Hypnotic repetition, mysterious soundscapes and recurring lyrical codes render this debut utterly engrossing and totally essential.

With this unexpectedly moving concept album about disgraced Back to the Future car designer John DeLorean, US producer Boom Bip and moonlighting Super Furry Gruff Rhys have come up with a new twist on hip hop's unholy trinity of cars, money and coke.

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.

From the full-on Nintendo Wii panic-attack of 'Alice Practice' to the breezy, off-kilter electro-pop of 'Crimewave' and 'Air War', this sumptuously squelchy 16-track debut already feels like a Greatest Hits.

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

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.

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's not a huge departure for the Southern songbirds but proves them to be magisterial practitioners of the dark blues-rock arts.

Straight out of Edmonton, Alberta, fast-talking MC Rollie Pemberton's impeccable second album confirms that the history of Canadian electro did not end with Neil Young's Trans.

Goldfrapp and Gregory have made an album as hummably lovely as it is knowingly referencing of a certain tradition of neo-psychedelic English whimsy.

While Britain and the US are succumbing to a very retro take on the US's R&B heritage, the original queen of neo-soul has taken a giant leap forward.

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

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.

The good news is that the ninth album from these inveterate melancholics is a burnished pleasure.

For Emma, though only nine tracks long, is as beautiful, bleak and intimate as anything 2008 is likely to throw up.

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.

BSP have every right to feel content. After all, the almost men of sylvan, jagged rock, the pride of Britain's bookish, bird-watching bohemia, have made an album that's deserving of their swagger. Do you like rock music? If not, here's the perfect place to start.

Perhaps Made in the Dark's greatest achievement is to keep back a bit of mystery for itself above and beyond the enveloping sense of destiny fulfilled.

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

Jackson is back with his old producer JP Plunier and 'Hope' even has a mellow ska refrain. Johnson's vocals--imagine a Noughties take on Paul Simon and Cat Stevens--are utterly addictive, but this time there's a grown-up vibe to the trippy prose.

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

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.

At less than 40 minutes long, Vampire Weekend sounds paradoxically both brimming with confidence and something put down as a marker for the future.

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

He performs everything (from drum'n'bass to hip hop beats) on his guitar, leading him to be dubbed a 'one-man Timbaland band'. A true percussive original.

They fail to develop their retro psychedelia influences, and use fairground organs and cutesy strings as lazy shorthand for dreamy nostalgia. The result is a pleasant record that's lacking in personality.

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.

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