This is a beautiful album. Moving rather than maudlin, uplifting rather than depressing.

Their second reunion carries the listener a good third of the way into this punningly titled fourth album. Trouble is, the second two-thirds are a very long slog indeed.

Not only does it sound like two very different acts but March, fashioned with a funeral band from Mexico, is far less absorbing than the synth-pop of Holland, whose five twinkly tracks contain a joie de vivre absent from its stodgy, reverential sister set.

You get the sense they don't know exactly what they're aiming for, and the resulting mish-mash of crude energy and unfocused ambition leaves the listener gloriously befuddled.

Consistently framed around a beat, a piano and her voice, her plucky and at times eccentric songs generally stick to themes of female neurosis, emotional fragility and, occasionally, what she likes to eat on her toast.

Teenager is as flat as the Mojave Desert, and, like a fusty pastel sweater bought as a birthday present, it's cosy yet bland.

Take one listen to the title track, accept that it's the greatest pure pop single of the year and everything you wanted from the Klaxons and didn't get, and you'll be seduced into wanting to believe that Midnight Juggernauts know what they're doing.

The remainder of their fourth album, however, has a familiar Midwestern chug, and is a gorgeous confection of girl-group soft rock and country-tinged balladeering.

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

Versatile but erratic, then, though Joe's emotional honesty is never in doubt.

F&M have added intriguing textures to the Krautrock of 2006's Transparent Things.

A masterly work.

Our Love to Admire fleshes out the dark edges of Interpol's sound to create a polished, muscular-sounding record that teems with life and bristling potency.

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.

A perfectly summery blend of Krautrock, prog rock and more danceable grooves.

Once Upon a Time in the West is a well-written, well-recorded, mainstream rock record.

Ladyhawke is an accessible but immensely rewarding listen, and while some of this singer's influences may be middle of the road, her album isn't even on the road.

The result is an album that, unquestionably, marks him out as one of the UK's most promising new producers.

Female duo Melissa Livaudais and Busy Gangnes make stark, witchy electronica that's subtle and exciting, their mantra-like voices drawing you in like a sinister nursery rhyme, with melodies breaking through their oblique, half-muttered lyrics like beams of winter sunlight.

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

Yes, there's plenty of God and glitz. But the purity of that voice is still brilliantly captivating.

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.

The album occasionally misfires... but there's still sass and creativity here.

Now they sound less like they're playing to their strengths and more like they're admitting their limitations; they'll keep trying to move your hips because they know they'll never win your heart. Tonight is fine, but will you still love them tomorrow?

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.

What the 22-year-old does with his whimsical art rock influences is less predictable; the arrangements take the songs in odd directions, piquing interest even when the genre experiments drag.

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.

It's still a career high, but B'Day could have been released at any point in the last three-and-a-half years and, in a year which has given us tracks like Justin Timberlake's 'SexyBack', it already sounds stale.