Their music which, as it happens, is a thrilling mix of raw vocal harmonies, rattling homemade guitars and handclaps.

Happily, the North Carolina’s modern hippie’s second album is too ambitious, too fluently fluently surprising and too lovely to appeal to 1970s retro-heads alone.

If the Mayans were right and the world really is going to end this December, you won't hear many better soundtracks than this.

This darkly amusing, awkward yet oddly graceful return of the ostensibly dead, more than measures up.

It induces a heady sense of perpetual forward motion, whether graceful or full pelt. Stunning.

If Elysium has a weakness, it is the absolute absence of thumping disco-pop monsters. Once you accept that, and surrender to the tranquil beauty of Chris Lowe's synth textures, you quickly realise that Neil Tennant is on top lyrical form.

An atmospheric yet danceable debut.

Thankfully, the Knife have remained true to their essential principles.

Honest, soulful, happy-sad, warm and welcoming.

It's a less distinctive incarnation, but as evidenced by the stutteringly propulsive "Ye Ye", hardly less hypnotic.

Big only because Arcade Fire think big, Reflektor stretches stadium rock’s reach in the acts of self-reinvention and revitalisation. Now that’s entertainment.

Contact is shamelessly allusive, never remotely challenging and characterised by a get-to-the-chorus immediacy.

Funny, warm, eloquent, dynamic, oddly soulful and technically delicious. An unremitting joy.

A delightful indie pop record that’s by turns intense, playful and touching.

If H&LA's 2008 debut was an ideal accompaniment to the clubland chaos, then Blue Songs is the gentlest of comedowns.

R.E.M's 15th album could trade places with almost any of the previous 14.

Baird's own rather fabulous acoustic is garnished with touches of dobro, pedal-steel or electric, over which her wisp of a voice, and words, hang in a vapour.

Interesting to see that a few of the unused songs from the period (1978) push the released material for quality.

This covers album maybe a joyous blast of buzzsaw pop, but you just know that the live shows will be even better.

It's good, but you want to hear them live.

The soundtrack to Jennifer Aniston. Nice. Attractive. Hygienic.

WTR is a classy bit of radio-friendly Mercury-bait which highlights Dangerfield's development as a songwriter.

They're reunited with vocalist N'Dea Davenport but don't really need her, their dressing-up-to-go-out groove being the thing.

The Glaswegian band's chosen style this time around, namely dark vintage synth pop (early Human League) and scratchy, spindly post-punk (Wire, the Cure), matches the mood and subject matter perfectly.

Oasis minus the organ-grinder needn't be an entirely horrific prospect.

They're back now, all troubles set aside, and the results are good.

Fusion fans might be confused but as a sentimental affirmation of melody it's Metheny to the core.

While it may, at times, sound a little too familiar--A&F is almost good enough to banish the memory of the dozen or so albums--influenced by grams not Parsons--since.