would go a long way, though.

TSOOL have made a double album that isn’t a burden, but rather something which is genuinely fun to get lost inside and attempt to unravel.

It’s clear this ‘Falkirk miserablist’ has finally found contentment.

This patchy album shows these sharp-suited Londoners on safe indie territory, but caught in several minds.

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.

It’s still a lot like getting hammered in the skull for an hour, but Wrath allows enough range between the power-chug of ‘Grace’ and the forbidding rumblings of ‘Reclamation’ to lift them a long way out of the pits of hell.

Like all covers albums, the temptation to dig out the originals is not far away, but there’s enough electricity pulsing around these versions to not only justify a charitable contribution but also make it a worthy addition to your record collection.

The advance buzz about Luke Temple’s first record as Here We Go Magic suggested the Brooklyn-based songwriter could be about to do a Grizzly Bear, but his latest project is a far more introspective beast.

It all just cries out for a little more oomph.

The former Sylvia Young alumnis’ latest solo offering is a mixed bag of soulfully gritty D’Angelo-influenced vocals and Busta Rhymes-esque rants.

His trademark woozy laments and waltzing rhythms are present, but buried beneath layers of tumbling horns they seem much richer, with the charming languor of his voice twisting the mariachi saunter into something dark. Strangely, it’s the synth-pop gems of second EP Holland that seem the most foreign.

Enter deal-breaking title-track ‘Hold Time’, which is (and let’s not understate things here) a career-defining ballad even on its own, masterfully striking “You were beyond comprehension tonight/But I understood...”

Love and its bruising unobtainableness remains his chief concern, but with Years Of Refusal some things have changed. For a start there’s less of the stately strings of "Ringleader..." and more of the direct rockabilly of "...Quarry."

Common Existence is a worthy addition to Thursday’s canon.

On their third release Asobi Seksu have toned down the fuzz’n’raunch of old and come over all Cocteau Twins-y and mature--not necessarily a bad thing, just quite a bit less visceral.

It’s unlikely to gain any new converts to the cause, but you get the impression Hitchcock stopped caring about that sort of thing long ago.

What Havilah does is jump up and down on the rotting carcasses of The Vines and Jet, stabbing them again and again with a flag that says “Miles. Better. Than. You. Ever. Were. Mate.”

The gleeful squelches on ‘Life Of Birds’ might sound like a cheery Game Boy--but, next to the sinister electro-chill of the rest of the record, it’s a nursery rhyme.

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

Recorded with help from Fantomas shrieker Mike Patton and Buzz ‘Melvins’ Osbourne on guitar, Carboniferous rocks out with little competition.

Taking cues from ’60s free jazz, dub and disco and combining it with the punk-rock sensibilities of their former outfit, Watersports is a delirious fever-dream of an album.

Greg Kurstin helped deliver everything both artist and mercenary label boss could wish for. Songs that are ultra-modern and instantly accessible, fun but never cheesy, experimental but rarely try-hard.

This one fares better than most in audio form, but whether ‘Natalie’s Rap’ will be enjoyed by anyone who hasn’t already wet themselves at the video is debatable.

Laura Marling, six years Emmy’s junior, sounds far more worldly wise, and there’s a sense of naivety, rather than innocence, that stops the album being as Joni Mitchell as it thinks it is.

Perhaps it was the pressure of following breakthrough hit ‘C’mon C’mon’, or some serious Jack White payback voodoo, but now, where should have roared a gutsy, triumphant comeback squeaks a patchy, mediocre-in-places record.

Angry blues stomps such as ‘Early In The Morning’ are the aural equivalent of Wild Turkey for breakfast, while ‘Out At Sea’ combines the grit and growl of the Bastards’ beginnings with a layering of sounds that’s wider, more expansive and ultimately more interesting.

Even if it gets a bit bedroom experimentalist, POS is Buck 65 with balls, and has more ideas and soul in one cut than an entire Fiddy wet shit.

Pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart.

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.

aside from the throaty rasp of singer Kyle Falconer on lead-off single ‘5Rebbeccas’, the mushy ‘Temptation Dice’ and Paolo Nutini-featuring ‘Covers’ – there’s little here that’ll appeal to the hundreds of thousands of people who bought "Hats Off To The Buskers." Yet it’s a good record regardless.

