Fractured techno, torch song balladry, oilsmoke rock'n'roll and soulful synth pop merge sublimely, all rooted in tales of romantic dislocation and repair.

Bad As Me has to rank as a disappointment, since there are no surprises to match Real Gone's sepulchral funk or Orphans'... breathtaking sweep.

The entire thing is an absolute, unerring joy.

Audio, Video, Disco's success is in its album-wide consistency, and a contemplative depth of sound that outshines the expectations of their disco-biscuit crowd.

By taking what worked about Lungs and amplifying those qualities to a natural, satisfying conclusion, Florence has made a near-great pop record that should afford her the creative freedom to do whatever the hell she wants next time around. She may be away with the faeries, but she knows exactly what she's doing.

You're unlikely to play this record at your next soirée but the breadth and ambition is to be applauded.

If The Strange Boys were Brits, you get the impression they'd officially be a big deal by now.

[A] perplexing and risible album.

Festival stalwarts and vintage sonics trailblazers, their no-fuss rhythm and blues has little truck with reinventing the wheel and fizzes with the simple joy of creation.

Try not to grin inanely as the banjo-led big band play "The Bare Necessities," sob to Wilson's lounge lizard harmonies on "When You Wish Upon A Star" or find lions sexy during his restrained "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?"

You finish the record hungry for more of these febrile, insistent Kinshasa sounds--and that, surely, is mission accomplished.

A record whose luminous soundscapes are at once alien yet familiar, adding hazy heartbeat rhythms to their seductive take on ambient masters past and present such as Brian Eno, Harmonia and Tim Hecker.

It's expansively, ecstatically excellent for many of the same reasons as The Field's previous two: blissful, loop-based hymns at the intersection between shoegazing, trance and minimal techno.

The epic emoting can feel a tad weighty towards the end, but you're left with a solid impression of who Active Child is, rather than who he wants to be.

A huge step forward for them and, hopefully, for their public perception too.

It just feels like, once again, Coldplay have done the selfless thing and gone out to protect EMI's share price, and at the end of it remain peering off the edge of a cliff edge, wishing they had the courage to jump.

Another long-awaited offering finally drops and it's wonderfully enchanting.

The anti-folk pioneer's sixth album for Rough Trade is a familiar comedy of errors, full of dusky textures with a sparkling hue of optimism.

If the Dutch producer's last album 'Great Lengths' was an exercise in contemplative, spacious dubstep, then Ghost People is instinctual; muscles tensed in observance of the cerebellum's basest of commands.

Abe Vigoda, HEALTH and No Age's noise-pop inform the best parts of this fine debut LP, rendering it a swirling headfuck of manic energy mixed with blissed-out melody.

Noel's still got it. Only a fool would write him off.

Even if they're a hard band to fall in love with, this record is ridiculously easy to admire.

It's crystallised, but the light shines through.

It's a hit and miss affair.

With pace set to 'perky', the occasionally impressive hooks of (oh yes) 'Summer Fling, Don't Mean A Thing' and (oh no) 'Dumped' merge into a glossy mud from which nothing to rival All The Small Things emerges.

Still not Friday night material, then, but a moving display of one man's myriad sorrows nonetheless. Bless.

The Brooklyn duo's fifth album is less pan-pipe chill-out and more a brooding and oppressive morass of sound akin to a shamanistic Zola Jesus.

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming is itself the Little Prince: guileless and dreamy. Quite a bold statement to make, but this is an album of equal valour.