Squeaky genius.

It's hard to believe a better advertisement for music's capacity to be simultaneously adventurous and entertaining, funny and moving, leftfield and mainstream will be released all year.

They muster compelling music that sounds like triumph in the face of adversity, building something beautiful out of the building blocks of sadness and despair.

On paper it can seem a dark, depressing combination. But what Hope Of The States bring and what, in theory, they offer up for the lost and desperate to cling onto is... well, hope.

Busting out of car speakers on hot London streets this summer, 'Ego War' is gonna make you think that, finally, we've got a Brit band worth adoring.

Across forty minutes, this is epic yet compact, a film noir in garish technicolour, an album made up of potential singles.

This is music designed to fill arenas - possessed of a consistent quality and vision, a head, a heart and soul - that simply leaves the competition trailing in its wake. An utter triumph.

They've resurrected with this, their fourth album, the seemingly outmoded concept that with enough nurturing and faith, a band - and by extension it's audience - can grow into a beautiful thing.

'Reveal' sees REM exhale, relax and ease into a new confidence with a collection of songs to fill your heart. Every track here sifts with a live energy that was previously polished out of 'Up', and they sound all the better for it.

A darkly, slathering record of frustration and disillusionment, “Language. Sex. Violence. Other?" may, in time, even come to be seen as one of the true masterpieces of the noughties guitar revival.

Spoon have created an album that will not only satisfy long-time observers but will also act as a gateway for those yet to discover their charms.

Another masterpiece.

Welcome to the hottest, coolest, best-dressed pop album of the year.

Represents a considerable stride in ambition, reaching into dark unchartered territories and repaying close listening with the kind of organic insights that great music excels in unearthing.

A mature and, occasionally beautiful album, possibly the finest of their career.

In Hammond, [Waits] has found a worthy collaborator, one who gets to the heart of what these strange lyrics are actually about and imbues their sharp angles, acute observations and nicotine-stained introspection with some real insight and understanding.

Marina & The Diamonds convincingly fight off the encroaching talons of expectation by embarking on a rampant, stomping adventure, letting no idea lie when it can be crashed into another loudly and a microphone placed nearby to collect the resulting sparks.

'Since I Left You' is nothing short of stunning.... There's more imagination in this hour-long odyssey than most sample-based artists manage in their entire career. Not since DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' has an album showed what you really can do with a bunch of old vinyl.

It's an album that feels like a watershed somehow, a significant step onwards.

Nguyen has created what will probably be one of 2003's best albums. 'Again' is a dark and sexy record that reveals itself seductively over time.

Generally an upbeat dancey album which finds Madonna still ahead of the game sixteen years into her career, 'Music' takes an occasional breather with some more grown-up, reflective balladry.

This record can't claim such a free-spirited conception as its predecessor, but that's actually to its credit as not a moment rests idle or is flung in on a whim, every track connects like a pool cue to the back of the head in a bit of Friday night pub rough and tumble.

And while at first it feels like an unholy, unhummable mess, the same solid gold charm which powered lead single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" to Number One, lurks at the heart of every track, and by listen five it's refocused "Ta-Dah" into a strangely enticing nether world, where it's forever 1974 and a cheap thrill or soaring pop high lurks round every corner.

A mighty fine album which neatly sidesteps the tired alt.country tag, 'Feast Of Wire' is an engaging musical road trip that you wish would never end.

A beginning to end enchanting and addictive album.

For a band that formed little over a year ago, the energy and intent of this record is thrilling and the music rarely fails their undoubtedly grand ambitions.

This is the sound of a band returning to their roots, to the dramatic Celtic infused epics of their early records.

The album finishes almost as well as it started with 'The Mall & Misery' (a bit of country, a bit of disco, lightening bolts of new wave guitar, harmonies to intoxicate), proving the album's effective inevitability is not tedious and the quality is clear whichever direction you approach from.