This is Pearl Jam, it's down to you whether that means anything or not.

An album that rivals the brilliant 'The Sophtware Slump'... as their absolute masterpiece.

'Skull Ring' is Iggy's strongest and most consistent album since 1993's 'American Caesar'.

'Gotham!' is an infinitely danceable and certainly insightful record that gets better with each listen, on every frequency.

Nearly every line contains a shock, a sharp intake of breath. To say this album is worth more as a social document than a musical one is no insult.

On a first listen it sounds very long. On a second listen it sounds just like the eponymous debut, with the odd anthem missing. On a third listen we have to concede there are some fine moments.

On 'Impeach My Bush', Peaches has significantly upped her game with a greater leap from 'Fatherfucker' than there was between that album and debut 'The Teaches Of Peaches'.

This is a brooding, thoughtful work, a band stripped bare, naked music and raw emotion, beautifully sung and played with the command of a band that knows less is more is the key to great rock'n'roll.

Anyone expecting a return to the spiky garage rock of 'I Should Coco' may again be disappointed by Gaz & co's refusal to whole heartedly revisit the three-chord bluster of their debut, but with 'Life On Other Planets' Supergrass have come closer than ever to the psychedelic pop-punk masterpiece of their dreams.

These songs are full to the brim with ideas and a charming naivety - but there's a major hurdle that ultimately compromises the enjoyment: the vocals.

Sonically, there's no radical steps forward here, but then standing still for Kristin Hersh is pretty much the equivalent of most people's sprinting: we could do with a few more of her.

You'd probably want Missy to wash her hands before she got anywhere near a real kitchen if this album is anything to go by. The perv.

Repeated listens propel it towards sounding like his best yet.

It's full-on, one-dimensional and perfect. It ain't clever, but it could be very big.

We've rooted for them and been scantly rewarded, but at last they’ve done it - 'Heroes To Zeros’ is great and they know it.

And so it goes on sonic cliche after awful lyrics after terrible synth settings after lazy drum beats after... well, you get the picture.

Musically there's nothing on 'Stars of CCTV' that stands out as particularly innovative or imaginative[;] it's above average modern indie fare made with gusto by people who want to make records that sound like the records they like: The Clash, The Specials, The Verve and a bunch of other bygone Britpoppers.

So, his best album since 'Scary Monsters' (ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!).

They have a habit of getting it very right and very wrong.

Of course Cohen can’t sing, but what matter that when the words are so rich?

Ten years after they first assaulted us, Mogwai remain as vital as ever.

Despite the handful of duff tracks and a couple of absolute howlers, 'Here Come The Tears' is a fine album - certainly not the best they've made together, nor even apart, but accomplished, ambitious and often highly impressive.

Chock full of songs that are lounging rather than strictly loungey, cosmpolitan-sounding in a wearing-aviator-shades alongside a large-haired lovely kind of way and blessed with harmonies that fall narrowly on the breezy side of melancholia.

It's a huge album, a beautiful album, a witty album, and above all, a Spiritualized album, through and through. If you like Spiritualized albums, you will love 'Let It Come Down'. If you don't, it may be time for a rethink.

One of the finest albums of the year.

'The Runaway Found' may have sounded great in 1996, but it also sounds great now, and by our reckoning it always will.

This is probably the record that everyone who bought the Keane album should buy.

They still sound as spunky and powerful as they were nearly two decades ago when they kicked off this long-term assault on American culture.

Whereas their debut album 'Good Health' saw the unlikely and frankly scary collision of Fuzazi and Rocket From The Crypt, 'The New Romance' leans resolutely on the emo-punk side.

Patchy, though when it's good (and nicked) it's very good.

'Nightlife' is a record that demands to be heard, for not only is it Erase Errata's best album yet, but also one of the finest to emerge from the leftfield this year.

While not quite aspiring to the lofty benchmark of 'Whatever, Mortal', this recovers the lost ground of 'Pajo'.

