Throughout their debut album London Grammar walk a fine line between haunting and boring.

Spiky and cool where 'Songs For The Deaf' was smooth and tanned, tense and alien where that record was baked and ready to party, 'Era Vulgaris' is a record that feels like rust and stings like battery acid.

They're clearly not aiming for a worldwide banker, but the seam they mine is creatively profitable and floridly engineered.

This is a remarkable later-in-life debut, and one that proves that it’s never too late to make the record of your dreams.

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

Away from his day job, White is less creatively liberated, and surrounding The Dead Weather there's a very strong whiff of conventional, rather clumpy Middle-America jock rock.

After You shows an artist rejuvenated and fired up, and hopefully back on track to stick to a more timely release schedule in the next decade.

What is unfortunate is that she allows Lanegan to utterly dominate their duets.

A ‘difficult second’ album this is not, but the big set-pieces are left wanting. .... Regardless, there’s ample to consider, decode and treasure from an artist who consistently makes poring over the lyric sheet line-by-line as much fun as the finished product.

They've delivered the tunes, alright, but they can't help but fill them with angst, confusion and lashings of amp fuzz. Safe, predictable and packaged for the mainstream? This album is anything but.

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

There's always something heartwarming about a band discovering pop well into their career, especially when it sounds as good as this. [1 Apr 2006, p.43]

A record largely comprised of sulphurous gothic rockers such as ‘Lose The Right’ and ‘Be Still’, both of which sound like a band working from muscle memory.

'The Red Thread' is a frequently beautiful record, as dark and twisted and funny as anything the band have ever produced.

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.

After a year that took so much, the return of the Foos feels like the culture getting back in credit. Consider the record’s closing track, ‘Love Dies Young’, which sparkles with effervescence that the last 12 months have lacked – it’s one of the best songs the band have ever put their name to.

In terms of melody, Femejism is a more outwardly pop-leaning record than their debut, but the duo are still as heavy as Black Sabbath when they want to be.

Effortless and fearless, Sunflower Bean’s latest is a breakneck showcase of the trio’s talent. With each tune a high-octane chunk of the bold, New York indie the band have honed, it’s a triumph.

More adventurous and free-spirited than the Warpaint of before, but retaining the laid-back DNA at their core. For once, Warpaint sound like they’re having fun--and it suits them.

It sounds like the start of another beautiful friendship.

While their version of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Only Shallow’ sounds exactly the same only much more so, the unexpected choices work best.

The heart of the record, Bermuda Waterfall, crystallises a real sense of existential loneliness and leads into the outstanding, lilting waltz of ‘Darkness’ and ‘Hands Dance’.

Of course, for all its honourable intentions, it still paints a picture of 100 dudes in a basement yelling the refrain, “She’s good for a girl”. But when they aren’t committing feminist faux pas, Greys stand on the verge of leading a new generation of punk.

‘Odin’s Raven Magic’s is built on incredibly specific foundations – the particulars of Norse Mythology and medieval Scandinavian poetry is certainly niche – so key aspects feel lost in translation without a hefty visual component or matching blurb. It feels less like conventional album, and more like a live piece immortalised on record.

While ‘The Darker The Shadow’ is ambitious, packed with witty, insightful commentary on the human experience, its conceptual focus allowing plenty of scope for creative flourishes, it ultimately lacks the incisive punch of his earlier songwriting.

It's irresistible. [16 Sep 2006, p.36]

Thomas’ own music is more discursive, and this solo debut (seven tracks, 60 minutes) has its whimsical, proggy longueurs.

The Black Angels’ psych scholarship pays dividends here.