On their third release Asobi Seksu have toned down the fuzz’n’raunch of old and come over all Cocteau Twins-y and mature--not necessarily a bad thing, just quite a bit less visceral.

It’s unlikely to gain any new converts to the cause, but you get the impression Hitchcock stopped caring about that sort of thing long ago.

What Havilah does is jump up and down on the rotting carcasses of The Vines and Jet, stabbing them again and again with a flag that says “Miles. Better. Than. You. Ever. Were. Mate.”

The gleeful squelches on ‘Life Of Birds’ might sound like a cheery Game Boy--but, next to the sinister electro-chill of the rest of the record, it’s a nursery rhyme.

Her pipes can still be transportational, but mostly they deliver nice, docile music to stroke cats to.

Recorded with help from Fantomas shrieker Mike Patton and Buzz ‘Melvins’ Osbourne on guitar, Carboniferous rocks out with little competition.

Taking cues from ’60s free jazz, dub and disco and combining it with the punk-rock sensibilities of their former outfit, Watersports is a delirious fever-dream of an album.

Greg Kurstin helped deliver everything both artist and mercenary label boss could wish for. Songs that are ultra-modern and instantly accessible, fun but never cheesy, experimental but rarely try-hard.

This one fares better than most in audio form, but whether ‘Natalie’s Rap’ will be enjoyed by anyone who hasn’t already wet themselves at the video is debatable.

Laura Marling, six years Emmy’s junior, sounds far more worldly wise, and there’s a sense of naivety, rather than innocence, that stops the album being as Joni Mitchell as it thinks it is.

Perhaps it was the pressure of following breakthrough hit ‘C’mon C’mon’, or some serious Jack White payback voodoo, but now, where should have roared a gutsy, triumphant comeback squeaks a patchy, mediocre-in-places record.

Angry blues stomps such as ‘Early In The Morning’ are the aural equivalent of Wild Turkey for breakfast, while ‘Out At Sea’ combines the grit and growl of the Bastards’ beginnings with a layering of sounds that’s wider, more expansive and ultimately more interesting.

Even if it gets a bit bedroom experimentalist, POS is Buck 65 with balls, and has more ideas and soul in one cut than an entire Fiddy wet shit.

Pure indie-pop to hold close to your heart.

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.

aside from the throaty rasp of singer Kyle Falconer on lead-off single ‘5Rebbeccas’, the mushy ‘Temptation Dice’ and Paolo Nutini-featuring ‘Covers’ – there’s little here that’ll appeal to the hundreds of thousands of people who bought "Hats Off To The Buskers." Yet it’s a good record regardless.

This might not be the ‘music of the night’ that rotund talent show type Lloyd Webber and his phantoms had in mind, but based on the majority of this album Messrs Kapranos, Hardy, McCarthy and Thomson can definitely take us out tonight.

Hs 16th (16th!) studio album, sees him eschew such stylings and instead go for broke on telling tales and flashing his soul

Dear John is more or less all about getting dumped, blending hymnal keyboards, tender strings and pained vocals.

Freshly hooked-up with Ed Banger, Oizo has made a joyously daft party album.

Unrelentingly maudlin and hell-bent on ramming every potential silence with soporific guitars and proverbially pathetic fallacy, ‘AM’ only perks up on its two covers.

Merriweather..., their psych-pop pinnacle, shares the simultaneous relentless complexity and instant simplicity of the best Of Montreal albums, but where Kevin Barnes’ last effort got lost in its clever-clever weirdness, shifting rhythms and textures in a way that felt like standing onboard a bus going down a mountain, Animal Collective’s is an easy, good-natured beast.

With The Crying Light Antony And The Johnsons continue to explore the creative boundaries of pop while covering all emotional bases. For that, they should be celebrated.

Their fight-and-make-up pop is like Dananananaykroyd gone new wave, with the B-movie and comic-book geek-joy of early Ash. But that doesn’t mean there’s no depth, if that’s your poison.

With the arrival of Fantasy Black Channel--four young men given free rein over four studios – it’s time to hail the new age of anything-goes ridiculousness.

So believe it: this is the real thing, no-one’s crying wolf, not even Alan McGee.

Sound smart? It would be if he hadn’t served it up with such flaccid beats.

The band have responded with their most stylistically hatstand-but-indisputably-best songs yet.