These dark, old blues tracks have never sounded more haunting.

Although less vitriolic than 2006's "Nux Vomica," his third album still throbs with delicious melodrama and anguished assertions.

[Danger Mouse's] electronics in ‘Lucid’ detract from the caper and the sub-Lily Allen skank of ‘Jelly Belly’ is ill-advised, while ‘The Running Goblin’’s harpsichord mires it in a midden of shtick.

Simply put: an album stuffed with great, joyful songs.

In this brilliant new time of directional change, the piano-led analogue boy is practically smiling his words out on the Mark Ronson-produced 'Ballad Of Old What's His Name'.

This is a record that wraps itself around you like a kohl-eyed Winona Ryder in an early-'90s slacker movie and doesn't let go for a solid, dream-like 40 minutes.

If it weren't for the stalker-punk of 'Pussywillow' and 'Time Passing', both glowering oddly from the mess and nodding towards early B-52s, we'd shove this in the wardrobe.

Thieves Like Us look and sound like three yuppies trying out the music lark after being laid off by an investment banking firm.

Dananan’s first album proper suffers from the same problems as Los Campesinos!’ flawed debut; ‘Black Wax’ and ‘Pink Sabbath’ are both thrilling, if wonky, pop songs, but they could be appreciated more fully as singles rather than back to back.

Their default position is to panel it: hard-driving Zep-worship so unvarying in its pace that Everyday Demons comes on like one long undead riff plus a lot of yawled guff about about being an ‘Evil Man’ with ‘Demon Eyes.'

It’s no revolution, but It’s Blitz!’s heartfelt love letter to the transcendent possibilities of the dancefloor is an unexpectedly emphatic reassertion of why Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of the most exciting bands of this decade.

Polly’s second joint album with Parish couldn’t be more eclectic in its breadth and scope.

In an attempt to purge themselves of the jaunty millstone that is "Young Folks" and all the joyous indie pop that went along with it, PB&J have ended up with a purely draining effort. Living Thing borders on the narcoleptic.

On the laidback, spaced-out strength of A New Tide, they’re still as pleasantly beguiling as they were 11 years ago.

Isis’ lewd lines on this debut arrive, then, as the law of diminishing returns for all things brazenly sexy begins to set in.

So, his odd decision to make Jamiroquai-like pillow-pop adds yet another string to Oye’s heavily-laden bow, but this is one we’d happily take the wire-cutters to.

The record veers off along theatrical tangents that recall Muse or ELO as much as Sunset Rubdown but ultimately don’t seem to make sense.

Like their too-cool-for-school foremothers, they kind of miss the point of what Italo is about. Unlike them, however, over 10 tracks, they can’t even muster one bleedin’ catchy choon.

It’s this feverishness that’s key to this magnetic and rewarding album.

Grace is less a masterpiece than an escape, a memento of his charisma and charm more than a leap towards new horizons.

This is a man who penned a song called 'Chimbley Sweep' without conceding how daft that sounds, and this overblown opus about a mythical Margaret is equally wet and earnest.

It’s a shame, then, that instead of a sequence of whip-smart sonatas ruminating on the Scandinavian psyche, all that dribbles out is a pedestrian stream of the same old bubble-bath beats.

'The Czar' is a microcosm of Crack The Skye: thuddingly impressive, richly textured and constantly surprising.

Line-up changes (guitarist Jamie McMorrow was replaced by V-Twin man Dino Bardot) have resulted in a beefier, bouncier, more playful sound, with vocals shared more evenly and harmonies abounding.

The actual music on this album is excellent--the sort of Canadian indie beloved of people who live in cities yet dress like the Unabomber....A hole is kicked in the side of it by Carey Mercer’s berserk singing however.

Obits create the same buzz in your brain that was almost certainly present the first time you heard The Hives or The Vines, the feeling which had you so giddy that you perfected excitement wees to rival a puppy (probably). This time, though, it’s not bratty whipper-snappers but a fine veteran taking the lead.

While it’s a step down from both "VV" and his Danger Mouse work, it at least might be his definitively stoned record.

The effect this record has, with its remedial drumming, crappy store-bought synth presets and faux-sensitive, third-form lyrics, is as pleasant as unnecessary eye surgery.