As a whole, The Deep Field nails it. True, the songs are long, it is almost ceaselessly rich, and you're going to want to skip its first 30 seconds every time.

One of Metheny's best releases in recent times.

As it happens, most of these songs are rockers, and even the ballads possess a toughened core of energy.

Malo is busy carving out the new genre of sincere south-of-the-border melodrama. It's all delivered within a classic 40 minute album length. The perfect pop punch.

Quite who Harlem can hope to appeal to, in the UK at least, when music fans here are evidently besotted with sci-fi nonsense one minute and cleverly articulated kitchen-sink dramas the next is anyone's guess. Best to quit the questioning, though, and get down with the rollicking jams they're kicking out regardless of how many people are listening.

Oregon rock alchemists create soundworlds that one can be effortlessly immersed in.

She's not displaying much in the way of stylistic evolution, but it's not exactly certain whether this is a negative factor. As ever, raging raw emotion shouts out of Niblett's gullet, whilst sludge-chords resound from her low-hung axe, following the Nirvana (and thence PJ Harvey) school of quiet-then-loud, loud-then-quiet, but nevertheless imposing her own unpredictabilities on this dynamic.

Daybreaker is a great album. It'll go down as one of Architects' finest works.

Every Step's a Yes is a worthy partner to [Best Coast, Beach House and Wild Nothing's] records.

Despite the bounty of overdubs, however, there’s little self-indulgence to There Is No Enemy; Martsch’s overloaded approach might scream ‘prog’, but he also possesses a perfectly-disciplined, ‘pop’ songwriting sensibility, with every lengthy instrumental coda married to contagious choruses and melodic barbs that lodge in the mind.

It's a bewitching album that gives pause for thought throughout.

The album unfurls at a leisurely pace, the band's characteristic blend of burbling electronica and acoustic instrumentation at its most formidable, and most satisfying, yet.

Once more they've turned sludge, slime and slurry into heavy metal gold.

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.

But when he's in his element – ruling over frenetic beats with rhymes that cut right to the bone – it's clear that Yelawolf's star is sure to shine for the foreseeable.

It’s an album whose ingenuous, often nakedly honest songwriting offers an emotional fist gloved in arrangements of seductive velvet.

If you thought him too weird for your tastes previously, Tha Carter IV is the album to introduce you to the never boring world of an artist whose importance remains so significant that, should he finally collapse like the star he is, he's likely to take half the rap game with him.

The album only really reaches the heights Bush has set for herself when she appears centre stage.

Claudia's timbres, eerie and winsome in equal measure, prove its greatest strong point. The combination of clarinet, accordion and vibraphone fashions an electric whistle and whir that squares the circle between 90s indie science frictioners Stereolab and 60s proto-proggers Soft Machine, making it clear that Claudia is a jazz group questioning the divide between genres and points in time.

Fall to Grace is proof that pop doesn't need to be grey and restrained to feel grown-up.

Thompson’s classic folk rock formula is revived once more, and his frequent guitar solos are as sour as his lyrical wit.

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.

It's a real treat, so be sure to commit that title to memory should you be passing an emporium of musical delights anytime soon.

Few records in 2010 will contain songs quite so mind-bogglingly broad, playful, beguilingly pretty and intense as these slowly unfurling ensemble pieces.

Instead of shadowing the pack, this album puts them right up the front.

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.

It's a beautiful end to a touching, tragic album.

What remains is a nocturnal set of refined resonance.

The dizzying craftsmanship evident on this debut LP is never an obstacle.

Rocky's managed to keep it trill so far, but now comes the hard bit.

It's deceptively powerful stuff.

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

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

Polished and dependable, despite its safety there are some show-stopping pop anthems present.

On El Camino, mariachi, C&W, gospel, psych rock, blues and soul all mash together into a warm and occasionally dazzling torrent; their appeal is less in fresh sounds as fresh composites of old ones, wrapped around classically dusty tales of errant womenfolk and addiction to love.

There's plenty of care taken with these covers, the players evidently keen to not tarnish their own memories of the songs in question.

If their debut sounded like they listened to nothing but the sounds in their heads and tried to recreate them, this sounds like all they've listened to over the past two years is their own records, and subsequently tried to better them. They've succeeded.

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

While the EP is not a complete overhaul of the band's sound – Falkous' semi-comprehensible mini-stories are alternately spoken and yelled, with frequent backing vocals; the bouncy New Adventures could have slotted comfortably onto either of their first two albums – there's an evident effort by FOTL here to avoid simply returning to what they know.

Ultimately, this extremely curious album requires several airings to achieve an improved view, and a confirmation of its secretive charms.

With O, Markus Pop has reinvented Oval using new techniques to produce a challenging sound world that's simultaneously exhausting and fascinating.

Mirror Mirror is not obvious instant success. But given time, as with the best records, it reveals a wonderfully stark energy; all sinewy shadowplay, stripped-back space and a compelling sexuality.

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.

One of the most rewarding albums he has made in recent years.

Yes, it's a ridiculous, sometimes patchy affair, but that feels entirely apposite.

With these perfect nuggets of hormonal pop, Pete & The Pirates may not be courageous or sophisticated but they will make you want to jump around the room --even when you're empathising with Sanders' woes.

Straddling the line between art and commerce, between arena rock and cult devotion, for the first time in quite a while Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins sound energised and alive.

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

Lyrically deep and musically adventurous, Michaelson has it all.

