A... winning blend of seemingly spontaneous, humanised warmth and brooding, existential contemplation.

Back with the same band that helped her notch up such smoky, smooth jazz hits as 'Your Love Is King', 'Smooth Operator' and 'The Sweetest Taboo', Sade has produced an album of class, sophistication and melancholy soul.

“Meltdown” is a sturdy, well-written and (perpetually adolescent lyrics aside) mature addition to Ash’s enduring and near-essential canon – ample reward for ten years’ loyal support.

But for all its stylish exuberance, 'Now' is an album full of wonderful sounds that's lamentably thin on songs.

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

No one was expecting Godrich to turn this noble British pop institution into Radiohead, of course. But the glimpses of greatness are enough to leave you wishing that bottle had prevailed and more in the vein of "Too Much Rain" had resulted.

It just sounds like she cannot be roused to feel very passionate about anything.

Mosshart still sounds like PJ Harvey’s brattish American sister, Hince still retains the ability to craft tunes from nothing and blurred sepia images of the two of them abound. But somehow, despite all the achingly hip self-mythology, The Kills are still capable of mustering up convincingly great rock'n'roll.

Death Magnetic at least proves that 40-something millionaires can make a valiant fist of recapturing the fury of youth. Sadly, though, it seems that Metallica will never be 20-years-old again.

The production, however, is first rate, Dre proving that he really is on fire at the moment. Eminem's microphone skills are similarly beyond question ' though a little too shouty on occasion. It's just that his self-indulgent and irritatingly stupid rants will prove too much for any audience that recognises irony in Beavis and Butthead.

They seem keen to hold a mirror up to familiar pop tropes, but in doing so only reveal themselves for what they are - a gang of weirdoes carrying guitars. Perversely, their eagerness to engage the mainstream attention span often seems obnoxious in itself.

"Tyrannosaurus Hives" is a good record, but one best dipped into rather than listened to in one go.

Essentially if you like the bands that have so clearly influenced Stellastarr* you'll like this record. But it's difficult to really love a band that haven't yet found a voice they can truly call their own.

The problem is, there's simply too much record here.

The influence of recent collaborators like Autechre and Spring Heel Jack is prevalent throughout much of the album as tracks like 'Eros' fuse jazzy, organic instrumentation like marimbas and guitar to colder cut-up beats.

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

Sexy, credible, committed, In Love And War works damn hard for the money, and stands as another thoroughly modern record from a lady embodying strangely old-skool virtues.

Expect to hear a smattering of gems from Time On Earth, more than holding their own with the band's much loved and more famous moments.

The leap in quality is clear from the album's opening bars.

A gorgeous and ambitious melding of classic soul structures and values to hyper-modern production technique.

If March's "Fishscale" was his "Highway '61 Revisited" or "Innervisions", "More Fish" is "John Wesley Harding" or "Fulfillingness' First Finale". It may lack something of the lustre, but it's still a gem from a master operating very much at the peak of his powers.

Modern Guilt takes that album's insecurity in the face of technology running away with us, to a tightly-written 10 songs that in part seem to focus on what, precisely, we have done to the world; and how on earth are we meant to get back in touch with it?

"Love Kraft"... sees the group slowing down and settling into themselves, revelling in their customary psychedelic indulgences while knocking out a supremely relaxed perfect pop album in the process.

It gradually reveals itself as a lithe and texturally consummate work.

The Canadian-American boho remains as feisty and red-blooded as ever, her hewn-from-marble voice--part-cowgirl part-Patti Smith--crooning and bawling tales of feckless lads and late night disappointments.

A long 14 tracks, it's fairly unfocused and though the pair have done enough to prove that they're not just out to annoy, there is still something fundamentally unsatisfying going on here.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspects of Flesh Tone are the songs named 'Segue 1', 'Segue 2' and so on through to 'Segue 6' which are positioned to avoid gaps between songs. They're the album's most imaginative moments, and suggest that although Kelis is refining her sound to become queen of the disco, there's still dozens of ideas waiting to announce themselves.

She's softened the edges just enough for you to find a way in and it pretty much liberates the whole record. The transformation overall is nothing short of terrific.

