If Sidewalks is husband-and-wife duo Matt and Kim's vision of a perfect night on the tiles, then partying with them must be hellish.

It's business as usual on the whole.

The whole album brims with the laidback confidence of someone who knows she's back on top. Britney claims it's her best work yet. She's not wrong.

As long as Braids can escape unscathed from the hype machine, this could be an amazing journey.

Wiz proclaims that his "life is like a movie". Maybe so, but he needs to delete some scenes.

Considering the scattered legacy that feeds the roots of this album, and the other OTT keyboard abusers of our times, some foolishness is only right and proper. Fortunately, there's some belting tunes to chew on too.

The Vaccines' debut does a wonderful thing--it reminds you that guitar music still works.

Ten tracks of exuberant, blissful pop later and it looks like the Mackem lads have actually come good on their promise.

It's only rock'n'roll but you'll probably like it.

Weirdest of all, though, is that no matter how much Jessie J sings about being herself, we don't really ever get a sense of who, or what, that is.

Perhaps it's the introduction of an outside producer (Per Sunding) for the first time, but they're sounding like a band with something to prove.

Save for the brief reprieves of the barbed, anti-everything 'Words I Never Said' and the historical rewrite of 'All Black Everything', Lasers walks a fine line between conscious hip-hop and sleepwalking.

Producer Mark Ronson does an astounding job of taking them back to the Fab Five glory days of Rio.

Undersexed and over here, let's send them back to where they, indeed, belong.

More magpies than nightingales across these 13 tracks, they stitch up a glorious grab-bag of modern psych.

Bread And Circuses isn't bad enough to be s death knell, but neither is it good enough to be their commercial rebirth.

Occasionally they hit an addictive groove, but you'd hope so given that the songs are each five to 10 minutes long. Messy, and not in the good way.

A fine record from an ever-impressive band.

Now shorn of vibraphonist Keaton Snyder, San Francisco's The Dodos remain a three-piece with the addition of alt.country chanteuse Neko Case.

The fact is, there's a vitality, a shamelessness, an energy retained throughout here that shows why they mattered so damn much, and why they shouldn't – and couldn't – ever consider doing anything else.

Ultimately, though, its success still falls on Lightburn's shoulders, a vocalist who's always straddled the line between impassioned and overwrought.

Angles isn't perfect, but if it marks a new phase of creativity and togetherness for the group, then it could be more of a success than even Is This It.

Basically, the album's a mess of melody, noise, stupidity, screaming and big choruses that does its bit for the all-important Campaign Against Intellectualism In Rock. Fun.

Last retains the intimacy of their previous recordings, but it's augmented with more orchestral flourishes.

A classic case of ugly and beautiful: TN&F's passive melodicism and aggressive innovation clash in a dazzling blaze of psych/sonic fireworks.

Welcome Home offers both a different approach and a welcome return.

They're not so much fiddling while Rome burns as clattering bass and drums magnificently while they take a torch to Redcar.

Happily, it makes a good go of bucking the trend here and there, with singer Bill Janovitz's full-throated delivery investing his words with the kind of gritty undercurrent of self-loathing and inner torment that makes Skins jolt with bursts of fresh energy.