Profoundly thoughtful music that's moved on from drone metal beginnings.

The band have taken Bruce Springsteen's influence, twisted and distorted it and made a quite remarkable album that lives up both to its rebellious, riotous ambition and its rich musical heritage.

Simultaneously taut and lush jazz-funk-pop.

Wonderful stuff.

The real revelation about Fade is that it is the most settled album they've recorded in years.

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

The initial surprise on this follow-up is discovering that Grant’s songs work as well--if not even better--when paired with a synth-pop backing rooted more in the 1980s than the preceding decade.

This is the stuff of vicious hangovers, unkempt hair being head-banged back and forth furiously, and eyebrow-raising debacles on public transport.

The Magic Place, splendidly, isolates the listener, cuts them off from the world around them.

Overall, then, From Africa With Fury: Rise is a pretty solid second effort.

This greatest hits comp (selected by BalkanBeats' DJ Robert Soko) showcases their party tunes such as the breakneck signature romp through Hava Naguila and the blistering flugelhorn ska of Khelipe E Cheasa... as well as their successful ventures further afield.

Good Things is sufficiently accomplished, in fact, to at least temporarily banish the clouds of financial doom and gloom to the horizon.

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

Slave Ambient as a whole may be more confused than your average reality show star at a Mensa meeting, but it's full of decent songs with a lot of heart.

Pattern + Grid World may sound like an addendum to Cosmogramma, but it's no less essential for that.

The 36 minutes of Mid Air [is] a masterpiece.

It's easy to revel in Moffat's bleak wordplay and his everyman observations, but behind the black clouds and bitterness there are reminders of love and tempered optimism, encompassed by The Greatest Story Ever Told.

When one hears a musical feast as good and as sultry as this it's impossible not to conclude that, for all their wistfulness, entertaining enough renditions of standards seem half-baked by comparison. Having moved into the position of being a beloved national treasure status, Wyatt remains at his best when he's facing forwards rather than looking back.

There is so much personality, poetry, vulnerability and resilience here that most other records sound like dry runs by comparison.

Cancer Bats’ tendency to veer towards the metallic might shock those unaccustomed to having a sweaty Torontonian screaming blue murder in their faces. But persevere and it reveals itself as a selection of dark, enjoyably violent treats.

So sublime are these ten spectral soundtracks to the minutiae of a modern lover's tribulations that their sorrow is translated into something more uplifting than unsettling.

An original, accessible and highly recommended purchase.

At Night We Live is the best and the most confident album of their two-part career. It is also, admittedly, more commercial-sounding, but there's no shame in that if it's done with integrity, dignity and passion.

As an album, a glorious rawness and disregard for verse-chorus-verse simplicity runs throughout, but it strains for cohesion.

Harnessing those tropes to dexterous finger-picking and chiming Gamelan, along with the often jaw-dropping vocal delivery of Alan Bishop (his bravura performance on The Imam is right up there with his blood-curdling incantatory work on Master Musicians of Bukkake's People of the Drifting Houses) has resulted in Sun City Girls' most accessible and consistent album (a far cry from their puzzling and profligate series of Carnival Folklore Resurrection volumes).

Fortunately, the remainder of the album is a powerful, intimate, sumptuous delight in which the orchestra enhances the innate grandeur of Antony's music.

There's not much more British than slightly freaky folk music. As if to prove the point, Erland Cooper has mined these pleasant pastures for a debut album of depth and weird beauty.

She's refining her songwriting into an individualist composite of myriad genres, crafting works which resonate with her own personality. It's clear that she's no dilettante, and that her understanding of rock'n'roll, gospel, folk, country and rockabilly has a profound depth.

Metheny’s use of it here delivers a pale, expensive shadow of what a real band can achieve. The project doesn’t feel like it has longevity, and this release is for the hardcore only.

The band’s phlegm-clotted bark and crisp four-chord surges remain intact throughout, whilst at the same time appearing more refined and steadily more adventurous.

A personal, private fourth LP from the Philadelphia native and select pals.

Where special guests don't feature, Vieux Farka shows off his own playing on songs that often follow the same formula: starting with a burst of stuttering guitar work before easing into relaxed, rolling riffs and chanting vocals. His father would have approved.

