'Recordings…' might lack the obvious brilliance of his movie making, but it's more than just the dabblings of an enthusiastic amateur.

In this slim volume of three-chord thrashing there's proof that while punk may reside in middle age, in some quarters its vital signs have never shown more strongly.

Overall, SY fail to get into their groove between twisted, brutalised melody and spastic six-string experimentalism.

A glossy, well-produced album of populist anthems with a gangsta undertow that expands his worldview and celebrates success.

Is much, much better than a record made by chronically drunk middle-aged men has any right to be.

'Masquerade' is a mighty, ego-free album that doesn't need to shout to be heard.

No post-nu-metal. No nu-post-hardcore. Just a solid, honest, rock album.

James' big thing was anthems, and here they do every single anthem they ever thought of. The crowd think it's brilliant, and they cheer when Tim Booth talks about God. The crowd are plainly mad.

'Untouchables' is a record that grows spikes with each listen and is by turns exhilarating, confusing, inspiring, embarrassing and astonishing.

Even at his most self-referential, Bowie is still a zillion times more inventive, brave and rocket-to-Mars brilliant than anyone who's been prodded by the ubiquitous genius stick, like, ever.

The finest line here is the one between effortless thrash-pop and Slowdive's arse, and My Vitriol just tripped over it.

'Storytelling' is the first indication that Stuart Murdoch has finally got some decent red meat down his gob and he's no longer resigned to wallowing in his dank indie mire until The Pastels come home.

Imagine 'Lost Souls' injected with Prozac and a huge dose of weird guitar noises that give you goosebumps from head to toe. That's 'The Last Broadcast'. It's one of those rare albums that makes sense first thing in the morning but you can still yell along to when your head's exploding.

'The Private Press' isn't a remarkable record - it lacks that startling and instinctive excitement capable of pushing music into the realm of the era-defining.

So contagious is their enthusiasm, you could start thinking that black-clad nihilism has kept music to itself for way too long.

But wait - is that the ghost of a melody on 'Lover's Leap'? Alas, no: it's merely the desultory whoosh of a once-promising career as it plummets, irretrievably, down the art-pop pan.

It's a third album that avoids all the pitfalls of third albums: introspective without being self-pitying, expansive in scope without being pompous, exploring new directions without disappearing up its own arse.

It's the sound of experimentation working, it's what what the second Elastica album should have sounded like, and it's a compelling story unfolding, with many more interesting twists still to come.

The lead single, the excellent, Bowie-ish wibbler 'We Are All Made Of Stars' is a total red herring. The other 67 minutes and 17 tracks are 'Play' Redux; familiar-sounding "oh-lord-my-dog's-just-died" samples over shopworn pianos and strings, straining to be epic but lacking the crucial element of surprise that made 'Play' sound so innovative.

If 'The Green Album' was the charming bouquet to apologise for not calling for five years, 'Maladroit' is the rigorous porking in the back of a second-hand Fiesta we've been gagging for since 1996. It's almost as if Rivers cares about music again.

What's most promising is that GVSB's often melodic noise now, thanks to emo, exists less in weird isolation than it did, and the band seem to be headed dangerously close to getting what they deserve. If this means they must intermittently sound like Feeder, so be it.

It’s a shimmering, mournful gem.

A cacophonous, fearsome and shadowy delight.

A little more emotional chaos, a dash of the dark stuff, might make such avuncular campfire grooves more worthy of our time and money.

Ambition, imagination, charm and grace - by any measure, 'About A Boy' hits the heights.

It's no classic, but there are reassuringly unhealthy signs of life.

It's a gripping darkness that doesn't often lift. It's hard going, but it's worth it, and that is undoubtedly their point.

This is happy music for hard times, a ray of warm and righteous sunshine just when it was needed most.

A mix album of sheer quality.... This should be the soundtrack to every party this summer.

His sound is furious, muscular and relentless - not to mention camp, dangerous and slightly insane.

Like his predecessors', the results here are decidedly mixed.

