Much of ‘Struggler’ may be unsettled but it never feels restless.

Diet Cig have retained the fast-biting wit that made ‘Swear I’m Good At This’ such a compelling prospect, but here there’s far more depth.

This album is probably the most solid foundation this quartet have had in 15 years, and it would be a disaster if it wasn’t a springboard for several more.

It’s one of the oddest beauties of the year so far.

He has regularly crept back to the light of the charts and 4:13 Dream is such an occasion. And one which, given the ’80s revival, is timed to perfection.

Valuable remainders from last year’s Ferndorf sessions, these playful-yet-stark instrumentals beckon us invitingly into the terribly clever worlds of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Rather than settling on a unified feel, second album Culture Of Volume also delights in genre-hopping, but it’s less abstract and more coherent than its predecessor.

This kind of bug-eyed bish-bash-bosh is exactly what we need from Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes right now. Great records inevitably come out of shit times, and this is one of them.

MGMT might be an uncomfortable journey at times, but it’s also a transcendental one you’ve never been on before.

As the lovelorn ‘From Far Away’ floats by, desolate and broken, haunted by the ghosts of art-rock guitars and phantom electronics, it’s clear that Jeff Tweedy still isn’t comfortable on well-trodden roads and that Warm has moments that upend Americana as beautifully as ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ did with US indie rock. One to let simmer.

It's a shotgun blast of cranked guitars, bruising hardcore and canyon-sized choruses, and it's mesmerising.

Josef K's candy-striped take on post-punk isolationism sounds both ancient and modern. [18 Nov 2006, p.31]

Dungen are the band The Mars Volta wish they were.

Although not every track is a total slam dunk, AJ has here crafted another successful project whose streaming numbers, singles and infectious melodies will live on in memory – just like Michael Jordan’s infamous match.

It’s understated, and a quietly affecting success.

Music to stick pins in voodoo dolls of the popular kids by.

A hodgepodge of styles (electronica, jazz, reggae, rock and classical) is finessed into something stirringly cohesive.

Touches of experimental ambience (‘Rosary’) and ‘80s fog-pop (‘True Seekers’) work well as light relief and ‘Texis’, as an exercise in full-throttle revitalisation, is dynamite indeed.

A couple of slower-paced moments, ‘Khattaba’ and ‘Mawal Jamar’, drag a little, but 'Warni Warni' is undoubtedly the best Syrian-folk techno banger you’ll hear this--or any other--year.

It may sound simple but it's devastatingly effective.

The gear shifts can be jarring, but album four is actually more cohesive than it has any right to be, a fact its creator has attributed to her common thread of influence in Stony Island Arts Bank. Horns up: Corinne Bailey Rae has thrown the musical curveball of the year.

The Odd Couple contains few hints about where the pair will go next. For now, let’s revel in the fact that soul music hasn’t sounded this fresh and downright freaky for a quarter of a century.

A cut above.

‘Taste Of Love’ is one of TWICE’s more powerful releases yet – despite a number of notable misfires – and showcases the group’s versatility in terms of vocals and concept execution.

Her most outward-looking work to date.

Recorded under the radar with producer Jason Lader and Bright Eyes collaborator Mike Mogis, it’s a strange little album, just eight songs long but deceptively dense with ideas.

Jay-Z has upped the commercial rap ante once again.

Musically Once More 'Round The Sun is equivalent to having several tons of hot molten lava poured into your eye sockets for about an hour.