Love Me Back is worth so much more than the future classic tag it's been lumped with--it's an instant and self-assured blast of a record, its maker a new star to love

An extension of the rehabilitation that the 63-year-old has undergone in the last decade, under the devoted guidance of family and friends, it's a record that both addresses and somehow transcends his past.

Reinventing a genre they're not, but Nedry are certainly evolving trip hop in an enticing fashion.

The whopping 50 tracks are judiciously enough chosen to demonstrate why the band is legendary.

It’s a theme that recurs throughout the record, and, indeed, that defines the Four Tet canon: mesmeric, melody-laden music, with varying degrees of difficulty. There is Love in You should be a fine introductory course.

Brimful of air guitar moments and other guilty pleasures, Brothers is pleasingly diverse and diverting, with barely a duff track.

Fourteen years on from his debut as leader, Vijay Iyer joins the club with a characteristic blend of tasteful tribute and exciting unorthodoxy.

Throughout the album, Lamdin's production offers a sense of clarity and understated confidence.

While Sempiternal isn’t the equal of another genre-bending record Date has worked on, Deftones’ White Pony, it represents significant and successful progression for its makers.

It's a vast, revealing monument to the genius of Ray Davies and one of the greatest British bands of all time.

Some have decried the use of clicks and fuzz, but they're surely half the point in this exquisite album-length disquisition on memory and desire, love and loss.

Innovative, dark, bold and creative, it’s an album only David Bowie could make.

With this latest release he seems to have come closer then ever to mainstream respectability, while retaining some of his maverick idiosyncrasies.

Banga is the best Patti Smith album since Horses. No one else makes rock records as rich, poetic and sexy as this.

Tramp continues the trajectory that got underway with her debut LP Because I Was in Love in 2009, broadening her sound and exhibiting greater confidence while markedly ramping up the volume.

As far as second albums go, it is a brilliantly bold, robust work, showcasing real development and the kind of graceful erudition that places Regan squarely ahead of the curve.

It's an album that envelops even as it blurs and drifts, its hooks no less insistent for their subtlety.

Throughout, Avi's vocals coalesce remarkably with those of keyboard player Rebecca Coleman, who was originally Avi's muse by way of an intense teenage crush.

It's this ability to pare back extraneous matter and to stare unflinchingly into the very soul of a song that makes Last such a spellbinding, if at times unsettling, experience.

Bonkers and beautiful, Storm Corrosion leaves one wondering what this duo will come up with next.

This is the most exciting and substantial Coleman release of the last few years, rigorously challenging, pumped with insinuating melodies, sleek with propulsive energies and pulsating with a uniquely globular funkiness.

Here, he exorcises the turmoil with a focused set of sustained brilliance.

While it lacks the freshness that saw it named one of Pitchfork's best albums of last year, there's no doubting that Palomo's best efforts retain their charm a year since they were first heard.

If you're not quite there by the time six-and-a-half minute opus Eyesore encapsulates everything that's been wonderful about the preceding 36 before slowly fading out, turn it over and start again. It's worth it, because Public Strain is one of 2010's finest LPs.

There are ten other very fine songs here, this album shows Ritter developing continually, and there's potential for greatness, in time.

Civilian pushes Wye Oak to the head of the nu-shoegaze pack with a record as blissed out as it is maudlin, as rootsy and tough as it is fey and introspective.

A collection of mesmeric, epic stillness.

This latest record also goes some way to proving that, while he may be an old dog with a pickled onion for a head, Mark E. Smith and The Fall are still capable of learning the odd new trick.

An LP as weighty, compelling and brilliant as The Bad Seeds have ever produced.

Understated and thoughtful, The Violence is a true folk record that should rightfully see Hayman recognised as the national treasure that he clearly is.

With I Speak Because I Can, that argument may now end. Though just 20, it doesn't appear within her scope to make an outright bad album, and here we are shown a few more glimpses of her gift, but yet not an overwhelming outpouring of it.

What pushes I Learned the Hard Way towards being something truly brilliant as opposed to just very, very good is how well it works as a cohesive, well-rounded whole.

Godspeed have once again created a challenging, intense, evocative work, worthy of their canon.

There was a time when it seemed anything emanating from a Chicago zip code was essential. That time may have passed, but if you're in any way interested in atmospheric, exploratory music that creates worlds as it progresses, seek Boca Negra out.

