There are lugubrious shades of Tom Waits and antipodean gothfather Nick Cave here, but Nux Vomica has its own type of elegant, seductive power.

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

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

By the time he closes with fittingly open-ended encores of 'Listen to the Lion' and 'Summertime in England'--neither of which is on Astral Weeks--he is truly gone. And in a triumph as unlikely as it is complete, Astral Weeks is reborn.

Best is the title track, a roll call of compassion that embraces the darkness of 'Frankenstein technologies' and the hope of "a safe place for kids to play/ bombs exploding half a mile away." Both sombre and defiant, it's Mitchell at her finest.

This muscular follow-up ratchets up the internal tension until his exuberant toy-town techno becomes a shot of pure musical adrenalin.

No Doubt-esque ska-pop forms the record's core, but her belting vocal hooks really come into their own on the robotic indie numbers.

What lends Proof of Youth a whiff of genius is its ability to evoke exuberant innocence without making your teeth ache.

The live clips of the Very Best on YouTube suggest an almost chaotic stage presence, and this very easy-on-the-ear debut may inspire many imitators.

Such an eclectic, ambitious record might be expected to sound disparate, desperate even, but instead it's a set of distinctive, strangely addictive songs.

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

Mason's latest solo guise is endearingly odd. Who else, after all, would dream of welding Tubeway Army to lubricious RB and house and pull it off?

By virtue of its sheer irreverence, Guns Don't Kill... seems to encapsulate everything you always loved about reggae, and perhaps thought had disappeared.

Difficult, certainly, but not without its charms.

If hippie leanings and a penchant for image-dense, nature-inspired poesy make Oberst a kindred spirit to Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, he can also be hard-nosed.

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

Its gravelly tones are certainly no thing of beauty, but when married to the right song Faithfull can still emote, still deliver. There's plenty of plain wrong material, though.

Montreal 's Tiga Sontag has always nodded to the genre's 80s origins but keeps it fresh by drawing from rave past and present.

KD's first album of new material in eight years doesn't disappoint.

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

Khan is a fantastic package and a good, if not as maverick as some believe, songwriter. In a year when no one wants to sing about making a cup of tea, she's just the ticket.

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

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.

It adds up to a light-hearted, sometimes poignant elegy for the American working man and his music.

An album packed with tuneful songs that would sound great coming out of radio speakers.

A welcome return for this premier Leicestershire combo, who specialise is substance over style.

One of the most exciting things about White Denim is the way they balance unfettered extravagance with constructive constriction.

It's likely that their slabs of noise are too explosive. But for Team Biffy, their followers, this is a strength, not a failing.