There's a kitsch appeal, but this stuff [from disc two] belongs in a different world from the marvellous early disc.

Simply stuffed with rollicking tunes.

No Gods is a significant statement of intent. Despite its nihilistic title, it's an album that brims with vitality and could well be Sharks' ticket to the big leagues.

With its hurtling, remorselessly breakneck pace this isn't an album you listen to as such; rather, you grapple with it.

The latest Lamdin offering, billed as Nostaliga 77 and the Monster, is a thoroughly intriguing instrumental set, staffed with an impressive line-up of leading British jazz heads.

While kin is solidly crafted throughout, there's nothing to justify the lofty artistic conceits surrounding it.

Replete with moments of jubilance and tranquillity, cataclysm and contemplation, it feels like the successful culmination of everything the band have been aiming towards over their career to date.

Both in words and music, this album works by letting anger and warmth share a platform. In this respect, listeners already au fait with this splendid band should find plenty of cheer.

The overall impression remains of a bunch of clever chaps who are able to avoid over-intellectualisation and weave bags of charm and fun into their complex pop songs.

That lang is a greater and more radiant talent than the rest of the Siss Bang Boom combined is obvious, but so is the fact that in mysterious ways this strange marriage has helped her find her feet and voice again.

So while Rant may be a stunt album for The Futureheads, it's an exhilarating stunt, and one that more than whets the appetite for whatever it is they choose to do next.

Carey's gallant use of drum boxes and occasional, restrained glitchy sonics – like on the carousing Pickup Truck and undulating Into Tomorrow – round out Mason's sound, bringing a raft of rousing fresh dimensions to his previously straight-up folksy stylings.

It's a downbeat record that reclaim's dubstep's original dark energy and experimental imperative.

It's perhaps a bit long, and there may be too much repetition for some – but persist and Drokk is quite the engrossing, and sporadically discomforting, listen.

This is a great album: smart, thrilling, bouncy, imaginative, sussed, melodic, fiery, punchy, passionate, repetitive, and immersed in the technology of 2010 but the ideology of the 60s and late 70s (and early 90s Olympia, if we’re going to be exact).

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.

For the most part, Hill's stubborn sonic bravery earns margin for a handful of bum notes, leaving Face Tat among the most rewardingly challenging listens of 2010.

Overall, Black Radio surpasses the excellence of Double Booked, which is a brilliant album in its own right.

This is at heart a fun, dirty, insincere, cheap-thrill-laden pop record, with the raunch-riffery of Band of Skulls and lyrics which could be drawled from the mouth of a Bret Easton Ellis character.

Musically, it's both moody and approachable.

Spalding is too able a musician to botch this template, so the obvious enquiry is: does she bring sufficient personality to the table to avoid being derivative? For the most part, yes.

Original it isn’t, but it trades innovation for let-loose fun, and wears its influences proudly.

Her most vivid and enveloping achievement to date.

The subject matter may be familiar territory, but this is no comfort zone.

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.

Elling's individualist vocal reinterpretations are well worth hearing.

Things remain pared back, but an ambition nurtured by classical training keeps things interesting.

A little of this niggling frustration sticks, but for the most part Exister subsequently reveals itself as a more positive, uplifting record than its predecessors, adding something new to the band's eight-strong studio album canon.

Childs and Blake have created a record of outstanding songcraft, which salutes rock's past with a carefree spirit and its head in the clouds. Go Jonny, go, go go.

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.

Simple, slightly silly but splendidly affecting, it's a telling suggestion that Arnalds will retain her endearingly obtuse edge, whatever language she favours in future.

Ultimately, there are only two stars [Doom and Jneiro Jarel] that matter on this terrific album.

It's full of the kind of heavy textures and atmospheric nuances that explain exactly why Johnson is also a movie soundtrack composer of increasing repute.

Past Lives are prog incarnate; yet dissection of their work here reveals a far simpler formula than what initially presents itself. The four are restricted to some degree by their make-up, with Henderson handling much of the multi-instrumentalist demands, but the ideas are solid.

In creating a work which pretty much unfailingly sounds like it could have been made 25 years ago, Future Islands have rejected a lot of current sonic trends--only for their sound to land fashionable-side-up anyway. The tunes are the thing, of course, and the tunes are good.

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

This see-saw, between exquisite gloom and bruised hope, is part of what makes Piramida so powerful.

Super Furry Animals frontman's third solo LP captures his creative wanderlust.

Although fourth album Mines, released three years after its predecessor, retains Menomena's trademark virtuosity in production, here the band's complex, monolithic sonic structures are supported by a consistent emotional foundation that elevates the songs to new heights.

Despite the genre signifiers there's more than enough personality of their own here for Cults to transcend both their blog hit wonder and the timeworn sound they lovingly homage.

If this T-Bone Burnett-produced album isn't a standout, it still has plenty going for it.

They seem to have stopped trying to subvert their pop nous and accept what they do best, and for the most part it works a treat.

These flashes of stylistic innovation are rare. For the most part, it's all supremely controlled, sweetly inoffensive and velvety smooth.

For Fitz and Co, few if any post-60s developments in black dance music are acknowledged. Still, when it's good and exciting, as on the standout Don't Gotta Work It Out, with its simply thrilling keyboard coda, considerations of originality become irrelevant.

Rispah is brilliant enough for the listening public to find it naturally, in their own time.

Dazzling.

It’s accomplished, mixing studied nostalgia with current concerns, but not a standout in its field.

A great fifth album from the Wu-Tang rapper, but not quite another catalogue classic.

