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

Sublime.

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

There is little here to delineate her above her far less interesting contemporaries, Fergie and Nelly Furtado, both of whom have presented fresher minted records this year.

Hell Hath No Fury is as lyrically kaleidoscopic as it is conceptually monochrome. Track after track flays the central theme, but with such consistently inventive language it seems almost churlish to dwell on its moral bankruptcy.

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.

Love vindicates the Beatles' status as master musicians and conceptualists.

An outstanding musical creation... that nods to almost every known genre of American music, and some that have yet to be named.

The result splendidly combines piety with celebration and musical tradition with creative boldness.

Ys is an exceptional piece of art in the broadest sense - give it the chance to grow on you.

Jayceon Taylor's eagerness to live down to a cartoon sketch of what a rapper should be is in danger of obscuring his very real talent.

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

Quite addictive.

Only My Chemical Romance are funnier, albeit by accident.

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.

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

A messy car crash of a record.

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.

It reeks of a band with ideas above their station.

An absolute howler.

Closer to the big production of Have You Fed the Fish? than 2004's more acoustic-led One Plus One is One, it's also the most obvious manifestation of his longstanding Springsteen obsession.

Bleak and evocative.

A weary, beautifully realised work.

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

So here they are, doing again what they've done before: mostly slow and sombre songs, sometimes delivered with a wary hesitancy that can be endearing but is occasionally frustrating.

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

It's brainy and brawny: Springsteen and E Street Band comparisions valid.

The Dears sound like a band who have finessed their vision and are ready, finally, to take on the world.