overall Excerpts is an evocative, sophisticated and charming record, awash with imaginative atmospheres, that looks back to the past for inspiration without ever wallowing in sentiment.

There's plenty of interest here, then, but not enough to satisfy across a whole album.

Aphrodite is pure Kylie magic. Everything that made you fall in love with her all over again before is present and correct here.

While the sound of this Tennessee five-piece is hardly shimmering with originality, few have imitated those sunny falsettos and sweet'n'sad melodies quite so irresistibly.

It's as if Offer, completely understandably, has pulled everything towards him a little too close. Reined everything in and hugged the songs a little too tightly.

The result of this is that many songs here, like Elbow's Mirrorball, are fairly modern, and Gabriel rarely dips into the obvious rock canon (Heroes aside). And the sparseness of the arrangements around the singer’s tender vocals makes this a thing of beauty.

Deez exhibits the songwriting panache of a Brendan Benson or Ben Folds, and this album acts as his DIY taster in the same way as the former's One Mississippi and the latter's work with Majosha.

Free from grandly theatrical flourishes that were threatening to become things of creative captivity, ¡Uno!'s graceful manoeuvres confirm Green Day's status as one of the world's finest rock'n'roll bands.

This is a musician with creativity on tap and enough of it to burn through a little filler here while ensuring the prime cuts emerge perfectly.

While there's much to marvel at, not everything convinces.

Overall this is an impressive album that could prove a game-changer.

This is a discernibly different beast from any aforementioned acts of convenient comparison – from a distance, sure, it has its similarities, but zoom in and it's an exquisite new breed to behold.

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

ASIWYFA sound like they’re having fun shaping and performing this music, and you’ll want to be part of it.

The results occasionally jar, when Epstein's consistently elaborate productions overshadow the more pedestrian of Zott's compositions, but generally the sum of their parts is an equation to be savoured, and frequently produces magic.

It doubtlessly works better as a full performance, but as a stand-alone soundtrack has wonderful moments nonetheless.

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

Bensussen has delivered a varied, immersive set of highly memorable, enjoyable and danceable tracks that should push him further into the limelight where he has triumphantly proved he belongs.

With Gomez still a going concern, this solo effort--five years in the making--is very much a side project finally realised. But Ottewell should consider a follow-up, as there's much more to recommend here than on recent releases by other indie band singers turned so-so solo artists.

Sundark and Riverlight is thankfully more chamber pop than chamber pot. It's an elegant collection, but an acquired taste.

Angelides may not make good on the initial promise of Cloudlight's fearless boundary pushing across the album's entirety, then. There is, though, sufficient mind-melting invention here.

There are moments where Total does come close to a Daft Punk pastiche. But these are few and far between, and there's plenty enough of Sebastian's own character on show to make this one of the most enjoyable dance albums of 2011 so far.

This chilled-out collection is an easy, pleasant listen, but it is far from an essential purchase for anyone except Florence completists.

Despite an all-pervading gloom that dominates tonally, and pacing that rarely gets the pulse racing, this is certainly the best Raveonettes record since 2007's keyboards-dominated left-turn LP, Lust Lust Lust..

The album's better songs – of which a towering Black and the inventive if not precisely brilliantly titled Capsize the Sea are just two – even hark back to the time when their creators sounded fresh and exciting.

There isn't a bad pop song here, and the balance between whimsy, sensitivity and boisterous fun is expertly weighted.

Pale Fire is a pale beauty, and if you're seeking the chill-out Lykke Li (with whom she split a single in 2009) or an equivalent oasis of smouldering calm, Assbring will see you right.

Peculiar and unconventional, this is an album which constantly shape-shifts and surprises, but does so with a graceful, effortless ease that feels incredibly natural and utterly delightful.