From the bouncy 'Same Mistake' (this album's 'Is This Love?'), to the darkly nostalgic ballad to years past, 'Misspent Youth', it's a comeback as irrationally happy-inducing as its title suggests.

They could turn even the hardest kids at school into pissy wrecks with the elegant dread-heart blues of this, their fourth album.

Angst-ridden indiscretions aside, Sigh No More is a fine debut from a band that's patiently picked up the tools of its trade, and chosen the right moment to give them full rein.

The quintet deliver a sincere emotional punch.

At its best 'Riot City Blues' is dumb, fun and silly. [3 Jun 2006, p.33]

Even the ticking percussion and trilling synths can't hide the sheer melodic oddness of Gartside's songs. [3 Jun 2006, p.35]

Namechecks for Peter Beardsley and Peperami show eccentricity, but once you get used to his atonal delivery, Dawson emerges as a talented chronicler of the tiniest, realest details.

Call it highbrow, call it highfalutin, but with Wash The Sins, Esben are carving hulking tablets of stone boasting that intellect is nothing to be scared of.

Here he tightens the screws a bit to make 12 purposeful, concise tracks.

The '80s revival taken to its spangliest, synthiest, chino-flappiest extreme.... Our flashback to a dead decade has thrown up both guilty pleasures and glistening horrors.

Mournful, moving and minor key, Age suggests The Hidden Cameras’ defiant sexual politics are still vital.

Imagine a two-piece BRMC if they'd grown up in a sub-zero landscape in Denmark where the only cultural sign-posts are trashy sado-pulp novels, distorted Velvets bootlegs and endless re-runs of Marlon Brando in classic biker-flick 'The Wild One'.

The results are standard indie on top of a few croaky far-off bleeps, but the vibe is brilliantly consistent: dubby, cracked, and less dense than the surface of Saturn (very un-dense).

Two years since the last album, five members with wildly varying tastes and talents, enough ammo to blast out two solo albums on the side, and they still can’t quite make 10 essential tracks in a row.

Far from being terrifying, it sounds like Smith is actually having fun.

It’s not much more than the sum of its influences, but when its influences are this strong, it really doesn’t matter.

If Pe’ahi is a tribute to Sune’s father, it’s a warts-and-all portrayal of a turbulent relationship, but one delivered with a tenderness and intensity that propels the very concept of the retro garage duo into a fresh sonic stratosphere. Drop in, it’s an exhilarating descent.

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.

Jeffrey Lewis has stepped in to chronicle the detritus of the human condition for his amicable fifth full-length album.

Another fine fusion of volcanic arena-rock and cherry-poppin' slow burners. [9 Oct 2004, p.56]

Sounds like a collection of songs poised to steal the heart of anyone with a bruised soul. [17 Sep 2005, p.58]

‘The Yellow Roses’ typifies the lull in the album’s mid-section, and is all the more annoying when you realise how special this record could have been with a little more quality control.

Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son bills itself as a concept album, a road movie with no end, but the songs are tight, the meaning incidental and any big ideas play second fiddle to bewitching tunes and delicate harmonies.

Sure enough Freddy Ruppert's second album as Former Ghosts is as warm, life-affirming and snuggly as a coatless night on the Siberian steppes.

Fans alienated by My Morning Jacket’s more recent material will find plenty of comfort here.

It’s a moving record. The only catch is, when they turn down the intensity on ‘What We Loved Was Not Enough’ they sound like Arcade Fire at their most mawkish.

Shame it's slightly spoiled by the morbid fixations of those same lyrics--which are the only shit thing about this LP, really.

Ghost Stories is a feeling more than a collection of songs, and takes a willing reception for granted. That feeling's not rancorous, it's bloodless and resigned, but touching as well.