Perfect pop without the pretence, basically.

Do You Like Rock Music? might be fashionably rough around all the right edges, but there's definitely still enough lyrical wit and musical beauty contained herein to warrant your attention.

Such is the band’s melodic power the sensation is like slipping into a warm bath rather than eavesdropping by the psychiatrist’s chair.

Quite frankly, after just one listen to Promises Promises, Die! Die! Die! could set fire to our first born and we’d still be staring at them in doe-eyed wonder. Cold showers necessary.

This is an album of genuine depth, one expressing the nervous conservative shockwaves which charge through party kids once they start to come down.

Meatier, beatier, bigger and bouncier. And all the better for it.

The Bedlam In Goliath has its unnecessary extravagances but it’s still a grand catharsis from the forces of evil. Or, for those unwilling to allow a little imagination into their lives, just a really fucking good record.

Their strength is that, musically as well as sartorially, they’re unafraid to plunder and repurpose styles previously considered naffer than Bluetooth headsets.

Their sixth album is also as pretentious as you would expect a record named after a novel by Austrian feminist author Elfriede Jelinek to be.

Everything you hear is supposedly conjured from Yoav's guitar. It's a cute trick but as the album storms ahead it becomes a distracting and frustrating gimmick that sells the songs short. [15 Mar 2008, p.50]

It’s post-rock burning its beret, Americana for the post-apocalypse.

11 years into their career, SFA have produced some of their most beautiful songs yet.

Good, but not "The Greatest."

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.

While most of Matinée will fade away into your brain faster than a pair of his danced-out Nikes, there is a shadow of a hint of a suggestion that there’s something more to Jack Peñate than rapidly-dissolving indie-pop sugar.

Distortion is above cynical reproach--effortlessly modern and definitively 2008, yet flitting with the ghosts of Shields, Madder Rose (ask your 90s alt.indie expert uncle) and The Jesus And Mary Chain.

Tracks like ‘Angels On A Passing Train’, swoon with religious imagery and elevate in their choruses, nodding unashamedly to Dylan and Springsteen, while ‘Jesus In The Temple’ is a BRMC mosey into the sunset, delivered with adventurous gusto that’s matched by anything found here.

Growing Pains finds Blige on chirpier form.

This Chicago MC keeps high-concept gibberish to a minimum, packing his second album with rhymes about robots and skateboards that nonetheless roll with the sort of swagger which leaves other brainbox rappers red-faced and grasping for their inhalers.

Yeah, that’s 8 Diagrams--a knockabout set rather than a knife to the jugular.

The music is as grotesquely over-produced as its lyrics are undercooked, with glossy drum rolls and naff scratching segments fighting for attention on the gruesome battlefield.

Shelter From The Ash is a more sedate affair, full of ghostly baroque folk stories that feel disappointingly ethereal.

Crazy as a second Gorillaz B-sides album might sound, this rummage through the "Demon Days" cutting room floor is totally justified.

Four potential singles are dropped in the first 15 minutes and, frankly, they're all about as good as it gets.

It harnesses large spaces, allowing songs like 'Caravan' to blossom into something more orchestral than you'd expect; fitting for a band whose name translates as 'reverberation.'

And it sounds... bloated and uncomfortable. Time for another re-think.

As I Am sees the piano songstress breaking free of her saccharine chains and delivering a streetwise, smoky set of real soul.

Sawdust reveals a band with a healthy blueprint for success, sure, but "The Masterplan" it ain't.

Ire Works is their most controlled effort to date, even more so than 2004's mainstream-friendly (relatively speaking, of course) "Miss Machine."

45:33 is loads of fun, a satisfying folly that's as central to an appreciation of "Sound Of Silver" as the lyric sheet.

You leave American Gangster longing for more of this don't-give-a-fuck attitude, but the feeling that presides is Jay-Z patting his wallet.

Their sound, which paved the way for the likes of Bloc Party, is still pretty timeless.

Angels & Airwaves labour under the illusion that "mature" equals "worthwhile;" and that means long, directionless songs swathed in echo pedals and factory-set keyboards.

By total accident they seem to have stumbled upon the perfect formula for the indie-rock disco anthem, and for this they should be lauded.