"Black Gold" is a fine, fine record and undoubtedly the greatest thing he's ever done.

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

Frequently staggering.

This is rap of mesmerising, addictive quality, written and delivered by a master in charge of every aspect of his craft.

There's little doubting Wale's potential but 'Attention Deficit' is so much like a lot of other rap fare out there that it will very likely suffer to be heard above the cynicism directed at hip hop in 2010.

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.

Musically, DC continue to improve, supplementing their acoustic, sparse approach with radio-friendly pop and tracks that subtly ebb and flow; just beware of a few lightweight and labouring moments.

Unlike his obvious contemporaries - David Gray and Tom McRae - Harcourt has produced an album that reaches out beyond the boundaries of the traditional songwriter, yet still comes packed with memorable melodies and robust songs.

They've got one song, basically. It's a fairly good song, comprising driving, rama-lama rhythms and pitch-dark lyrical content; but repeated 10 times in fairly mild variations, it inevitably loses its appeal.

What emerges is Sonic Youth at complete ease with themselves and their music, operating simultaneously at the peak of their powers and with a powerful, audacious restraint.

It's probably Bjork's most succinct and inventive statement yet.

Frankly, this is it all over again.

It may not be his best album but it ranks as one of his most important.

This is true cosmic American music and possibly the best thing all concerned have ever done.

This is an album that's far from complacent and what's most in evidence throughout is they're seeking to challenge themselves as much as their audience.

It's a dizzyingly impressive debut.

A unique musical vision with a genuinely unique and beautifully skewed worldview to boot.

"Everything Ecstatic" pulses with imagination and subtle talent, choosing to follow a sweet technicolour road rather than take a harder, and far well trodden path.

This is bound to be praised to the hilt as the Next Big Thing, but rock outfit At The Drive In have only one thing going in their favour - the absence of competition. It's so close to being something beautiful, something to cling on to in these aurally barren times, but it's just so not quite.

Swift's thoughtful honesty and surprisingly articulate take on life should be commended.

Braxton has gotten brave and ratcheted-up both the attitude and tempo.

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.

Yet though the music may not win any originality awards - Sebadoh and Guided By Voices spring instantly to mind as precursors - there is a refreshing lack of pretension throughout.

Santogold, then, is a great 21st century cut and paste pop record: self-conscious, referential and catchy as hell. Buy it, love it...then chuck it away and buy a newer model.

Proof Of Youth was made for rolling back the years and the rug, not chin-stroking contemplation. If shredded Axminster was The Go! Team's aim here, then mission well and truly accomplished.

Goes on a bit, predictably (20 tracks!), but only Jay-Z can match its highlights for party soundtrack of the year.

This minor masterpiece of an album is nothing less than a precision exercise in deconstructed songwriting.

Where once the bark was of Beck, we have - and this hurts - Wings.

The Raveonettes have something the Mary Chain lost around the time of 'Automatic': an understanding of how to make a tight three minute pop song feel exhilarating.

If Avril Lavigne dealt with her 'issues' by adding whiskey to her skinny latté, bummed about on a Californian beach at sunset and listened to The Go-Gos, this is what she'd sound-like.

Skim the surface and you'll find ten slabs of icily slick electro-pop, spend a little time and you'll uncover an altogether darker core; either way Unicorn delivers in whichever form you're looking for.

Blige's eighth studio album [is a contender] for being the best of her career.

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

The result is pretty much what you'd expect from an album bearing Lynne's name on the credits.

It's not just that these sentiments are timeless - these songs, in these hands, are only now receiving their definitive interpretations.

Despite not being quite as smart as "Fishscale", The Big Doe Rehab certainly marks another reason (along with recent GZA shows and the release of "8 Diagrams") to suggest the Wu-Tang dynasty is going through something of a renaissance.

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.

Happily so, as well, as any adherence to the backstory would ruin what's simply the best dumbass party album of the summer.

It's not original or slyly crafted enough - a couple of songs could definitely have benefited from a quick edit from Damon - to feel truly classic, but it has a charm and a vibrancy that's impossible to resist.

