Bloodflowers' stands as a glorious, if contradcitory, body of work. It won't win new converts but lapsed Cure fans will find it a thrilling and rewarding hour.

Well, reports of the death of the old Coldplay have been much exaggerated.

The result is largely the mature second album that we were hoping for with Steve Mason's magical way with a tune still proving capable of injecting an awe-inspiring and yet indefinable emotional resonance to everything he touches.

Although only eight songs long, Body Talk Pt. 1 is a fully formed, imagined futuristic world that uses technology to propel it into a future version of the present day.

At 31 minutes, the record is a short and bitter mind-melter.

With such brilliantly explicit expositions of death, loneliness and faith in his words, there's more than enough here to soften the blow about that other thing he was supposed to do.

Elsewhere the album could be either too relaxed or too eccentric for many. But it's a fine, rich and extremely likeable record, nonetheless, and it deserves to find its audience even without that famous surname.

With the exception of the Joy Division influenced 'City', the final third of the album drops the ante somewhat. The idea, though, that this sophomore effort may be laying the foundations for something even mightier cannot be ignored.

Like a feral Arcade Fire making whoopee in the Third Republic, The Flying Cup Club is an often magical listen and deserving of a wider audience than it will probably reach.

"Kicking Television" documents a band on fire and a frontman in clarion clear voice.

Ultimately, 22 Dreams is, simply put, Weller's best album since "Stanley Road", and one to be remembered for years to come.

Will’s work has seldom had a stronger sonic setting.

Rather than mimicking and rehashing "Simple Things", she's found a warmth and depth of feeling that makes "Colour The Small One" the logical progression.

Bobby Ray has a little way to go to match his mentor's lyrical ingenuity, but as the first post-Lupe rap star he's already absorbed the most important lessons about form and function, inspiration and integrity. It's a great start.

"The Black Parade" is a big, fat, obnoxious, difficult, overbaked concept record and it's all the more exciting for it.

There are no huge surprises on this album - it sounds and feels exactly how you'd expect - but somehow "Mr Beast" still seems vital and forward thinking.

'Mwng' or 'Mane' (as in horses) is a purely Welsh language album and is a theoretically disorientating and complex, but triumphantly audacious, experience.

Hidden backs up some audacious conceits with studious application and winds up a major achievement from these po-faced sentinels of the secret history.

Everything about Complete Me suggests a pop star of rare originality, charm and talent, and one who will win the world over person by person if he has to.

Where the album triumphs though is the crystalline clarity of the songs, their titanic emotional wallop and Marling's quite exquisite delivery.

It doesn't disappoint, if beatific, rhythm-infested melodies, resplendent in wondrous brass, stark string accompaniment and obscure found sounds are your bag.

'Maladroit' is a more satisfying half an hour than the often-impersonal 'Green' album. Quick-fire melody-driven, riff-heavy pop songs that resurrect the gritty, edginess of 'Pinkerton'. The best of both worlds basically.

A hugely impressive debut.

A cryptic but brilliant record, radically stripped of Radiohead's supposed musical strengths and charged throughout with a feverish desire to subvert and, perhaps, alienate.

Overall, it's less chaotic and noisily rampant, the Comets' awesome creative fury now channelled into structures more obviously resembling tunes.

At its best 'Wishville' recalls the finest hours of Psychedelic Furs and Mancunian goth heroes The Chameleons and at its worst, the pomp stadium rock of Simple Minds.

'God Hates Us All' signals a return to the marked aggression of their earlier selves.... The only thing that inhibits this album is its one-dimensional pace, as one too many tracks features grinding verse leading into charging chorus, repeat to fade.

"Supernature" is the rarest of records - one which arrives late in the life span of a genre but defines it so completely and perfectly that a full stop can be placed right there.