Maturity and sonic streamlining hasn't removed the essence of what gave them their cult following.

For a record that could've gone in one of two directions, it manages the neat trick of going in both.

This laidback attitude--and the audacious quality of the songs that seem to find him with such ease--is the key to much of his abundant charm, and even working at half-speed he delivers.

Veirs' offering has a lustre and sleepy delightfulness that owes much to her lilting charm of her voice and her ear for a sublime melody.

It is both a captivating listen and a terrifying one: Powers was 22 this year, but his voice carries all the experience of a man thrice his age.

The Devil's Rain, then, is a slightly mixed bag of tricks, treats and travesties.

It's not simply a retrospective affair, but a calling card illustrating why this beat-maker wears a crown on his album cover.

This is an intriguing diversion for the veteran filmmaker--not quite good enough to make us want him to give up cinema for keeps, but certainly a new strand to his unique, ineffable vision.

Free of the orchestral addendums of other live tours, and unshackled from the studio finesse, the band ignites on several occasions, when they grasp the epic strands of their DNA.

Replica recognises the value of disenfranchised pasts, but redesigns our barely-there reminiscences to imbue a singular vision with the subliminal effects of the lost.

He has made another (mostly) sublime record.

Cole World reveals its maker to be a technically superb rapper with great production skills, albeit currently exploring rags-to-riches tales lacking in consistent vigour.

The resulting album is an intriguing mixture of the ancient and contemporary, with every track sounding different: electronica mixes with traditional African styles, reggae with funk and more.

[A] sober, smart and his finest record since 1999's I See a Darkness.

Parallax being Cox's most coherent record to date, it's harder to spotlight individual tracks, but individual settings stand out.

Not a bad album, but not one for the ages.

This is a charmingly youthful and exuberant album, featuring a fine selection of vocalists.

Like Bashkirtseff and Pomeroy before them, Summer Camp's debut marks a sincere, wryly appealing turning point in the art of romanticised retrospection.

So far, so chin-strokingly barroom--but then things take a turn for the interesting and Live Music becomes a more-frills-than-you-might-imagine, no filler delight.

Ultimately, the witty lyricism of Wale's early material is too few and far between, as this set leans heavily on misogynistic themes and self-centred musings.

Twenty years on, Achtung (German for "Attention") Baby still sounds zestful and compelling, with some of U2's all-time highs.

Much advance word of Lou Reed and Metallica's excursion has been one of bewilderment and dismissal. It may well be, though, that in the fullness of time this is an album that is given the praise it deserves.

Memories are fuzzy, but the music now it's here is pure and gorgeous, the familiar mesh of brotherly voices exquisite as ever.

This is all grandeur without any grace.

There's plenty to raise a smile over these 12 songs, and that's no doubt exactly what She & Him intended from them.

Strange or otherwise, this is an intriguing but confused curate's egg of an album that will probably delight as many people as it repels.

The suite's key strength, and one of the advantages of brevity, is its focus.

They sound like they don't just have a warmth for the genres they plunder here: they know them inside out.

A significant step onwards from their acoustic debut, Acrobats finds the trio developing a taste for the electric, which adds miles to their creative horizons.

There's more to digest, and WALLS' personality becomes more evident.

His evocative, heartfelt, pin-sharp lines hit compelling grooves, all twists and turns, grin-inducing couplets and weirdness.

From his eulogy of Detroit strings and deep beats, to London's ambiguous constant reinvention of bass culture, these are tracks that will hold their own in any city with DJs operating at the forefront of the shifting beat.

It's the sheer intensity of the whole package that seduces.

With Audio, Video, Disco, the duo has created their own realm and progressed into a formidable force.

Glass Swords shows just the right amount of restraint to prevent total disarray.

Despite the odd patch of fluffier filler, it's still filled with enough dark delights to send tingles up and down your spine.

Over a distant wash of keyboards chords, Plaid create a multilayered drift of what sounds like piano and tuned percussion notes. The effect is, literally, scintillating.

While this isn't a great album it's still a very good one, and even lesser Waits is worth a lot in any other currency.

Hebden is right to think that presenting a distinct musical vision is more valuable than getting the listener from start to finish with as few bumps as possible. It's a decision that pretty much pays off, the result more a collage than a traditional mix.

It suits him well, and he knows it.

Mylo Xyloto may have an oblique title but it's a triumph because the music is anything but.

For all its deft arrangements and catchy chorus hook lines, Passenger feels unforced, spontaneous and timeless; indeed, such is its unaffected delivery that it might have been recorded 30 years ago or last month

Perfectly serviceable, but this band missed their chance to make a third great album decades ago.

As a whole, Revelation Road is the closest Lynne has got to where she should always have been, even if she mightn't stay here long.

It is the kind of record that might drift by unassumingly lest you lend it a careful ear, but really: the second you do, it rewards unequivocally.

The Mosaic Project offers, simply, some of the best jazz around.

John Cale's new five-track EP conceives and executes more great ideas in 21 minutes than most musicians do in 10 years.

Ultimately, A Dramatic Turn of Events probably isn't too far from what this band would've created even with Portnoy in the ranks. It still sounds like a Dream Theater album, and that's all anyone's ever going to ask for.

The Awakening is lacking the grandstanding moment it needs to elevate it above reserved recommendation--it's a safe, steady affair, but about as revelatory as a Chris de Burgh best-of.

Uncomplicated, subtle but memorable songwriting that might well have been played and recorded in a bedroom studio on Holloway Road.

Thea Gilmore's take on John Wesley Harding is a worthy tribute to that great album--and with a playing time of 42.23, it even gives you an extra four minutes more than the original.