As tear-soaked and gorgeous as we ever might have hoped.

'Bionix' has definitely been released at the wrong time of year: it's got chilled summer vibes written all over it.

The Welsh agit-poppers' tenth album isn't terrible--certainly not as listless or confused as Lifeblood--but it does sound lazy, lyrically and sonically.

You must surely marvel at Thom Yorke's insistence to challenge his audience and his enemies.

It’s the way “With The Lights Out” fleshes out the plot that makes it so compelling.

Lady Gaga apart, the most interesting stars in 2010 are women in their 30s and beyond, artists with phosphorescent personalities that might burn the fingers of anyone wishing to mould them. Singers like Alison Goldfrapp, Grace Jones and Robyn Miriam Carlsson.

There's a connection with the contemporary world, with the apparatus and detritus that layers 2010 up around us all, that hasn't really been seen in Sigur Ros's music before.

While it's certainly refreshing to hear Oberst refrain from swaddling his emotionally-driven conceits in rock statesman's clothing, much of Conor Oberst seems too comfortably by-the-book to really leap off the page.

The lumbering, ponderous nature of both music and vocals elsewhere makes you wonder if much of Songs In A&E wasn't actually recorded in hospital.

'I Might Be Wrong' is Radiohead trashing the notion that 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' were difficult and sterile studio bound affairs.

It's another solid and undeniably enjoyable album. But from a woman as supremely talented as Blige, somehow enjoyable rates as a disappointment.

This debut sets the newcomers head and shoulders above the neo-Britpop pack.

'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.

Beautiful songs one and all, there’s much to recommend "Eye To The Telescope", and given enough time and patience, Tunstall’s subtle charm seeps through making it an album to love.

It may be a scrappier collection than the exquisite, Tindersticks-in-aspic perfection of "The Hungry Saw", but somehow it adds up to something greater, the album as a whole bristling with creativity and the joys of trying something new.

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.

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.

Your record collection still only really needs a couple of Chk Chk Chk 12"s and that Out Hud album, but don't pass on the chance to see them live.

You simply have to marvel at the talents of a man who is surely amongst the most gifted and fascinating musicians of modern times, even if "The Avalanche" does feel like a vaguer retread of the absolute bravura seen on its big brother.

"The Back Room" is, principally, a triumph.

Overall, aside from the crummy rock-out of 'What If', 'Aaliyah' is accomplished fluid soul, with nothing too jagged or startling to spoil the polished veneer.

Everything here sounds familiar.

The album's predominant mood is not glumness, it is togetherness, and it invokes images of storytelling, late nights, campfires, whiskey and beards. The stuff of men with things on their minds.

Superficially then, White Denim might, on first listen, ape the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion but unlike garage revivalists like The Hives--whose studied revivalism has all the innovative spirit of a 19th century theme park--they've kicked all the best things about red-blooded rock into exciting new shapes.

Big by design, poignant yet relentlessly uplifting, it has the feel of a career crowning glory, or at the very least a second album, not a first attempt.

These 10 songs evolve unhurriedly and, as with all Mogwai's best moments, like time-lapse photography from the heart of a dark storm.

What makes 'Paid Tha Cost...' such an unexpected joy is the way in which Snoop's comic persona offers all involved an opportunity to loosen up and have some fun.

But its modesty is its weakness. For the last 15 years, Simon has been rejuvenating himself with challenges, with awkward collaborations and unusual idioms, testing and experimenting with his talent. With this collection of gentle, wry ballads and witty, shuffly songs he is, nearly, just coasting on it. Not that this makes 'You're The One' a bad album. It just makes it an ominous one.

there are many who will find this record torrentially annoying....But to many others, Manners will be a welcome zephyr of optimism ushering away the angst of epidemics and impending environmental oblivion.

In a time where we could have fairly expected another state-of-the-world sermon, Dylan's thankfully stopped the overdone end-is-nigh bell-ringing that's characterised his late-period, allowing the ghosts of romances past and present to permeate Together Through Life.

An intelligent step forward from a unique and prolific troubadour.