As good as their 2007 Mercury Prize-nominated album, The Bairns, undoubtedly was, Here’s the Tender Coming raises the standard higher still.

One of Jurado's strongest albums in an encouraging line of strong albums.

Aside from the hype, this album is by no means a feasible breakthrough into the mainstream--there's not stride enough for that. But when it's at its best, it's boundary-breaking.

Teenage Fanclub's first album since 2005's Man-Made, coming so soon after the death of Alex Chilton, has the warmth and poignancy of a tribute, even if writing and recording was all wrapped up by then.

It's not sonically unique. Yet there's a charm here.

Death Grips achieve the density and intensity of several Bomb Squads, Public Enemy's famous production wing.

The full band which appears on The Lion's Roar enjoys the rare achievement of being saccharine-free, and serves to highlight the sisters' brilliant captured-on-tape chemistry.

Remarkably, across its length the virtuosity and excitement levels never dip. After repeated hearings, the music sounds as fresh as ever.

Ryder-Jones has not only pulled off the unusual feat of writing a soundtrack for a complex and experimental novel, complementing the book's allure handsomely. He's also, with its sentiment and inventiveness, made it worthy of repeated plays.

Smith remains stubbornly entrenched in a perpetual slough of despond. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem he had much to laugh about during his short, unhappy life, but over an entire record, his maudlin musings are rather hard work for all but the most introspective of listeners.

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

Origin:Orphan finds them finally able to out-wow the full spectacle of their magnificent shows, proving they are a serious and sophisticated musical force to be reckoned with as well as a mind-blowingly good gigging proposition.

The same could be said for Lapalux's production ability; this is a brilliant EP, but he's still to reveal his full potential.

ess gritty, less grimy, and more digital in its overall sound but no less inventive than its predecessor, Lorn has thrown down another musical challenge that's well worth rising to.

WIXIW is an unqualified success and, now that LCD are no longer with us, its makers are truly are in a field of their own.

Exists in a bleakly beautiful twilight zone of Hadreas' own making.

Subversion of the most intelligent, insidious, inventive kind.

They successfully hit many of rock's sweet spots on this debut LP.

[Cyrk] is a rare beast: a genuinely off-kilter pop record that never feels too self-conscious or contrived.

Some might find all this misery, whether it's stripped back like Sweetness or as explosive as She's Building Castles in Her Heart , a little masochistic for their tastes. Those, however, who have followed Hinson's career since 2004's debut, The Gospel of Progress, will be relieved by a compelling return to Gothic American themes which repays their early conviction that he is a unique songwriter capable of converting lyrical gloom into musical glory.

This is a Spiritualized album down to its marrow, replete with the Velvet Underground-meets-Brian Wilson melodies, symphonic crescendos and widescreen riffs that Pierce has made his own since the beginning.... and [it's] a great one.

While The Bravest Man in the Universe may not be quite a masterpiece, it is unquestionably a great achievement in which weaknesses are so few and far between that they barely even register.

There are some beautiful moments in amongst the manic electronic experimentation, but Stevens' strength as a songwriter lies primarily in his sincerity, his ability to express intimacy without appearing cloying or saccharin.

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.

[A] fine and adventurous release, which finds depth and nuance in the often tryingly two-dimensional world of garage revivalism.

It’s a fine Suede record, a passionate and seductive creature which reminds us of how distinctive and dynamic this most underestimated band can be.

There are impressive experimental excursions here, too: take Never Say Never, a whirl of backwards beats, twinkling harps and discombobulated vocals that’s both utterly disorientating and quite delightful.

To call it a career highlight would be a little excitable, but Mirror Traffic feels like one of those records that'll tempt fair-weather fans back to the Malkmus name. Which is probably a happy thing for all concerned.

Clearly neither advancing age nor years of unabated success have deprived Plant of either his constant appetite for challenge or his ability to deliver in a cogent, credible and thoroughly convincing fashion.

Gorilla Manor is no classic – it's too indebted to its makers' influences for that. But it is a strong, striking debut that exceeds expectations and should open enough doors for the band to ensure that album two is immediately placed at the top of journalist must-listen-to piles and consumers' to-buy lists alike.

It's a really, really good record.

It's tight, concise and thrillingly sharp--what makes High on Fire's fifth album such a success is its intricacy and balance that allows it to appeal to more than your friendly neighbourhood metalhead.