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

This is probably Foxx’s most superior post-Ultravox! LP to date, and definitely his best in a very long time.

On the first few listens, the album is less immediate than the debut, but patience reveals it to be richer, more eclectic and far more satisfying.

Unexpectedly, these star-sailors are tripping the light, fantastically.

It is instead, pure-and-simple party music, make-out music and get-down-and-shake-it music, harbouring the sort of simple riffs and hooks that easily hop across the decades.

A timeless, anachronistic record, Barton Hollow could be from 30 years ago, or it could be from 30 years hence.

In The Music Scene, Blockhead has made both pretty melancholic tracks and straight-up thump-the-desk bangers bedfellows, and for that the new decade should be eternally thankful.

It's really that entertaining. He's found his voice now and he's coasting. A winner.

A fierce, melodic affirmation of sadness and grief, love and lust, attachments formed both strong and precarious, Young Man in America is a marvel of a record from start to finish.

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.

Watson's ability to create whole worlds, entire lifetimes in the listener's imagination, beyond the moment of recording, comes to the fore.

This singer knows what suits his voice, an undeniably rich and powerful instrument, and uses it without showing off.

Ores & Minerals, its [A Thousand Heys'] follow-up, is arguably less direct, but more fully realised, and likely more enduring.

Hookworms could become something genuinely astonishing in a few albums’ time, and Pearl Mystic is a fine foundation indeed.

An hour in the company of Tom Paley and his revue is an hour well spent.

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

Infusing--as per usual--squalling, buzzsaw guitars and Mac McCaughan's high-pitched, emotionally-charged vocals with simple yet cerebral lyrics that turn commonplace existence into something sad yet (as the title suggests) splendid, Majesty Shredding--their ninth album--brings their sonic template fully into the 21st century.

Not absolutely everything works, but so much of it does that Reason to Believe performs a neat trick: it makes the listener want to discover exactly where these songs came from and why Hardin wasn’t more appreciated in his lifetime.

From the disapproving father in Willie o Winsbury to the courageous, justice-seeking wife and mother in Geordie, the ballads’ centuries-old characters--and their dilemmas--are beautifully drawn.

Those unfamiliar with ancient Greek literature need not be daunted, as knowledge of the book is not necessary to appreciate the moods and melodies of The Sirens.

It's still a slice of superior Americana that enhances Richmond Fontaine's standing as one of the genre's premier attractions.

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.

The Foundling isn't a lot of fun, but it tells a very sad story with bleak eloquence.

As such it is an understated and subtlety magnificent pleasure.

Another Country is an album that radiates warmth. Not just the warmth of southern seas and skies, but the human warmth that beams directly out of Ms. Wilson's heaving heart.

On the whole this is a marvellous snapshot of a supreme talent deserving of more respect than he's been afforded in recent years.

She's full of vim and vigour, mixing tender character studies with doe-eyed love songs and impassioned protest pieces.

It's not easy to inject humour into songwriting but Merritt does it seamlessly, peppering sweetly sung melodies with just the right amount of acerbic lines--the cynical and the sentimental balanced beautifully.

Don Was produced this. He must have loved it as much as the musicians did, and he obviously got it as nothing in the production interferes with the songs.

There's more than enough here to satisfy aficionados of offbeat, fiercely inventive pop music.

Comprising eight tracks and running to just over half-an-hour, it's a crucible of stark arrangements, contemplative moods and subtle hooks; never earth-shattering yet consistently, discreetly affecting.

Produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, The Invisible Way is warm and organic, melodic and fragile. Twenty years into their career, and Low have created one of their best albums yet.

Peepers is every bit as good, talented musicians reworking the rulebook with hearts and minds at play.

E Volo Love has a strong onomatopoeic power, suggesting mystery, enchantment and romance; all properties this terrific and charming record has in spades and shovels.

Bluegrass superstar's new album is a fine addition to her impressive catalogue.

It’s experimental but aimed at embracing an audience first and furthering its makers' out-there adventures second. As such, it’s the most instantly rewarding Pit Er Pat album yet, and deserves to take the duo to a new level of recognition.

It's an album that largely triumphs with a black snake moan and the revitalised, tempestuous twin snarl of Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been.

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

A staggeringly beautiful success.

Bell’s vocals are mountain-fresh like Frida and Agnetha’s and the songs they’ve written are walloping feel-good anthems with the sort of cacophonous choruses that would knock Mika and The Feeling into the middle of next week.

There is gospel organ (Be That Easy) and a mid-tempo reggae-ish gait on Babyfather, but mostly Soldier of Love is as mournfully one-paced as previous Sade albums, with the same attention to texture and surface lustre but, alas, not to melody or moving autobiography.

Bubblegum is Clinic at their most approachable and, importantly, shows them to be sharp and direct in their more affecting statements.

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.

Easy-going and mellifluous, songs built on the simplest of patterns.

2:54 have delivered a collection of deeply mature and addictive tracks. In avoiding their own hype they have created something almost naively unaffected, and purely affecting.

Yes, the videos still display awkward, cringe-worthy naivety that could inspire the next The Inbetweeners movie, but this music is a mature mix of jaunty and jaundiced.

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.

Kill for Love is also one of the finest records to surface this year.

Clocking in at 36 minutes, this long-awaited solo debut is an impressive exercise in the integration of an expectedly wide range of aesthetics, revealing first and foremost a thoughtful composer with a skilled producer's ear.