There are, admittedly, times when it looks like they're just showing off.

It must take a fair amount of skill and a peculiar single-mindedness to create something this consistently bland and tiresome.

As welcome as emphysema.

They entwine eastern canticles and fuzzy finger picking and electronic trickery like no other.

'Crazy Itch Radio' bumbles along with mid-paced beats and, it seems, too many disparate influences to really hold together.

'The Spell' marks their most successful record to date in creating a coherent aesthetic throughout; a beguiling and compelling atmosphere of black magic.

So as sturdy and rocking as 'The Indian Tower' is, it never quite lets you into its world, though if you manage to break on through they're likely to bore you to death by reading Guitarist Monthly aloud and swapping Gary Moore tablature like Pokemon cards.

Disappointing, frustrating and exhausting, 'Astronomy For Dogs' finds a band trying too hard to cram too much into one sitting.

It's an unrelenting trip, and while Hawtin's much trumpeted spoken-word vocalisations veer perilously close to self-parody at times, 'Closer' is a stunning re-affirmation of an uncompromising musical vision.

From the opening few seconds of 'Rain On Lens' you just know this album is going to be a classic.

No, it's probably not going to remap the musical landscape this time, and, arguably, it doesn't sound as ahead of its time as, say, 'Computerworld' did. BUT! 'Tour de France Soundtracks' also sounds joyously, shamelessly like no-one else at all.

Delicately layered with ornate instrumentation and hushed vocals, perfectly poised between joyful and damaged, 'Personality' sees off the previously over-obvious obsession with America's dizzy expanses and endless horizons, instead offering something infinitely more natural and personal.

There's a decidedly reigned-in grandeur to the orchestrally-focused Silent League. The strings and things are never allowed to get overly carried away in their stratospherics, the slide guitar and saw are supplied in delicate veins rather than employed in over-styled extravagance.

'We Are The Pipettes' is perfection.

There are some fillers on 'Shootenanny!' like 'Rock Hard Times', which means it's never going to be an absolute classic, but it's good to hear E is suffering a little less despair than he's been forced to tolerate in the past.

This is hip-hop - experimental, brave, and weird, just like it's supposed to be.

'I Com' delivers on all the promise that preceded it and makes quantum leaps of brilliance every time it's played.

It's all good. Favourites switch with listens, and we can assure you that this record will remain on your deck all year.

However, if 'Devin Dazzle And The Neon Fever' proves anything, it proves that Felix knows three years have passed since [Kittenz]. Now he's partying like it's 1984. It's a development of almost comical chutzpah, and it's one that he wears terrifically well.

An exceptional debut.

The Information is as creative, tuneful and interesting as you could wish from an established artist.

A shining example of just how broad and brilliant electronic music can still be in the right hands.

A staggering, synth-smeared beauty of a record.

Obie is, underneath all Eminem's bullshit, a nice emcee, old school, so when Em gives him a beat with some soul, he comes through.

The jewel in Scott's creative crown is that he has an uncanny knack of keeping it flowing, even when his beats and tones are jerking our sensibilities to shreds with their cerebral madness.

A techno electro smart-ass punky rap thing that'll detonate in your living room.

She has rediscovered The Beat, giving us such funk-strewn gems as 'Trust A Try' and 'You Ain't Right'.

If 2004's 'A Ghost Is Born' was an experimental step too far then 'Sky Blue Sky' finds a band regressing tamely in to Dad-rock. Wilco need to rediscover that middle ground that suits them so well.

You will have to surrender yourself completely to this record, for left as background music it will waft pleasantly around your head and out your window.

A fabulous record.

Any number of tracks here could easily catapult them back into the consciousness of so much more than the cognoscenti.

A lap or two behind many of the albums it seemingly aspires to be (Cat Power, Radiohead, Fiona Apple and Elliott Smith comparisons have been made before and seem almost invited) 'Knives...' still has enough personality and original thought to shield it from accusations of simple derivation.