Judged objectively, Minotaur is a good if somewhat slight record, with enough quality to comfortably surpass most music likely to be released this year. But when compared to The Clientele's previous work, this is one for the completists rather than an essential purchase.

This is an impressive debut and a solid step toward a more realised identity.

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

With the ceaselessly inventive, engagingly cocksure 180, Palma Violets have given themselves a base to build a career, should they be in it for the long haul.

It's a contented celebration of success with weed as the indisputable toasting substance of choice. The sound is bigger, with more detail, exhibiting more confidence to experiment.

Alessi's Ark carries its ideas two-by-two, sails well above the current flood of increasingly desperate folk wannabes, and weaves a modest magic that is hard to pinpoint, yet even harder to resist. If Time Travel isn't quite a classic, it does enough to suggest that this 20-year-old has one in her Davy Jones' Locker.

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.

James Murphy's (of LCD Soundsystem) decision to sign this shape-shifting creature to DFA Records makes perfect sense given her blend of art, electronics and mischievous humour, and while it's an undeniably alien world Rostron inhabits, it's an altogether convincing one.

Improving prospects aside, though, the basic deal is the same, and Cloud Nothings rattles along at a fair old clip, boasting an embarrassment of hooks delivered with unassuming, 'it's-probably-nothing-but' panache.

This is the sound of sun-stunned drift, as opposed to slacker ennui. Such a formula could make for an enervating listen, but this debut album is shot through with casually glorious melodies.

A compact and incredibly gratifying introduction to a new lo-fi talent.

This set is a welcome throwback to simpler, gentler times.

Hull is a fine lyricist, able to make everyday ruminations on relationships utterly riveting. But he's not consistently complemented by music that really matters, a couple of relatively perfunctory arrangements ensuring that Simple Math is no High Violet-matching masterpiece.

Despite being a guitarist down (Bill Ryder-Jones departed after Roots and Echoes), they've regrouped admirably and made a comeback record that strives for, and indeed almost reaches, the dizzying heights of 2002's self-titled debut.

His relaxed intonation shows a talent that doesn't need to be stretched to the limit to produce its best work.

It's a complex, winding late-night soundtrack that doesn't move too fast, but never stops to question the judgement of its own unique outsider logic.

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

At times, Spektor can be too cutesy... More often though, her little idiosyncrasies are charming.

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

If a little dominated by this trio [Champagne Life, One in a Million, Beautiful Monster] the rest of the album also develops the cool soul player theme nicely, with offers of mind sex and a considered approach in slick fusion.

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.

Their songs are very nearly as good as the tale behind them.

By the Horns misses Angus' gruffer harmonies offsetting Julia's wide-open heart.

It's not the album that will define Deer Tick as a force in their own right, or McCauley as a songwriter on a par with his heroes, but The Black Dirt Sessions is the best set yet from this still-rising quintet.

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

Three albums in, Tunstall appears undamaged, an ordinary girl you'd want to spend time with and an honest performer it's hard to dislike.

As fascinating as it is perplexing, anything but obvious, and therefore to be applauded.

It's a soulful, self-contained delight.

At times The Light of the Sun veers towards self-indulgence, and some of its ideas are not fully followed through. On the whole, however, it is a rather lovely, emotional album that provides a beguiling snapshot of the current life of Jill Scott.

Sleepy Sun aren’t above dispelling the perceptions of over indulgence, and they may always be tarred thus, but Fever at least proves there’s a renewed clarity to go with the lozenge-smooth lethargy, even if it isn’t totally clearheaded.

This is intimacy on a purely aural level, the ultimate headphones album.

There’s a solid groove to most tracks, with no digressions to the Court of the Crimson King, or democratic opportunities for weaker members of the commune to sing.

One of the essential debuts of the year so far.

As with any festive release, the magic of A Christmas Cornucopia is best captured before the actual event itself, as come December 27 it will be as welcome as yet more turkey. But such is its quality that this collection could find itself becoming as much a part of the holiday season as arguments with loved ones, keeping receipts and watching the tree lights blur as you slowly drink yourself merry.

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.

Whether as the fanfare arrival of a unique new voice or the peculiar indulgence of a future cult classic, this is an album that has to be heard to be believed.

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

A treasure of tremendous emotional resonance and focus from the rising country singer.

Although it’s not perfect, We Will Not Harm You is a significant advance on [his] previous efforts.

There’s no better way to shut out the din than by putting this record on.

Times New Viking are just as wilfully, wonderfully lo-fi as ever, but five albums in they've finally let the listener get that little bit closer to the heart of what they do.

It's hard to pretend this is entirely cutting-edge stuff, but the 70-year-old shows no sign of softening, his production rich without bowing to commercialism, his compositions full of unexpected twists and aggression.

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

It's difficult to ignore that a significant amount of The Family Sign emits a passing impression that Slug plucked several emotive subjects from a hat, then challenged himself to use them as a writing framework.

It’s focused, and superbly executed, but forgoes immersive longevity for determined immediacy.

Streten proves that potential mass appeal need not come at the expense of creative flair or fresh ideas.

This is an album of surprising tenderness, of intricate (and, importantly, memorable) melodies and deep emotions, and everyman ruminations on love and life that will surely connect with long-standing fans and newcomers alike.

Rather than adhering to type, Black Mountain now have a catalogue of songs that respect and rival their influences.

This five-part suite expertly blurs boundaries between Weber's sequenced beats and the florid, cascading melodies of the carillon (played expertly by Vegar Sandholt).

Colour of the Trap, impressive an achievement as it is, is begging for diminishing returns.