It is hard to know whether Bloom wants us to engage with the zen-like revelations that arose from being trapped in the thudding reality of one identical day following another, or whether he is inviting us to switch off our minds, relax and float downstream. The result is an album that has the capacity to do both, but never truly perfects either.

Marcus Lambkin seems to have a thing for awful names and even worse puns. Luckily for us, as Shit Robot, his ability to craft sublime slices of electro house and muscular techno pop trumps everything else about him.

A bit less front and slightly more of her crazed, talon-nailed, plastic surgery-enhanced Bratz doll-persona would've made for a classic. [12 Nov 2005, p.41]

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.

Half of it’s as good as anything TVOTR have ever done.

Like most blasts of carefree romance, its charms may not endure--'Spun', for example, is so saccharine that it's in danger of making your teeth itch--but often in this life, the sweetest things aren't built to last forever.

The result is not unlike Lana Del Rey, but with fun instead of fatalistic gloom.

‘Say It’ recalls the airy refreshment of Vampire Weekend’s ‘Contra’ and the garage-pop fun of Jonathan Richman’s ‘Rock’N’Roll With The Modern Lovers’.

For now, Editors sound like a band in need of precisely what their name advertises.

It’s sickeningly impressive. Yes, Coxon’s stormed through the Davey Graham Advanced Finger-Picking Guide but he hasn’t forgotten to flip it over and write some of his best ever songs.

Has the pungent whiff of an album with an imminent expiry date. [12 Feb 2005, p.51]

What's extraordinary about Otherworldly--its expressive saxophone blare, heavy afro-funk workouts, hepcat proto-rapping and unyielding positive vibes--is that it feels like these dudes haven't aged a damn day.

The album itself consists of 11 tracks of unimaginative pub rock that, at best, rips off The Darkness, and at worst comes across like a bunch of teenagers in their first band.

While their debut album favoured a shadowy and mystical aesthetic, For Ever makes for a far more personal affair.

If you don't already know the Mac, treat this as your way in. You won't be coming out in a hurry.

Better known for one-off dancehall hits and dubplates, Popcaan isn’t necessarily expected to make a cohesive feature-length record, particularly not across 17 cumbersome tracks. But on ‘Great Is He’ he proves that the exuberant dancehall sound he’s known for can be tinkered with and remoulded, along with some undiscovered vulnerability.

If only because feeling sad isn't as good as feeling happy, this isn't as enjoyable as before.

The five-piece’s debut album is a mini manifesto on harnessing your own power, pooling it with your mates’ and taking on anything the world throws at you.

Despite his surprisingly palatable baritone, this remains an album you won't want to listen to more than once.

Even shorn of their comedic context, the best of these tracks still have the power to rupture internal organs at 20 paces.

If you think Jack White's given 73-year-old Wanda Jackson a new lease of life, then think again; she's been kicking up a hot fuss since she ditched that Elvis fella in the mid-'50s.

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.

Overall, Interpol seems cinematic, abstract and complex, but that adds up to something interesting rather than thrilling.

This is a brilliant--and brilliantly brutal--collection; pulsing dance music that, for all its heaviness and techno sensibilities, retains a glimmer of pop accessibility because it’s so well pieced together and just so much fucking fun. Viva The Prodigy.

They might be reaching into the past for inspiration, but Savages are pushing restlessly forward.

Angel Guts: Red Classroom is his third album in under a year, and superficially it resembles many of Xiu Xiu’s others by draping wracked and fragile vocals over obtuse electronics and analogue atonality.

Thankfully, this is more absurd than mawkish, made even better by the fact that Tahiti 80 are French people singing in English, and therefore do not always make sense.

Like so much of Gene's fine back catalogue, this is an album about the ways in which love can buckle you under and life can break you down, options closing in like the walls of an Indiana Jones dungeon.