Her new dance album – her 11th – is a brilliant collaboration with the likes of Basement Jaxx and the Scum Frog.

It's a way more focused album than usual.

What Smith sees in goth-metal is a mystery but, sure enough, the final third of 4:13 Dream is studded with the sort of big-haired, suffocating fluff ('The Scream', 'It's Over') that has blighted his band's reputation in recent years. A shame because, at best, when they reconcile themselves to the fact that they are essentially a pop act, albeit one whose dark side is more pronounced than most, the Cure are as thrilling now as they were in the Eighties.

'My Dearest Friend' ("I am going to die of loneliness I know / I am going to die of loneliness for sure") is among the most tender tunes that Banhart has produced.

While James Dean Bradfield's melodic gifts shine through on occasion, particularly on first single 'Your Love Alone is Not Enough', this is a pedestrian retread of former glories.

The first disc contains all the major American radio hits, but at no small price. It's all craft and very little heart. Disc two, then, comes as welcome respite.

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

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

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.

Her new album lays into her ex-husband with devilish choruses and potent hooks.

Now working below the corporate radar, the venerable producer's sound is thinner, but still effective, especially given the presence of old stagers like Redman, whose rhymes ('When I run out of ink I kill another octopus ') are as addictive as the retro backdrop.

It's a much cleaner, subtle, more uplifting sound, but one which, ultimately, is a little devoid of personality.

There's a tasteful shimmer over all the tracks.

John Frusciante has carved out a parallel world as a solo artist over a series of intensely personal and brilliantly realised albums. His 10th, The Empyrean, is his most ambitious to date.

Happily, Slipknot can pull in these directions and still maintain a new standard of bone-crunching intensity . There are louder metal bands in the world, for sure, but the Iowan nine-piece continue to make the most noise.

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.

Tankian has always got one more surprise up his sleeve. But his scatter-shot approach does not detract from the acuity of his polemical insights

It's also about love, loss, the British urban landscape, laughing at yourself, great guitars, exciting chord changes, tight rhythms, the Stones-Who-Kinks-(Small) Faces-Clash-Jam-Smiths-Happy Mondays-Stone Roses-Oasis-Blur history of Britrock, rich, simple production, songs with layers, a really good band and a singer who has relocated his voice.

Forget her peers or even ex-Eurythmics - think Dusty or Aretha, albeit of SW2, instead. 19 has been on constant repeat for several weeks now and will be, I suspect, for the rest of the year to come.

All of which leads you to conclude that in their struggle to position themselves, Kasabian are trying too hard to be all things to all men.

Very modern, even if her pleasing sound never pushes real boundaries.

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

While a faithful stab at synth pop, there's nothing on the Swedes' fifth album to match 'Young Folks' and, though more coherent, it lacks the eclecticism that made 2006's "Writer's Block" so appealing.

Frontman Pete Murphy overdoes the drama, leaving little space for the songs to breathe, while his colleagues fail to access the mystique that at their peak, in the early Eighties, served to distinguish them from goth's also-rans.

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.

Drastic Fantastic feels neither brave nor raw; Steve Osborne, working with Tunstall for the second time, has produced an album of flawless pop hits.

While many will no doubt have set the bar of their expectations too high, Jay-Z has pulled out all of the stops on Kingdom Come.

Probably the most exquisitely integrated single listening experience the Chemical Brothers have yet come up with.

Sublime.

A messy car crash of a record.

Vocally, a combination of steel and fragility is required, but Campbell can be frustratingly hesitant, often tending towards the limp side of haunting or ethereal.

There are great finds--'Man Who Couldn't Cry'--but some bones are best unpolished.

While Gilmour is in good voice, the unvarying pace is ultimately grating.

The result is writ large on this brilliant second album, which welds his drifting soundscapes to fractious, rapturous techno.

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

Black's more soft-centred approach has since lagged behind, though this idiosyncrantic debut should help him make up ground.

So where do you go when you've been a backing singer for the Pussycat Dolls? Not straight to the scrapheap but kooky la-la land, it transpires here.

They hail from sunny Sydney, but this solid second set cements the Bells firmly in rock's melancholia tradition, echoing the Bunnymen and Tindersticks.

From production to persona, rhymes to flow, Public Warning is almost flawless.

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

Mostly, it works well. Intriguingly, Gabriel fares better with more recent material.

Big, bold, cleverly-executed, thoroughly hollow stuff.

Beautiful yet detached, the music often bursts into life but more frequently simply drifts, all too willing to fall hypnotised under its own spell.

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

Their second full album creates psychedelic intensity by combining the insistent rhythms of early 70s German bands with a fearsomely primitive garage sound.

It won't win them any new fans, but those that believed the truth last time will dig this.

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.

This is intoxicating psych-indie for heady days in unbroken sunshine.

Though the guitarist has flirted with folk before (notably on 2001's "Crow Sit on Blood Tree") never has he done so with such inventiveness or, as 'Look Into the Light' and 'In the Morning' illustrate, such charm.