From 'Gimme More's' heavily treated vocals that sound like a sex addict's cry for help to the electro throb of 'Piece Of Me', where fembot Brit tackles the paps with laser eyes, it could really do with a few more human touches.

Teenager is simply more wonderful, bittersweet laze-pop of a hue at which The Thrills have become grand masters.

Shotters Nation isn't his magum opus, it's still infinitely more consistent, listenable and likely to get played on the radio than its predecessor ever was.

There are glimmers of loveliness in the industrial-calypsos of 'Drool' and 'Bananas,' but that just makes the wilful awkwardness all the more frustrating.

Coheed have picked up more prog nuances so it fits that this, the last in the sequence, is their most ambitious yet, best embodied in the eight-minute 'The End Complete.'

Elect The Dead is both impressive and bewildering--almost as if SOAD's wildest excesses have been standardised.

Here are 13 songs of dire cod-reggae, OK stoner rock and quite-good-'80s AOR, which makes them the thinking man's Tenacious D, for what that's worth.

The debut album from the Leeds sonic evangelists features tracks about an assassinated prime minister, the Salem witch trials and an East German border guard who committed suicide through guilt after escaping to the West....These subjects are then twinned with a sound rich in solemn and ultimately cacophonous guitar.

Like Johnny Cash jamming with Holly Golightly, Little Amber Bottles is the grizzled embodiment of everything that's brilliant about sleazy, Deep South rock'n'roll.

Having distanced themselves from the E-word long before it became fashionable to do so, Chase This Light sees them outgrow it.

Oblivion With Bells is less the comedown than the sound of the party still going 10 years on.

Ridiculous, yes, but to Thrice's credit, wanting to be Deftones (which they attempt here, at length) is a noble endeavour. But the results are still clunky.

We're treated to none-too-shabby performances of the obvious lighter-wavers as well as several lesser-known wonders, including a rocked-up take on 'Green' favourite 'Orange Crush' and an airing of the sublime 'Cuyahoga' from underrated 1986 release 'Life's Rich Pageant.'

Pull The Pin has urgency, a sense of menace and though it deals with issues like war ('Soldiers Make Good Targets') and the London bombings, there's little of the sanctimonious rhetoric Stereophonics of old were guilty of spouting.

The result is a thoroughly modern pop album that will best appeal to ageing clubbers.

Sonically, it was staggering.

Cease To Begin is the second album by this trio from the foothills of the Appalachian mountains and, with angel-voiced lead singer Ben Bridwell at the fore, it's a delightfully soothing record.

Faux-feminist tracks such as 'Dirty Mind' are more Austin Powers than Phil Spector, too self-conscious to hit the heart-bursting heights of the originals, too much a pastiche to forge anything new. [15 Jul 2006, p.37]

Six years on he sounds like a man not getting nearly enough cuddles.

Unadulterated genius--we're practically drooling.

Frustratingly, though, White Chalk isn't consistent enough to be a classic PJ album, and if you're new to her music, this isn't the ideal place to start.

By and large this is as consistent a record as the Foo Fighters have ever made.

Joey Burns and Paul Niehaus from Calexico take part on 'The Shepherd's Dog,' dovetailing neatly with Beam's vividly personal lyrics and ear for gentle, haunting melody.

The main problem with '...Thunder Canyon' though is it's long - 72 minutes long - which suggests when Banhart let his muse fly free, he forgot to keep a check on his ego, too. At its best, this is subtle, touching, beautiful. At its worst, it's meandering and smug. You're entertained, but unsettled.

With In Our Bedroom... Stars are rewriting the textbook on romance with effortless glee.

Go Go... is a delight, and much less agitated once it's settled down.

Occasionally brilliant ear food for when you’re just drifting off.

He hasn't always got the tunes, but this effort shows off more than enough ideas to keep King Monkey swinging for a good while yet.

What it is overall, however, is a disappointment. A few sparkling moments of invention aside, much of this album is comfortably interchangeable with "Stars Of CCTV's" less inspired tracks.

Her debut had some killer pop singles like 'Black Horse And The Cherry Tree', but on Drastic Fantastic her talent and quirks have been mostly hidden under a gloss of studio production and bland AOR.

He's only gone and come back. And improved, actually: we counted two more hits than "Back To Bedlam." Be very afraid.