The ballads don't quite work--I'm Not Blue and Russell's Ain't You Even Gonna Cry sound detached and forced, more like excerpts from a musical than songs in their own right. On the more upbeat numbers, though, she's terrific.

Gracious Tide, Take Me Home is a luminous, lilting, lovely debut album, and a perfect mood piece as the nights begin to draw in.

Inside the Ships will assuredly grab hold by the second listen, if not the first.

All told this is a decent effort, but one to approach with caution if you're after something a bit different.

Roll the Dice are processing the work of their predecessors into something recognisably new. And at its best, In Dust sounds neither antique nor cutting edge, but timeless.

Despite this motley bunch, the album's sound hasn't become a random genre gumbo.

Whether for its bounty of warm guitar textures or for its still-rare insight into a distinctly female perspective on young love, Lights Out is surprising, sincere and, above all, a success.

While some consistency may have been sacrificed in favour of a space-filling selection of tracks, this set still represents a heaving, breathing journey through the introspective and the bombastic, the striving and the exhaustive.

This is not music that hangs around in the brain, for reasons that aren't particularly clear.

Monkeytown is the sound of two men working in harmony, perfectly in control of their machines. And it may just be one of the albums of the year.

How Do You Do is another solid step in the right direction for Hawthorne, who shows that soul music is universal and devoid of colour, as we all can relate to difficulties and heartbreak.

To use a fishy term, McCartney well and truly floundered with this one.

This album's a string-driven thing swinging between bravado and bleakness, and always beautiful.

An album of great love and joy, Purpose + Grace confirms that Simpson remains at the top of his game.

It is Coleman's sax, Jonathan Finlayson's trumpet, Tim Albright's trombone and Jen Shyu's voice that make the strongest impact.

There's no getting away from the fact that WTC 9/11 simply doesn't have the structural cohesion or magnitude of Different Trains--a comparison which Reich fans will inevitably draw.

Looping State of Mind barely outstays its welcome, and its beatific state of mind may prove to be a welcome refuge for many more than for the musical vanguard, like Seefeel, that inspired it.

The mood is what's irresistible. Sashaying through a bunch of tunes that showcase his craft, Haggard sounds laidback and happy. And the bounce spreads right through the band.

"Quite listenable" sums up most of Future History.

It's a mesmerising album which confirms that Björk can weave dumfounding wonders from Silly String--whatever's placed before her, she can turn to her advantage, taking her audience on a trip the likes of which no other contemporary artist is capable of planning, let alone embarking on. In a word: amazing.

This is as good a debut album from a British metal band as you're likely to hear in 2011.

Its most successful examples retain some Radiohead DNA, but reconstituted into a new form.

This is an album that delivers more and more with every listen, showcasing an artist maturing with grace and poise.

It's when the outfit really attack their instruments, however, that sparks start to fly from the Wild Flag sound.

Scott's permanent air of wonder, and respectful, well-crafted arrangements, allow him to get away with even the most fanciful of tales.

It sounds so much more raw and harsh, more real and vulnerable.

1977 may be a blip for this artist in regard to its genesis, but for anyone other than his ex-wife (and perhaps himself) it's an utter pleasure.

The results are, almost inevitably, meditative and cinematic, but also, more unusually for music of this so-called 'post-classical' stripe, rich in melody and genuinely haunting, numinous atmosphere.

Perhaps inevitably, the overall tone is reverent, verging on precious--everyone adheres faithfully to Williams' template of rugged three-chord structures, twanging guitars, weeping violins and keening pedal steel.

Big Troubles seem happy to drift along in a melancholic haze or a sun-drenched lackadaisical dream and let their well-produced but ultimately forgettable songs dissipate around them.

Raucous boot-stompers kick up the dust around soppy slowies, with many a chorus dripping with the sort of gooey gobbledygook that typifies a thousand rom-coms.

Neighborhoods could easily have been a disaster--that it's not, and actually a very successful endeavour, is worthy of substantial praise.

The mid-section lets him down, slumping into the bad habits of his debut solo album.

Should you be keen to pick your way through the evolutionary process of one of rock's greatest ever long-players, hearing every fuzzy demo and work-in-progress chorus, now you've the chance like never before.

Trans-Love Energies is a fine return and a worthy addition to the catalogue of a band whose path has become more of a fantastic voyage than a standard career.

On much of The Old Magic, he's Richard Hawley unplugged.

He knows great stories can be found in even the smallest moment, and that is something worth cherishing.

The Duke Spirit still sound like The Duke Spirit.

It's actually quite hard to decide whether Complete Me is a dreadful pile of over-processed, overloaded frippery, or if it's a work of genius. It could purely come down to whether you've got the stomach for it.

This is a strong record, there's no doubting that--but it still feels like the best is yet to come from Danilova.

Zig Zaj is predictably unpredictable, something else again for the artist.

It has the feeling of a band progressing in their own rights, under their own terms.

There is nothing quite as uplifting as those previously mentioned numbers, but Metals remains as wonderfully organic and distinct as its predecessors

For all of the fine craft on display, there's little obvious emotion. No matter, though, as there's room for everyone, and this makes for ideal driving music and it should sound sensational in a club.

The Less You Know, the Better isn't a bad album at all, and will likely grow into something far more impressive, something that isn't quite evident on first play.

+ will give Sheeran's rabid fanbase a lot to love, but it'll also make him an easy target for critics hungry for new directions in pop, as it fails to really gel the man's loves of folk and rap.

It's a pure, you're-only-as-old-as-you-feel joy to hear British hip hop's most original and inspiring voice hitting his peak as he approaches his 40th year.