Sound-wise, 'Sleeping With Ghosts' is pretty much flawless.

Depending on your temperament, this translates to either the Feelgood Band Of 2006 or a horrific saccharine overdose.

The Coral have refined their influences, dropping some of the more incongruous blasts and revelations for a more concise, controlled dervish of Northern guitar colour and shade, West Coast psychedelic fever and Spaghetti Western landscapes and atmospherics.

Walk it Off is certainly not for everyone; but if you tire of quick fix indie and are craving something a little more cerebral to get your teeth into, it requires immediate investigation.

He's got an exceptionally stylish and more importantly, sellable album to back it up.

While her second album is frequently more drama than action, over the long haul, the magical world she creates is one worth being immersed it.

Through the course of "Drums Not Dead", you'll endure an unsettling, slightly terrifying experience, the likes of which is rarely committed to record.

It's a smart, self-aware and consciously direct album.

An emotive, atmospheric dreamworld that sounds like an echo from history.

In many ways, 'Evil Heat' comes across as something of an amalgam of the Scream's many phases and, because of that, it doesn't necessarily take them forward as their work in the past has done.

It's not as far out wild as 'Kaleidoscope' but it is a consistently inventive and brilliant record.

"Songs For Christmas" is a(nother) labour of love, gently glowing with hope and humanity and is thus guaranteed to prize cynicism's barnacles from the heart of even the most dedicated Scrooge.

'Stillmatic', as ever, is far from flawless but, at its best, it addresses the hip-hop landscape of 2002 as lucidly as 'Illmatic' did that of '94.

Hey Venus! is conspicuously short and sweet, and as a result among the greatest things they've ever done.

A harsh, almost hollow collection of songs, that are as darkly unsettling and violently disaffected as anything our rather self-absorbed Chicago-based outcast has committed to tape thus far.

What really makes this record engaging is that the simmering tension often chooses not to explode, yet somehow it works.

It's Shaffer's writing, rather than Ne-Yo's singing (and the distinction between the personas is one he's made himself), which elevates this collection beyond those of his peers.

Underpinning all these is a formidable talent for beats and synths most audible on glacial instrumental '10,000 Horses Can't Be Wrong.' It's this that makes Temporary Pleasure so strong and tightly knit and it's the reason it has enough minor-key disco stomps to keep us dancing all through autumn.

With a distinct lack of pretension, some wholly infectious hooks and an insouciant sense of humour, this is the kind of project that will ultimately serve to keep Beenie’s rep as a professional entertainer and maestro of the dance deeply intact.

An uncompromising work from an uncompromising artist, To Survive doesn't zip or sizzle. But yield to its gentle undulations and its hypnotic, brooding and utterly original genius becomes clear.

Nearly everything that was once infuriating and irritating about The Divine Comedy has now been eradicated in favour of a new honesty and depth to their sound complete with some genuinely touching moments.

It might not be the dance album of the year - but it's certainly pushing musical boundaries and deserves to be in your record collection.

They don't make a better sound than your average bunch of Sonic Youth fanatics, but they make it feel better, make it seem more important, more romantic almost.

They develop, mutate, and swell in confidence until you’re faced with the last thing you expected - finally, a worthy successor to Blur.

It is a qualified success, at times brilliant, at others rather vague and off target.

Indisputably one of the best projects Gruff Rhys has ever been involved with.

A record to throw yourself into with the same glee Robyn clearly has.

That rare thing in modern music, you feel Deerhunter grow with each second of song that passes, a band who delight in running under their own graceful steam rather than gasping at the airs of others.