This might not be the ‘music of the night’ that rotund talent show type Lloyd Webber and his phantoms had in mind, but based on the majority of this album Messrs Kapranos, Hardy, McCarthy and Thomson can definitely take us out tonight.

Hs 16th (16th!) studio album, sees him eschew such stylings and instead go for broke on telling tales and flashing his soul

Dear John is more or less all about getting dumped, blending hymnal keyboards, tender strings and pained vocals.

Freshly hooked-up with Ed Banger, Oizo has made a joyously daft party album.

Unrelentingly maudlin and hell-bent on ramming every potential silence with soporific guitars and proverbially pathetic fallacy, ‘AM’ only perks up on its two covers.

Merriweather..., their psych-pop pinnacle, shares the simultaneous relentless complexity and instant simplicity of the best Of Montreal albums, but where Kevin Barnes’ last effort got lost in its clever-clever weirdness, shifting rhythms and textures in a way that felt like standing onboard a bus going down a mountain, Animal Collective’s is an easy, good-natured beast.

With The Crying Light Antony And The Johnsons continue to explore the creative boundaries of pop while covering all emotional bases. For that, they should be celebrated.

Their fight-and-make-up pop is like Dananananaykroyd gone new wave, with the B-movie and comic-book geek-joy of early Ash. But that doesn’t mean there’s no depth, if that’s your poison.

With the arrival of Fantasy Black Channel--four young men given free rein over four studios – it’s time to hail the new age of anything-goes ridiculousness.

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

Sound smart? It would be if he hadn’t served it up with such flaccid beats.

The band have responded with their most stylistically hatstand-but-indisputably-best songs yet.

Adhering closely to the template of Daft Punk’s two seminal live albums, crowd noise is mixed high, becoming another instrument as it responds to every hook with a spine-tingling roar.

Her voice--treated and autotuned to within an inch of its life throughout--still sounds like that of the Mouseketeer who brought us '...Baby One More Time’, with every breathy “Mmmm… yeah!” and all the oh-so-naughty lyrics, such as the ones above, sounding forced and unconvincing. Of course, on a large number of the tracks here she has the solidly cool-sounding (no doubt expensive) backdrop of futur’n’b pop.

‘Careful What You Wish For’s quality--along with that of everything else here, not least the closing ‘Silent Night’, featuring a full church choir epically utilised to yank up every hair on the back of the listener’s neck--re-confirms Glasvegas’ position as the most exciting British band right now.

Cooked up in a session originally meant to spawn a batch of B-sides, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed instead debuts 10 songs that outstrip LC!’s debut album at every turn.

The resounding verdict is that it’s a surprising, but bold and brave progression from last year’s confused "Graduation."

In truth, of the eight previously unreleased tracks, one is a not-massively-adventurous reshuffle (the Osaka Sun mix of ‘Lovers In Japan’), another a 48-second long incidental piano piece, another the version of ‘Lost!’ that features Jay-Z on autopilot (ie, still quite amazing) but is on the flip of the single.

Price has pulled off a smarter trick: after doing ’80s Britain and ’70s America, The Killers now finally sound like… themselves.

There’s still a lot to love about B&S, but there was something magical, otherworldly even, about them during this period that this compilation captures perfectly.

Canopy Glow can pass you by on first listen, but persevere and memorable moments do emerge.

It sounds like almost exactly the same record, just not as slap-in-the-face fresh. Still, if it’s more of the same, at least the same is pretty good.

Beneath the radio polish lies a wickedly caustic songwriting wit.

It’s still a brilliantly sleazy punk rock’n’roll album that feels, sounds and smells just like you want The Bronx to be, and the fact it’s so pure and elemental works strongly in its favour.

Made In Sheffield is a surprising record, lovingly conceived and beautifully executed.

Little Joy might not quite have built a castle in the sky, but they’ve constructed a cosy little corner in our hearts.

It exists in its own eccentric, unique universe, and that is the best thing that any debut album can do.

Not their best, but still more consistent than any British indie album released this year.

