This one's a beauty.

It's often barely there, notably the final minutes of "Lux 4". This is musical homeopathy.

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

The upbeat tracks are as catchy as conjunctivitis.

If the band can let go of their younger selves completely, that masterpiece will be theirs.

Its best moments are its electro-pop numbers.

There are four CDs' worth but it's enormously rewarding, like mid-period Miles Davis playing Ligeti.

Halstead's songs and Euros Childs-like voice breathe the sort of honesty and goodness that's harder and harder to find in the iTunes age.

DeMent cuts through the sheen with a simplicity that reaches back through decades.

For all Bird's reverence for American rural music of the past, Hands is startlingly contemporary.

MFAD! finds them sounding like exactly what they are, namely an airbrushed, Massachusetts version of the Stones.

What's revealed is what's often been outshone by the originals: the sheer quality of the songwriting and vocals.

The Atlanta singer delivers soulful, socially conscious meditations.

Even if [Psychedelic Pill is not essential], it's by some way the best non-essential album Neil Young has ever made.

Composer Joe Acheson seems more interested in texture than development and you can long for a discordant voice, but as head-nodding experiences go, this is pretty good.

Sweetly soaring stuff.

Tough, soulful, rockin' songs.

They don't significantly compromise the essential charm and glitchy poetry of the songcraft.

This long-delayed third album sets out to make the Hackney diva "current" again.

Krall's smoky contralto lacks the pungency of Wilson's, but compensates with greater mobility.

It's a skilled blend of the organic and the electronic.

Ten out of 14 tracks are outstanding, especially considering Bugg's only 18.

Venturing further into radio-friendly pop-rock than ever before, her fourth album showcases a strong voice which (unlike brother Rufus) actually hits the notes.

The Origin of Love is an autotuned, multitracked meringue whose ingredients include 10cc and Buggles, and whose only weakness is the absence of a killer single.

We get grooves as smooth and tight as Lycra, funky stabs of brass and arch lyrics delivered with cool detachment.

It's nice that Shaddix is still alive, but Papa Roach remain irretrievably atrocious.

Essential for fans, of course. It is left to the rest of us to look on from a safe distance with our hard hats on and to marvel at the most self-regarding singing voice in post-war popular music.

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