Now, 35 years on, her voice is as resonant, lachrymose and strong as ever.

At 35 minutes long, Object 47 is the perfect length: short, to the point, and boasting some of Wire's most vital music.

Wry, understated and occasionally heroically sorry for itself, his fourth--and best--album mixes folk, pop, country and rock to superb effect.

Spun-out psychedelia, world-weary Appalachian bluegrass and soulful blues make up his first solo album, proving that in the right hands, nostalgia can become a delicate, authentic rediscovery rather than the clunky retread that so many settle for.

It's to Lewis's credit that he can credibly convey the romantic notion of hopping on a Greyhound while also moaning about the leg room.

The darker, more mischievous mood at work is perfectly complemented by arrangements that are as inventive as they are austere.

While their coming-of-age tales entertain some, it's their 'us versus the world ' spirit that makes this such an enthralling debut.

The production is glossed to within an inch of its life, the mood is cheerfully upbeat--or 'festive' as Carey might put it herself--and the entire confection rings out with bold, sassy, brutally executed intent.

His third stint as the Fireman, his partnership with producer Youth, finds the pair on inspired form, ready to take risks while knocking out a track a day.

I'm New Here might turn out to be a footnote rather than an American Recordings-style new chapter, but this is as striking a return as we're likely to hear all y.

Reliability is the Hold Steady's calling card, and on Stay Positive they don't stray far from the tried-and-tested combination of orthodox guitar rock and gritty, observational lyrics.

Standards given a sensual bossa makeover

The Future Crayon isn't the 'new Broadcast album', but it might actually be their best album.

Lowe pulls it all together with warmth, wit and searing emotional honesty.

It's an inventive reimagining of hip hop with huge basslines underpinning the otherwise cinematic atmosphere.

Though it may occasionally be a little too skittish for its own good, Which Bitch? confirms that the View are a band with a vibrant imagination and an abundance of ideas. For that reason alone, their return is very welcome.

Homme's ever-catchy formula remains, but the mood is uneasy and brooding, with tracks such as 'Sick, Sick, Sick' revealing a venomous new band that's finally learned to separate business and pleasure.

For all American Gangster's conceptual flair, the purest joy comes from 'Success', a tune which could have slotted into any Jay-Z album.

AC/DC have stuck to their guns with electrifying results.

Sometimes the rough edges have been over-smoothed: there are all kinds of strange, cheap synthesised noises buried under the layers of polish that I'd like to hear more clearly. But this is a minor gripe, for despite its dark heart, there's a real joy about this debut.

Of all the 32-minute concept albums inspired by Paul Auster to come out of Sunderland this year, it's comfortably the best.

The synth-punk shout-pop of this boy/girl duo was cobbled together in a Salford arts complex for a budget of zero pence. And--in a totally great way--it sounds like it.

Something a bit crunchier that's been boiled up with producer Josh Homme in the Mojave Desert, but with the sweetener of Alex Turner's words.

Quite addictive.

While Narrow Stairs may scale down the melody-assaults of previous efforts, with their fresh groove and whiff of rebellion, Death Cab announce themselves as genuine rock stars.

Part-Incredible String Band, part- Lal Waterson, but mostly magnificently unique.

Roots and Echoes is a brighter, considerably more settled record than previous outings, less inclined to meander skittishly into dub, mariachi and sea shanties.

Mostly band and producer Mark Ronson have done what both parties needed to do in late 2008: avoid the ordinary and obvious, namely glossy stadium-indie and retro-soul horns respectively, and aim for the extraordinary.

So let's hear it for Living With a Tiger, which makes a point of scrambling everyone's tastes. Not since Jr Walker & the All Stars in the 60s have a sax-led band reached out and communicated as Wareham does on Gratitude, which is apparently informed by grime.

It's an album likely to confound and alienate, but its nooks are home to a rugged kookiness that no one but RZA could pull off.

