There are successes here... but the overall effect can be gruelling.

Songwriter Tim Elsenburg makes great strides forward with an ambitious cycle of songs about identity and history.

Melancholy of tone, it occasionally attains the antique industry of Michael Nyman's early Peter Greenaway scores, but the overall effect is more akin to the musical equivalent of a mock-tudorbethan semi.

Strangeland marks a sad reversion to Coldplay territory after Keane's tentative experimentation on recent releases.

Richard Hawley has upped his game considerably on his first album for Parlophone, leaving behind his urbane, rockabilly-tinged retro-nuevo style for a full-blooded immersion in ringing psychedelic rock. It's totally unexpected, and completely winning.

There's a maturity about Rumer's delivery that sets her apart from all the Duffys and Adeles.

Over brutish electro-stomps and fizzy pop trifles every bit as sickly as that suggests, Marina's shrill Violet Elizabeth Bott inflections proclaim her emptiness.

If he tried to find something he liked, he might actually make something worth listening to.

There's always an ingenious, often unexpected, connection linking the music to the mood of a specific song.

[The album] mostly eschews his usual glum ruminations in favour of pleasingly methodical instrumental trifles.

Jim Moray's filtering of traditional folk music through a mesh of modern sensibilities continues on Skulk.

Listen, Whitey! seethes with righteous anger and revolutionary determination.

On Blunderbuss, he's stumbled into some nasty business. These are songs of ruthless temptresses and treacherous men, of uncontrollable desire and unbearable guilt.

Liberally spattered with sonic exclamation marks.

Paolo Nutini brings the apt timbre and weary dignity to "Hard Times (Come Again No More)", while The Decemberists' Colin Meloy has the sturdy asperity of a righteous ranter on a version of Dylan's "When The Ship Comes In".

Rufus Wainwright believes this to be "the most pop album" he's ever made, and he's probably right, so long as you're thinking 1970s pop.

Ultimately, however, despite the fizzing electronic undercarriage applied to most tracks on Electronic Earth, Labrinth's real forte may turn out to be the more traditional, earthbound musical skills.

Standouts include a heartbreaking cover of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and the haunting murmur of "More".

This ability to tiptoe between opposing positions brings a pleasing depth and grain to some of her songs.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is infused with an uplifting lust for life.

Best of all is "The Day That We Die", Rufus Wainwright oozing mournfully with his dad about the way that familial potholes prove so difficult to repair.

An impressive show, but not one likely to persuade doubters.

The pair dovetail beautifully on the mostly traditional ballads and work-songs.

It's delivered with Bonnie's trademark kindly swagger, although her best performances here are probably the brace of covers from Dylan's Time out of Mind, "Million Miles" and "Standing in the Doorway", on which Frisell's tiny vibrato glimmer wields a subtle power to match her quiet passion.

A refreshingly non-dogmatic take on retro musical styles.

Halfway through, as guest rappers stop littering the proceedings, the album does a 90-degree shift and becomes a banging club affair, stuffed with David Guetta-style synth-stompers.

Just a series of great, swampy soul grooves, fronted by the most arresting new voice you'll hear this year, and the kind of natural songwriting that seems to contain the entire history of Southern music within its staves.

Felice fails to animate them in the manner of comparable storytellers like Johnny Dowd and Richmond Fontaine's Willy Vlautin, and thus leaves one's interest unignited.