The album allows acoustic guitar to be the rule more than the exception. And the sublime melodies on 'Never Day' and 'Honest James' shine. Naturally, you can't take the boy out of art-school.

In the same spirit as Broken Social Scene's baroque pop, his first album stitches together the psychedelic, lo-fi montages and creates something unworldly and unique.

Though it's pretty easy to be the best band in their self-created genre of 'love metal', if you can ignore the cartoon goth twaddle that comes out of Valo's mouth, you'll find an extremely well-executed pop-metal album underneath.

It's accomplished but occasionally overbearingly earnest and calls to mind the Foos' acoustic alter-ego, bolstered by Sufjan Stevens-ish banjo plucks and, in 'Hard Sun', the kind of play-it-again chorus made for credits rolling over a stunning landscape.

Let's Stay Friends arrives as a startling cannon-shot message of brain-thawing intent.

It's as idiosyncratic and tinged with goofiness as one might expect for a band with members called Panda Bear and Geologist.

Despite its five or six great tracks, Graduation feels more and more like the work of a follower, not a leader.

Unsurprisingly, the most thrilling moments are the most genre-schizo.

The trademark tempo jiggery remains and it's all threaded together with airy production that underlines rather than overwhelms.

The unlikely, ghoulish inspiration of a dead Dutch pop star has forced Pixies' frontman Frank Black into making his finest album since the demise of his influential '90s alt.rockers.

Alas, it's unlikely that the applause will stretch to actually wanting to listen as the looping metallic effects, heart-attack drums and seemingly played-backwards female vocals confuse more than impress.

It's honest, intense, funny, furious, and on 'Letter 2 Dizzee'--an olive branch to his estranged protege--tear-jerkingly poignant.

Kasher wrote this as the soundtrack to his screenplay, but on this evidence it could debut on The Hallmark Channel.

American flower-punks Black Lips are purists when it comes to scuzz, and Good Bad, Not Evil is a perfect tapestry of sordid pleasure.

Songs schizophrenically jump from A to X, from great to merely good, with scant warning or point.

Harris has distilled all of the synth-popping, amp-busting sounds of electroclash and disco-punk into a complete set of proper pop uppers.

At points it gets too much, but Heavy Trash's steel-toed pillaging of the past still makes them a punk-rock Time Team.

You could accuse Liars of abandoning all of their high-art concepts and otherworldly thoughts so they could secure their place on a tour of America's enormodomes with Interpol. Well, you could if this album wasn't so perfect.

Fact is, though, the best metropolitan records are part gutter reality, part romantic fantasy, and so it goes with Panic Prevention.

MIA innovates club music, art music and pop music at every turn.

Their fourth album is a staggering masterclass in indie-pop songwriting that will make your brain melt and send firecrackers around your heart.

Sadly, it's an isolated gem ['Dejalo'] that can't lift Under The Blacklight out of its dull AOR mire.

The fourth album from Caribou is the sound of the summer we're only just getting round to enjoying.

The urge to dislike Josh Ritter is somewhat overwhelming. But, like a diseased puppy with an adorable smile, it's just impossible to take him out back with Pa's shotgun because he still has an ear for a good tune--even if it is one of Dylan's.

Yes, it's solid rock but what they might lack in glamour (no back up dancers here, dude), they make up for in sheer sincerity.

The five new tracks added for the UK release, especially the Suicide throb of ‘Run Around’, suggest the real thrills are to come on their debut proper, but for now, this is an exciting enough introduction to a new force of darkness. Buy two, and give one to a hippy.

When you constantly remind the world how great you were, it rather detracts from the good stuff you're still capable of.

A wobbly start, but luckily The Coral are just finding their sea legs.

The rest of it though, is soulful and intelligent where 'intelligent' is not exclusive to 'good beats and rhymes.' Which is what it's all about.

Korn's eighth is actually an interesting listen; as diverse as the witless art of nu-metal gets. That doesn't mean it's good. It merely leaves us with a numbing dilemma: we want to hate it, but we can't.

Things do sometimes get laboured and one-dimensional. But, there's a wry Glaswegian humour here, which ensures there are plenty of smiles to go with those dance moves.

It's solid enough, but given the imagination they once possessed, it sounds like UNKLE are trying too hard.