It's not, as has been signalled, Super Furries' best album. It's their worst. That's still aeons better than most other left-of-centre alternative British pop bands, but it's nonetheless a disappointment.

There are tough, commanding rare grooves, fly spy-thriller tracks, big, daft hip-hop tunes, a brilliant lounge-reggae skank, 'Good Girl Gone Bad', and, in 'The Turnaround', and the 'Apache'-like b-boy break-out, 'Battle Of Bongo Hill', two of the funkiest, party starters you'll hear all year.

'Souljacker''s songs rock harder than most of E's nu-metal enemies.

Despite the rock, you can still dance to it. [Review of U.S. version]

The Lo-Fi's are still operating more than competently, but this time round they're not likely to blow any minds.

A solo charm assault with mixed results.

Brandy is on fine form throughout, purring pillow talk and murmuring sweet nothings to anyone insane enough to listen. Now she loves him, now she doesn't. Really, it's too much.

'Walking With Thee' is barely forty minutes in length, but feels about half that length - not because it flies by, but because throughout, it barely feels substantial.

Bragg and The Blokes' delivery sounds just as dated as the social traditions they lampoon.

It shouldn't work, but it does - perhaps, because, for once Albarn doesn't sound like he's trying too hard.

It's a bit cheeky, but that's Kylie, and that's pop. Where the songs are as good as 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' it works beautifully.

This record moves way beyond armchair psychology - in fact, there are armchairs that have a cannier grasp of the mind.

'Source Tags And Codes' comes with an albatross-like weight of expectation round its skinny neck - yet happily, it's supported by a band who have grown to match it.

[The title track is] a fantastic storm-brewing, brass-stabbing, Nelson Riddle-goes-Tom-Waits, claustrophobic blues number.... It's not worth buying this album for, however, since the rest of it's made up of frustratingly minimalist snatches of music.

There's no reason on God's green earth why anybody should want this record.

It's a brave and curious record that, as on 'Bugs', occasionally resembles Willie Nelson fronting Labradford.

If the DJ's art is to unite unlikely musical party guests, The Automator is a fine and generous host.

It's easily the electronic album of the year, but for all that, it doesn't break particularly new ground. The point more is that what ground is broken is done so with exquisite artistry.

Further success should elude them. That, it seems, is firmly restricted to the past.

'Holes In The Wall' is one of the most impressive debut albums of 2002. Fact.

The reason that 'Come With Us' seems unsatisfying is that The Chemicals no longer seem rooted in club culture the way they were in their Heavenly Social days.

It's the mischievous desire to deconstruct his own perfectly rounded pop snapshots that marks him down as a post-everything wunderkind

'Kittenz And Thee Glitz' is not a techno album, hardly even a dance record, only partially an '80s homage, and not quite pure pop either. But it is also all of these things in one, plus some kind of warped comment on celebrity culture.

Seems that after all the pale imitators, Radiohead finally have a competitor worthy of healthy comparison.

Starsailor have produced a debut album of real emotional depth.

There's a tiny bit more to Mystikal than mere male piggery set to damn fine production.

The good news is that lyrically, Nas is pretty much back on form.

About half of 'Rock Steady' is just great, a career salvage job to compare with Madonna 's 'Ray Of Light'.

There's a more commercial edge to the beats, as well as a subversive edge you'd expect from an MC who's cribbed from Eddie Murphy routines.

Some of it is awful. Some, notably 'Hide Away' and 'Lucky Day' are as good as anything on prime-time Stones album 'Black And Blue', which is saying something.

It works for the red-raw confessional 'Family Portrait', but everything else is so bad Natalie Imbruglia would be proud.

What's curious here is how, for all the Kid's ludicrous victory laps, 'Cocky' is so soft in the middle.

Look beyond the spasm-inducing bass solos to Scott herself: a frequently magnetic performer, with a certain brave, defiant spirit that her peers lack.

'Insignificance' lays down an awesome challenge to other guitar records - it contains more great ideas than most bands have in their entire career. It's the first unequivocal classic album of the new year.