And yet, as is often the case with music crafted solely in the key of strife, the result is bizarrely life-enhancing, chiefly thanks to the head-spinning fashion in which Gnarls condense 40 years of rock'n'roll into one seamless psychedelic whole.

Calexico's dusty vistas make a welcome comeback.

As bright young things fall in and out of fashion, it's a joy to have these gnarled veterans back to reinforce the sheer visceral thrill of timeless heavy metal.

This previously unreleased mini-album (recorded in late 1974) turns out to be a marvellously invigorating blast of proto-punk intensity.

Tones of Town finds Field Music... hurling themselves into an abyss of pastoral abstraction with a wholeheartedness that is utterly thrilling.

On his 24th album, Springsteen reaches for the simple power and unabashed romanticism of early pop.

It's a state of the union address, an apocalyptic protest album. It also sounds phenomenal.

It's Never Been Like That reunites the quartet with the kind of jubilant, foot-pumping power-pop that, at best, is informed by the brevity of new wave and the breeziness particular to pre-punk West Coast rock.

Soul is about voice and music that connects the church and the bedroom, with elegance and earthiness. And, by that crucial measure, Jim is a great soul record.

It's a bravely eccentric selection and a captivating homage to a singular writer.

If you like the Hot Chip album, you'll love this.

It's a real thrill to find TV on the Radio pushing through the portal into the ethereal space-rock paradise that they always seemed destined to inhabit.

Whether live or unplugged, though, the effect is much the same: disbelief that one band can convey this much emotion when, for all the unearthly beauty of the music, the lyrics amount to little more than gibberish.

It starts out blustery and familiar, before gradually revealing an unexpected and almost lovable sense of vulnerability.

Wait till you hear 'Norrlands Riviera', the best thing Belle and Sebastian never did. Blissful.

The banjos and root-tootin' bass might seem overly reverential but there's something comforting in her landscapes of small-town America.

There is a lightness of touch at play that gives the XX a sophistication beyond their years. It probably means that their dream pop will become the ubiquitous dinner party album du jour.

It sags mid-album, but the Brits won't demand a recount.

It's a collection of 14 songs that will be instantly recognisable to those who loved them back in the Nineties.

Check out the dissonant 'Womankind' ("Wish I had a lover who could turn this squalor into wine"), while the show stopper is 'Sing'--a collaboration with 23 female superstars that is incandescent.

Barat does a great job of revitalising the ramshackle thrills that the Libertines did all too briefly so well.

The 27-year-old has stepped up into territory that references his background in gospel and soul but avoids the more obvious nods to the past.

The problem is that these songs are mostly too corny to have much drama restored to them. This is not folk music as mystery or romance or danger but as communal singalong.

An unexpected winner.

Battles combine the power of hard rock with an experimental aesthetic.

Sublime.

Listen intently, repeatedly, and you'll hear much to widen your consciousness... But listen for, you know, enjoyment and you'll be left wanting.

Amid the sighs and groans, she hits the pop G-spot with her savvy hooks and superlative rhyming.

It sounds exactly like a Dinosaur Jr album should.

This faultless debut album will delight lovers of recent records by Nouvelle Vague and Roisin Murphy.

Lovely.

Their most mature set to date.

A brave, if samey, affair, System is undoubtedly sincere.

For the most part, the lyrics are so reliant on stock phrases - 'feel your touch', 'hold me', 'shoulda known', etc--that you could read anything you like into them without them carrying any personal feeling at all. If you can listen to that fluting, fierce, clear, dirty, magnificent voice while simultaneously shutting out the banality of what it's expressing, you'll have hours of pleasure from this gorgeously melodic, curiously old-fashioned album.

Their most rigorously conceived and focused [album] for years.

Here, as on 2004's Where the Humans Eat, he posits himself as a man of the road whose sole possessions are a handful of albums, all of which were made in the mid-to-late Sixties. Pleasingly, however, he abides by his own rules.

