The n’gonis are always upfront, but this is also an album of stunning vocals.

That OutKast comeback will surely be killer, but for now respect is due the way of this splendid solo adventure.

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.

It is punchy, vibrant, compelling stuff.

Beautifully recorded, Ali & Toumani lives up to and perhaps exceeds expectations.

Yeah, Gregory Porter is the real deal.

Though The Witmark Demos' contents may occasionally be unkempt, the same cannot be said for its trappings. As with all Dylan Bootleg Series releases, it is beautifully and thoughtfully packaged and annotated.

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.

This album is a gift from Vijay Iyer.

The result is a remarkable display of creative unity and a stellar masterpiece sitting alongside the group's best work.

Yet if Lonerism's epic psych-gasm has a weak spot, it's how it rarely slows down to take in the extraordinary view whizzing by.

Without compromising their artistic vision one iota, Sweet Billy Pilgrim have gone from black-and-white art-house to breathtaking widescreen, and the results are quite simply glorious.

This eighth studio album sees the four-piece climb the next step of the stairway of relevance.

Mellon Collie is no masterpiece, but its ambition is clearer than anything else Corgan has ever been involved with.

It sounds amazing, and represents an astounding return.

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

There is no doubt in this mind that Narrows have created one of the hardcore albums of 2012. There is a strange kind of beauty in unbridled monstrosity, and Painted is a stunning behemoth of an album.

The Seer might not be the album you spend most time with this year--it's too emotionally demanding for heavy rotation – but it's one you'll be listening to for years to come.

On one hand, this [move to a much smaller, California-based independent label] represents a gentle lowering of expectation. On the other, however, it's given Bilal space to explore what he does free of the stifling expectations of a label trying to work out what they can sell, and to whom.

Surrender your mind, body and soul to the Goat and one of the year's best albums so far.

Felt is a transportative album, a balm for troubled minds.

Even on a cursory listen, a water-testing foray into its 16 tracks, it's immediately apparent that this is an album unlike either that came before it.

Captured here, however, the band is still full of the future, and as fascinating and beguiling as such things always are.

A startling debut from a young Canadian RnB artist with huge potential.

Overall, Rage Against the Machine has aged extremely well.

Staff Benda Bilili sing songs of strife and redemption. Yet when the mixture of French and various Congolese languages breaks into sing-along "la la la"s on Ne Me Quitte Pas it becomes as pure a life-affirming rush as the best pop music in any language.

The three new songs tacked on at the end are indicative of their latter day torpor: hardly awful, but hardly memorable either; just three middle-aged millionaires going through the motions. But remember them as they were during the majority of this fine collection.

God bless unique, unfathomable, great Queen Polly.