Where Ladytron's first two albums might have felt to some to be alienating and monochrome, like a shallow bender on champers and very nice drugs, but a shallow bender nonetheless; 'The Witching Hour' is blessed with a far greater palette of sound and sensation, and is as fine a spell as you'll succumb to all year.

This is a record of outrageous range and unprecedented panache.

From track five onwards, they rarely put a foot wrong.

As good as 'Tio Bitar' is, it's actually a weaker album than 'Ta Det Lungt' in some respects.

You really won't find a more interesting, intelligent or wonderful dream of an album as 'Sensuous' all year.

Hot Hot Heat have managed to find a corner of the rock universe that hasn't been overkilled and have made an impressive and imaginative album.

A stealthy, smoking beast of a thing: hip hop with a British passport and dubplate roots, embroidered with wiggly, scratching sound effects and made-to-measure production.

Beautiful, fun, dark, sentimental, gloomy, hopeful music.

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.

Lord knows what's going to happen when they abandon their commercial concessions entirely (as we suspect this buys them the opportunity to do. Good), but this is stunning enough in its own right.

‘Margarine Eclipse’ manages to be generous in length without ever finding itself repetitive, doodles are never allowed to become noodles, understated charm is maintained throughout.

This is an album that seethes with anger, ambition and malicious intent, and it's all the better for it.

Sigur Ros do this better than anyone else right now.

Yes, 'Let's Get Out Of This Country' is a ludicrously fey, coy, twee and light record that could very feasibly be knocked out by an injured butterfly, it's that gentle. But it's also a gorgeously produced, beautifully romantic and ultimately uplifting record.

Songs that shamble along in the gutter but can still bite your ankles if pushed.

‘America’s Sweetheart’ throbs, chugs, thunders, blasts, romps, rants and rocks.

One of the most witty, ambitious and intelligent British guitar albums thus far in 2005.

As far as style and technique go, it's more of the same; quite literally MORE. 'Kish-Kash'? Mish-mash: Basement Jaxx make dancefloor monsters, Frankenstein's monster stylee.

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.

Keep giving it a whirl though and it becomes something rather exquisite.

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.

'Cedars' is a record of huge maturity - witty, often quite sad, occasionally perverse, but hugely charming nonetheless.

Had 'It's A Wonderful Life' been recorded by anyone other than Sparklehorse, we could simply describe it as an amazing record before sitting back to bask in its splendour, but given everything that Mark Linkous has been through, that such a beautiful record not only exists but sounds so effortlessly graceful marks it out as a definite contender for album of the year.

An epic alt.rock symphony that takes the band’s trademark sun-kissed melodies and brass flourishes and melds them into something altogether darker and achingly beautiful. Unsurprisingly, it’s an approach that more than pays off.

The quality is high throughout.

It may well be too long and it might stick to its blueprint a little too faithfully, but singularity of vision can hardly be criticised on a debut record. 'Finelines' is a black-hearted but coruscating journey at speed.

Most of all, though, what we find ourselves thinking of when enjoying 'The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place' - and, rest assured, readers, it's an enjoyable experience right the way through - is the magical spangliness that elevated the Cocteau Twins from absolutely all of their more ghettoised contemporaries way back when.

A gloriously accomplished and very rewarding listen.