Sonic developments in the form of style, delivery and arrangement (an experimental approach no doubt encouraged by Mogwai producer Tony Doogan, who recorded the album in Glasgow earlier this year) are marred by disappointingly dumb and predictable lyrics, and where the quintet once made it sound so easy to come up with killer choruses, this second effort finds them slumping into forgettable filler territory on more than one occasion.

Half-knowing, half-full of anthems and lyrically halfway to hell, Off With Their Heads is musically halfway there. Kaisers have barely missed a beat on the highway to massive-dom, but they’re hardly raising our heart rates.

Ocasionally, the shtick does wear a little thin and they lope off towards water-treading mid-pace. The line between parody and genius is always going to be fine.

He has regularly crept back to the light of the charts and 4:13 Dream is such an occasion. And one which, given the ’80s revival, is timed to perfection.

It’s all so methodically planned that even standout radio-wave surfer ‘Take Back The City’ and producer Jacknife Lee struggle to stamp fresh life into this mega-selling formula.

The crepuscular glow of this quartet should be embraced.

Musically, they’ve ripped off swathes of things contemporary and popular to make them ‘hip’, but it just feels like some dodgy old guy at a bus stop telling you he digs Klaxons.

Morning Tide is a collection of songs that take the word ‘pop’ in ‘pop music’ literally, bursting with effervescence and joy.

Skinner has consolidated everything he’s done before, chucked in where his head’s at now and come up with an album that, while lacking the visceral thrill of ‘Original Pirate Material’, is a minor masterpiece that will mean a lot to a more select bunch of people.

More than anything else, there’s a feeling that Dig Out Your Soul might actually be their best album in over a decade. In other words, not quite the fabled, oft-promised “Best one since fookin’ "Definitely Maybe!"" but certainly the best one since fookin’ "...Morning Glory."

The album is over-long, too, and a few songs less would have made it a leaner, meaner, more KAPOW-ing beast. All that said, when Jwl and Shunda’s flabbergasting spit is on form, it’s as compelling as a new, untired voice in rap always is.

The second half is noticeably weaker than the first and the constant perkiness will grate if you're in anything other than a blinding mood, but there's plenty here to appreciate and it's perfect iPod fodder. [Sep 2008, p.46]

The Chemistry Of Common Life finally proves that rather than being a messy gimmick, Fucked Up are a startlingly talented punk rock band.

This may well get those girls on the dancefloor but it crucially lacks the subtle depth to give it that all-important soul.

Swathed as it is in the kind of ’80s arrangements of flutes and chiming guitars that have rarely been allowed beyond Carol Decker’s lushest, most velveteen fantasies, this album is an open goal to accusations of trend-following revivalism. But, like Ladyhawke’s debut, the sheer quality of songwriting justifies any retrospective leanings they may have.

Luna isn’t for the faint-hearted, fashion-conscious or dull-witted. Kooks fans seeking a challenge should keep exploring the outer reaches of The Fratellis’ oeuvre. But for people after a patchouli-scented patchwork of thought-provoking musicality, The Aliens have landed.

Is this the best we can do? Desperate-to-be-authentic, carbohydrate-stodgy white blues, played by an elderly man pretending to be a tramp? Really, you deserve better.

Friendly Fires songs are all manufactured to a similar formula but there’s a whole lab shelf lined with addictive variants.

Like their last, Only By The Night is front-loaded with world-beaters but then gradually ebbs back to more interchangeable moments. More than ever its strengths, when it succeeds, later become its weaknesses. It tries a mite too hard.

Dear Science cuts through genres like a laser through a music encyclopaedia, making strange connections, but always with pop clarity as the ultimate aim. As ever, Sitek’s production shines.

Almost in defiance of poor sales and cult following, CWK and their charming second album embody everything you hoped music might be.

The big question: is it any good? Well, in places.

Ladyhawke’s louche synthetic pop is brazenly Bananarama, ridiculously ‘Rio’, and wonderfully Waterman, but the lack of posing – her sheer scruffiness – makes it the first credible ’80s pop record since ABC’s ‘The Lexicon Of Love’

And Then Boom is the moment the ironic ’80s electro revival finally manages to jump the shark.