It’s post-rock burning its beret, Americana for the post-apocalypse.

11 years into their career, SFA have produced some of their most beautiful songs yet.

Good, but not "The Greatest."

For all its musical philandering, unbridled excess and shrouds of irony, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a record with more musical depth and warmth all year than this one.

While most of Matinée will fade away into your brain faster than a pair of his danced-out Nikes, there is a shadow of a hint of a suggestion that there’s something more to Jack Peñate than rapidly-dissolving indie-pop sugar.

Distortion is above cynical reproach--effortlessly modern and definitively 2008, yet flitting with the ghosts of Shields, Madder Rose (ask your 90s alt.indie expert uncle) and The Jesus And Mary Chain.

Tracks like ‘Angels On A Passing Train’, swoon with religious imagery and elevate in their choruses, nodding unashamedly to Dylan and Springsteen, while ‘Jesus In The Temple’ is a BRMC mosey into the sunset, delivered with adventurous gusto that’s matched by anything found here.

Growing Pains finds Blige on chirpier form.

This Chicago MC keeps high-concept gibberish to a minimum, packing his second album with rhymes about robots and skateboards that nonetheless roll with the sort of swagger which leaves other brainbox rappers red-faced and grasping for their inhalers.

Yeah, that’s 8 Diagrams--a knockabout set rather than a knife to the jugular.

The music is as grotesquely over-produced as its lyrics are undercooked, with glossy drum rolls and naff scratching segments fighting for attention on the gruesome battlefield.

Shelter From The Ash is a more sedate affair, full of ghostly baroque folk stories that feel disappointingly ethereal.

Crazy as a second Gorillaz B-sides album might sound, this rummage through the "Demon Days" cutting room floor is totally justified.

Four potential singles are dropped in the first 15 minutes and, frankly, they're all about as good as it gets.

It harnesses large spaces, allowing songs like 'Caravan' to blossom into something more orchestral than you'd expect; fitting for a band whose name translates as 'reverberation.'

And it sounds... bloated and uncomfortable. Time for another re-think.

As I Am sees the piano songstress breaking free of her saccharine chains and delivering a streetwise, smoky set of real soul.

Sawdust reveals a band with a healthy blueprint for success, sure, but "The Masterplan" it ain't.

Ire Works is their most controlled effort to date, even more so than 2004's mainstream-friendly (relatively speaking, of course) "Miss Machine."

45:33 is loads of fun, a satisfying folly that's as central to an appreciation of "Sound Of Silver" as the lyric sheet.

You leave American Gangster longing for more of this don't-give-a-fuck attitude, but the feeling that presides is Jay-Z patting his wallet.

Their sound, which paved the way for the likes of Bloc Party, is still pretty timeless.

Angels & Airwaves labour under the illusion that "mature" equals "worthwhile;" and that means long, directionless songs swathed in echo pedals and factory-set keyboards.

By total accident they seem to have stumbled upon the perfect formula for the indie-rock disco anthem, and for this they should be lauded.

From 'Gimme More's' heavily treated vocals that sound like a sex addict's cry for help to the electro throb of 'Piece Of Me', where fembot Brit tackles the paps with laser eyes, it could really do with a few more human touches.

Teenager is simply more wonderful, bittersweet laze-pop of a hue at which The Thrills have become grand masters.

Shotters Nation isn't his magum opus, it's still infinitely more consistent, listenable and likely to get played on the radio than its predecessor ever was.

There are glimmers of loveliness in the industrial-calypsos of 'Drool' and 'Bananas,' but that just makes the wilful awkwardness all the more frustrating.