Vernon is great at seizing on something simple and spinning it out to reveal its innner beauty and this EP shows that there's more than just heartbreak to the 27-year-old. The title track, however, does sound like something by Coldplay.

Often harrowing, although Williams's emotional odyssey finds resolution on the title track.

Previous albums never quite lived up to the band's facility for knockout singles, but this one holds the attention.

Ghostface is in typically brutal form.

All the songs here are fully realised and often the equal of those on their parent album.

Surprisingly, the album's blend of Mitteleuropean melody and American eccentricity is diverting enough to overcome any misgivings.

Ta-Dah is easy to like but hard to love.

Bleak and evocative.

The band's favouring of big brass accompaniments and enthusiastic vocals gives this album momentum, but it's their preference for substance over style that ensures Tired... puts their modish peers to shame.

There are exceptions, notably Tortoise, Aphex Twin and Björk songs, while Lisa Germano's 'Slide' is magnificent, mainly thanks to Adem's eerie, cracked delivery.

Though rather generic--grainy emoting; overwrought lyrics; crisp guitar-driven pop--at least Mould can claim that he virtually invented this stuff.

As its title implies, though, Strawberry Jam is strange: luxurious and fractious, wistful and atonal.

The band's contributions are low points on this 16-track epic, but Oberst proves as iconoclastic as ever.

Eight years later, no longer so wide-eyed, the Norwegian duo sound more pedestrian, though 'Royksopp Forever' proves they haven't lost their sense of fun.

The Grammy-winner has a worthy reputation--and, yes, songs namecheck Katrina, Obama et al--but there's also a playful, reflective quality as Chapman looks back at the way music has shaped her life.

Embryonic is certainly not without charm, but its title gives the game away. Largely, it's the sound of a band seeking inspiration rather than finding it.

Their second LP is all candy-coloured dreamscapes. Lily remains a spikier proposition.

There's a fine songwriter somewhere inside frontman Liam Fray--but first he has to bust his way out of a genre that the world has long ago left behind.

There's no stand-out to match 'Tiny Tears' or 'Marbles' but Stuart Staples's crumpled voice and the distinctively intricate arrangements summon Lee Hazlewood's tear-flecked, bruised spirit.

The first LP for nigh on a decade from Tjinder Singh and co feels like rummaging through rock's dressing-up box on a wet afternoon.

An eclectic, at times explicit, exploration of love, loss and lust, it's the work of a skilled songwriter comfortable in his own skin and canon.

He and producer Rick Rubin deliver a well-judged acoustic set whose songs mix war weariness with hope and loss.

Their sixth album (and the first on their own label) is their most self-assured set yet, veering from sparkling glam to funky New Orleans boogie by way of early Nineties shoegazing.

When they rock out they are truly bruising, but, happily, their music is now underpinned with a new-found serenity.

Here Malkmus dispenses with the electronic curiosities that blighted his 2005 solo album Face the Truth and adopts a more polished version of the old indie-rock of soaring guitar solos and oblique lyrics.

His serious moments are as hard to comprehend as a Chuckle Brother tackling a eulogy: you know he must feel emotion because he is a human being, but you are constantly expecting the arrival, stage right, of a pantomime cow.

Merritt's lyrical dark wit chimes nicely with the books' macabre surrealism.

Their sixth collection is broad, bouncy and almost entirely forgettable.

Then, six songs into a characterless album, one on which ambience takes precedence over tunes, 3D and Daddy G unveil three stunning numbers that compare with anything in their back catalogue.

The follow-up adheres to a winning formula: this is sunny pop in a Sixties vein. But why don't they try something reckless?

With Uncle Dysfunktional there's no faulting the band's ambition - the music veers from country to samba to electronica - and Ryder's lascivious drawl and surreal wordplay remain intact.

It's Chrissie Hynde reinvestigating her roots with some rockabilly and a Dylan vibe.