Head First, enjoyable though much of it is, is disappointingly determined to return the favour.

Warp & Aphex’s age of electro may have passed, and some tricks here that were once jarring now seem familiar, but their prickly oeuvre of tantalising possibility still feeds the imagination.

When they deviate into a treacly world of dub and shifting tones (‘The Channon’), there’s still a lineage, along with an identifiable personality.

Recorded in a cave near Oslo, natch, this gloriously dark second album begins with the dystopia of ‘Ayisha Abyss.’

Their debut buzzes with all the frisson of perspiring pre-teens getting their pseudo-sexual jollies playing Tetris under unmade bed linen; a sort of puerile Pavement with bigger laughs.

It's not quite diminishing returns, but more a sense that Oldham's going round in decreasing circles.

Never have Patterson Hood’s five-piece sounded quite so cranky and furiously righteous as they do on this terrific, ear-splitting sprawl of shit-kicking country boogie.

The live album is built from tracks taken from different shows so doesn’t show off the improvisatory nature of their setlist-free shows, but again, it’s a reminder that their three-year absence is a bit of a tragedy.

‘Get Sexy’ sounds like a lazy, latter-day Timbaland joint, and ‘About A Girl’ is a slice of future-house from Lady Gaga’s chum RedOne. But time was we could expect more than bland consistency from the Sugababes--shame.

It’s Hall & Oates without the casual genius; Boy Crisis without the chutzpah; Junior Boys without the emotional baggage.

This long-awaited debut album proper from the preacher-chic-touting fivesome is an intoxicating mix of apocalyptic riffs, sob-worthy singalongs and brooding blues.

When your nightbus home is beset by phantasmagorical drunkards with beady, threatening eyes, when your ears are bashed by mendacious line managers and eyes beset by the violence of news/advert/news, then this incredible album is your passport to a better place.

The album deviates from their previous alt-folkish sensibilities: the fuzzed-up shoegazing of ‘Things’ and the anthemic chorus of ‘Living In Colour’ herald an exciting new bullshit-free dawn.

There's a bloodymindedness on The Monitor that is equally infuriating and invigorating.

Revisited ‘Are You Experienced’ cuts ‘Fire’ and ‘Red House’ set the tone for power trio workouts topped by the title cut, while live favourites ‘Hear My Train A Comin’’ and ‘Lover Man’ show that Hendrix needed his own studio to replace the rubble they’d have left behind at NYC’s hallowed Record Plant.

Every single one of the lyrics is either a really, really lame Spacemen Zero drug innuendo (the – hey! – 10-minute epic ‘’Half-State’), about ‘twisted’ love (the – hey! – ‘stripped down’ ‘Sweet Feeling’s Gone’) or mentions “highways”.

on their third album, the combination of Canadian indie (Broken Social Scene), psychedelic ’60s rock (Love), cosmic ’70s pop (ELO) and shoegaze (Ride) is nothing short of beautiful.

The ore of modern Pitchfork rock is here, laid out in all its flawed-diamond beauty. For a canon so flagrant in its faults, Quarantine is all-but faultless.

Equally, those who delighted in unravelling ["Phylactery Factory"]knotty, brilliant album will emerge dazed and blinking into the wide spaces and sweet melodies of Kairos.

The Bundles’ kooky childishness and playground melodies will beguile and irritate in equal measure.

Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor has his production paws all over San Franciscan quartet The Morning Benders’ second full-length effort, and while Big Echo has more than pastiche to offer, a great deal of it still sounds a bit too familiar.

An extremely mellow album, while hardly groundbreaking, it’s quietly beautiful in places.

Perfect pop is not something you can design; it’s an alchemical accident resulting from a freakish alignment of melody, words and rhythm that unifies all who hear it, an H1N1 strain of music. That Little Boots so nearly achieves the ultimate chart-slaying, cerebral-cortex tickling, Bradford-hen-party-and-Shoreditch-rave-soundtracking album is, frankly, amazing.

It's genuinely surprising, beautifully wrought and announces TNP as one of the most powerful artistic forces in Britain today.

If anything, on the likes of ‘Warsaw’ and ‘Cards To Your Heart’, it gets too dark, but there’s enough funk in their trunk to ensure that the coffee table crowd won’t be too terrified.

Tellingly, ‘Be Brave’ is back-loaded with easily the strongest and most diverse cuts, and by the time the final acoustic plucks of ‘You Can’t Only Love When You Want’ fade out, The Strange Boys have done almost a sonic 180.

Now Pollock has rediscovered her former band’s grandiose esoterica and stark, scratchy danger.

It may not possess the mind-blowing innovation of 1995’s ‘Clear’, but when something is as darkly gorgeous as this, it’s hard to quibble.