It's a mastery of creating fantastic dirges, then manipulating them into slithering beasts backed by tight drums, precise guitar scratches, and Dunis' quavering vocals that rescues 'We're Animals'.

They’re waay better than The Coral, exhibiting none of the tedious, skunk-smoke wackiness that characterises their labelmates.

Where they used to be more wild and interesting they seem to have mellowed with age.

The mix of spite, beauty and pain in here is compelling and repulsive all at once.

From its downbeat organ opening to its exhilarating climax, it's almost the sound of a garage band taking on 70s prog-rock excess - all the ambition and none of the flabby indulgence.

As ever with the great man, this is a record that rewards the attentive, and repetitive listener.

Home recording gives 'In Case We Die' an apathetic politeness that lacks any real grrrrr, which is a shame.

This record is, the odd awful phrase here or there aside, rather marvellous.

Like most of the cities Doves sing about, these songs are grey, drizzly, often unpleasant, and more often than not... very, very dull.

A collage of pristine party-hop that will both make the kids bounce and the purists smile.

New Order are one of the best bands in the world again.

‘Up At The Lake’ lifts the best bits from pop’s past and melds them into a largely agreeable, but ultimately underwhelming, classic rock album.

It’s clear that Lemon Jelly have well and truly upped the ante.

'The Hardest Way To Make an Easy Living' is a far more skilfully crafted album than the 'A Grand...', despite what you might have heard.

As a whole, the album feels less definite, less driven, than the 'Want…' albums, which is both a strength and a weakness.

If you're the sort of person who only buys one metal album a year, then you'd probably be better off buying the new Mastodon album 'Blood Mountain' and going to see Slayer live but otherwise, what the hell are you waiting for...

The lack of a linear structure results in the individual songs banging against each other logjam-style, with the unfortunate effect that 'Fab Four Suture' begins to grate.

There's way too much power balladry, rawk guitar, Steven Tyler and MTV-by-numbers to make a genuinely stand-out record.

'Love Is Here' actually manages to deliver on all that early promise and, more than any of the singles that preceded it, completely conjures up the giant-hearted beauty they're capable of live.

'5:55' is a welcome addition to the Gainsbourg family's musical legacy, and we can't give any higher compliment than that.

This is an album of gin-fuelled laments, uprisings and battered beauty: such dignity and sharp proficiency shows he can only do better.

Make no mistake, 'Don't Be Afraid Of Love' is so much more ambitious and downright joyful than we had any right to expect that it's a flooring jolt to the system long after the first listen.

'Come With Us' sounds immediately familiar, but this is often problematic, redolent of prior work by both themselves and others.

It's slinky, suave chill-out music, gently exotic, best listened to lounging on throws amongst cushions.

Consistent and cleanly sexy stuff.

We don't dislike anything on here, and each time we listen, we like what we hear even more.

It's a clever, chic and defiantly underground record, alright, but it's guilty of trying too hard when clearly it doesn't need to.

To be honest this album has been down the pub all day; it doesn't care that you have to go to work in three hours time; it has just burst into your room and demanded the keys to your car and that bottle of Bombay Saphire you were saving for your birthday.

The choice, folks, is all yours. Would you like The Thrills? Or would you prefer some excitement instead?

At least 'Musicology' reunites us with that trademark Prince sound, that regal sparkle that’s influenced many and been matched by none.

There is no doubt [Martin] has talent, but there are just too many retreads, too many regurgitated ideas, and no fire, no raw anger, no big hairy bollocks.

The 'Idlewild' experience is mostly regrettable and one that will leave you feeling cheated.

'Black Cherry' is a record that, like Lemon Jelly's sophomore effort, 'Lost Horizons', consolidates rather than defines but, when Alison gets her honeyed tonsils into the warm duvet-textures of the title track, the world can happily stand still for 5 minutes and we'll gladly give them another bite.

There is no New here.