Richly textured electro-pop teems with flamboyance and sees Wolf come over like a cosmic Martin Fry.

The Fife songsmith breathes new life into traditional songs cribbed from versions by the likes of Anne Briggs and Nic Jones.

Amid the sighs and groans, she hits the pop G-spot with her savvy hooks and superlative rhyming.

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

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

Mostly, Jon McLure's against Bad Stuff and in favour of Good Stuff, as well as being dead keen on 90s sounding dance-rock.

The kind of album that sounds like it should be No 1 in Germany, which, of course, it was recently.

This is beautifully fragile music, not disposable but built to last.

Despite the speed at which it came together, the album sounds as polished. But sometimes you wish he would reach beyond his grab-bag of influences and push out something with shocks-a-mighty.

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

Maxwell's voice is so unusually rich and supple that at best, as on the mercurial 'Bad Habits,' you cannot help but disregard his fondness for cliche.

Played, boys, oh well played.

North London outfit from the same school (literally) as Cajun Dance Party, earning high marks for their winsome indie tunes.

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.

Chicago's veteran alt-rockers haven't sounded this much fun in ages, their seventh album balancing their easy-going and experimental sides.

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

Continues where 2007's sprightly comeback album "Beyond" left off.

Tired of her peculiar singer-songwriter pop being a fringe taste, the Russian-born New Yorker's gone for the commercial jugular, polishing her strangeness with help from ELO's Jeff Lynne among others.

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.

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

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

Their seventh album remembers to add tunes, and is thus less baffling than before.

Still sounding like an evening in your company will encompass discussions of Yves Klein and Lindsay Lohan? Check, check, check. But still cool.

A heavier take on their gothic moan-rock.

It offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities to those whose experience of the medium stretches no farther than the occasional random episode of "Run's House."

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.

Somehow, though, it soars, the title track especially.