Join With Us's classic radio pop unveils a band so accomplished, so guilelessly in love with the joy of a good melody, that they now sound like no one but themselves.

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.

The converted will no doubt welcome their current interest in Middle Eastern superstition, plus intricate tunes such as 'The Second Coming'. Outsiders, however, may remain sceptical.

Their McFly-like soulless pop-rock is unlistenable tosh.

It's the sound of the summer! If summer for you means a fake tan and drinking WKD for a week in the Med with the likes of Kelly Rowland and Will.I.Am popping up as guests with your fave.

This odd and occasionally lovely concoction might just redeem Iggy from that insurance ignominy.

True to form, this third record pootles around before, ultimately, achieving lift-off.

Loyalty to Loyalty, an improvement on 2006's filler-heavy debut, is a sincere, if preachy, advertisement for integrity over image.

The Golden Mile is more substantial: a very well-made rock record of perfect length (about 45 minutes) and contradictory catharsis.

Though the songs are all praises to the Creator (or His prophet), there is little sense of joy.

Those hoping to be converted are likely still to doubt the 'voice of a generation' tag.

Finally, the sequel to Break Like The Wind...

Unlike the calculated, humourless thump of Razorlight, this is stirring, ecstatic and - just sometimes - brilliantly OTT stuff.

Smith's rock poet muse is certainly alive on most cuts, her deep voice declaiming, yipping, soaring, and investing old lyrics with fresh dignity and rhythm.

Yes, he's still plugging away, swapping the frenetic disco of 2008's "Last Night" for a more cultured sound.

Lewis's voice is impressively elastic throughout but lacks any grit or style.

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.

A frustrating set with glimpses of gorgeousness.

Luna is a psychedelic delight.

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.

The new arrangements don't add lustre to every track; Hawley's own 'Coles Corner' was so expertly crooned the first time that it feels unnecessary here. But more incongruous reworkings, including a version of the Human League's 'Louise', fare better and Christie's voice is engaging throughout.

Played, boys, oh well played.

One for the fans, but it would be churlish to deny that the Wedding Present still have plenty to offer.

X is merely a slightly above average collection of tracks.

Whenever Hard Candy threatens to get boring, something always happens to recapture your interest, but the three songs in which Madonna actually seems to forge a genuine connection with her musical helpmeet leave the rest of the album in the shade.

Nat Bed's second has nothing as catchy as 'Unwritten', the tunes are on the airy-fairy side of breezy, and the lyrics on the naff side of plain. But 'Smell the Roses' is a turbulent little pop symphony, and 'When You Know You Know' is sinuous soul that speaks well of her extended sojourn in LA studios.

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

Last year he made the magnificent 'Dat Girl Right There', only to omit it in favour of the gloop he wades through on this.

Quite addictive.

The end result sounds much like the Red Hot Chili Peppers produced by Massive Attack.

While not everything hits the mark... there's enough here at least to draw comparisons with the aforementioned Britpop mainstays and keep them among the forefront of 2007's elite.

This kind of electro-glam was acceptable in the Eighties, and Hourglass proves that it still is.

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.

The first album by the B-52's in 16 years sees the Georgia trash-pop veterans keep dull maturity at bay with 11 paeans to partying, space, deviant sex and sly protest politics .

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

For the most part, Reality... swings between the mawkish strings and piano overproduction which Williams has seemed overly attached to ever since 1998's Bond-inspired 'Millennium,' and flashes of genuine pop frivolity, for which he likely has producer Trevor Horn to thank.

Certainly the LA punk mob have a free-spirited approach to life – as rebellious and American as the Stooges or Jack Kerouac – and every bit as compelling.

Its hedonistic groove carries everything before it, and reminds you that 'rock'n'roll' doesn't just signify a sound (and fury), it signifies an attitude towards risk taking.

Crucially, Sam's Town sounds like a complete collection, with a far better strike rate than its predecessor.

They undoubtedly still see sounds others only dream of, but sometimes that vision is a little clouded.

Yell Fire! offers little bar platitudes over a bed of reggae-lite and tepid bluezak.

They appear to have set out to make the world's trendiest record, and succeeded. The tracklist on their album of terrific party songs commands a kind of double double-take.

Several of the songs seem embryonic, lacking direction and resolution, while Nutini's voice--as stevedore-gruff as Blunt's is officer-class posh--can be a deal-breaker on certain songs

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.

The fit is often clumsy, over-laden with strings, backing voices and metronomic beats, but there are enough stand-outs to keep our Joss in airplay.

This, his band's 20th album, won't reinvent the wheel, but tracks such as 'The Time is Right' rank among the most evil-sounding in the canon.

The band... haven't leapt off in a new direction but have capitalised on the tension between Oundsworth's spiralling, just-about-to-fall-over vocals and the driving, zealous music that stops him from metaphorically sailing away into the ether.

This is a daring, crisp modern soul album rich in ideas and star quality.