'I Might Be Wrong' sounds significantly better than both of the studio albums that spawned it.

Uniformly excellent.... Few, if any, British bands are making music quite like this right now.

'Driving Rain' is supposed to be raw, spontaneous and unpolished, when in fact it's perfectly pleasant, unable to resist the McCartney default modes of jauntiness and sentimentality.

A rather mousey, introspective record, awash with the wishy-washy sounds of shoegazing, and yet not without its precise, audacious moments.

The Divine Comedy are much more appealing in their vulnerability than they ever were in full cry.

Britney and 'Britney' still works best when making a good pop cheese and dance sandwich.

'Since I Left You' is proof that while being a vinyl junkie might not make you a teen idol, crafting a joyous, kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed disco-pop definitely will.... Cool? Sure, whatever. Brilliant? Undoubtedly.

'Invincible' is a relevant and rejuvenated comeback album make overlong and embarassing by the unavoidable fact that Michael Jackson is a) exceedingly rich and b) a bit of a wanker.

Too often, the follow-up to their 600,000-selling debut 'Spit', is plain overbearing, a violent marriage of melody and brutality that makes for a highly uneasy listen.

Morning View's insurmountable flaw is that Incubus sell themselves as an Intelligent and Sensitive rock band, without actually appearing especially intelligent or sensitive.

This is easily the weakest DMX release to date.

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

What 'Drukqs' never is, of course, is boring. It's also beautifully paced. No track sounds like the one before, even though Aphex rarely strays far from the musical palate that's served him so well in the past.

Whilst 'The Argument' still sounds unmistakably Like Fugazi, it's the sound of an inspirational band, renewed, at play.

They may have been apart for eight years, but less than a minute into opening track, 'Crystal', they've slotted back into their own idiosyncratic groove and the years are pouring off them.... Being in New Order never sounded like half as much fun as it does here.

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

As intelligent, bittersweet, angular stuff, whether it’s alt.rock, guitar-pop, or even emo is immaterial. Labels be damned - just call it great music.

It is its author Kieran Hebden's best work to date and confirms the prolific young soundmeister as a major talent.

It's good in flashes but frighteningly unstable.

No song is quite right: a lyric about angels or elephants here, a trip-hop beat there, and even the Milky Way would blush.

'Let It Come Down' is another towering achievement - both musically and emotionally.... This is music as it's meant to be: raw, colossal and awe-inspiring. No wonder everything else just pales in comparison.

It is a collection of whimsical neo-psychedelic folk songs of no little charm, but, crucially, little drama either.

There have been dark records by Chicagoan Bill Callahan. There have been wilfully obscure ones too, but there has never been one as single-mindedly dour as this.

But while Gray's voice is still beguiling and unique, The Id is basically Brit-award winning, corporate soul with little identity, too cosy and calculated to have any genuine depth.

Easily their finest record yet, a genre-shrugging masterpiece of delicate musicianship and warm feeling.

The style is cool, the moves perfect, but you can take as much of lasting value from a stick of gum as you can from these dank-basement stomps.

'A Funk Odyessey' takes you on a journey of eye-closing triteness.

They have a new sound, a warm, lush and funky noise powered by producer Danny Sabre's sympathetic programming alongside Tony Rogers's bold keyboards, and they've created a great party record with it.

By its close, 'The Blueprint' has eloquently mapped out life's foundations: laughter, tears, joy and pain, and has marked the Jigga as the complete rapper.

'The Altogether' adds weight to the increasing suspicion that Orbital's best work is, like their hairlines, behind them.

At best, these are semi-finished rejects from 'The W'...

With this heavy payload of imagery, it's a miracle that Sparklehorse's third album of backwoods blues hasn't ended up a junk shop of Southern Gothic clichés. Old dog Tom Waits even wades in, hollering like an incestuous uncle on 'Dog Door', while Linkous' rusty cabin music creaks insalubriously beneath. But that's just the first of many wonders of this exceptional record.

His solo debut is frequently as imperfectly perfect as Pavement approaching their best...