The nerve of it all is breathtaking. Turbo-beats poke up a gospel-jazz revivalist meeting, a mariachi band wanders into the hazy disco sashay of 'Broken Dreams', a Gary Numan sample gets bludgeoned to credibility in the Van Helden-esque pogo of 'Where's Your Head At?'.

Syro is amazing: bug-eyed, banging rave that sounds quintessentially Aphex while not quite sounding like anything he’s done before.

It has the reckless spirit of a record that hasn't been over-analysed, but with an intense flurry of ideas from someone in the absolute prime of their creativity.

Wild Beasts have undergone a sea change, and this beautiful album is a treasure that deserves plundering.

The ultimate rare treasure. [24 Sep 2005, p.47]

Muse have made a ridiculous, overblown, ambitious and utterly brilliant album, with more thrills than their previous three put together.

PJ Harvey's best album since 1991's 'Dry', a return to the feral intensity of that remarkable debut.... The clarity of the electric guitars played by Harvey, Rob Ellis and Mick Harvey is enough to make you fall in love with elemental rock all over again.... You could quibble Harvey has absolved her responsibilities by making an album earthed in the New York sound of 20 or 30 years ago. But when rock is so invigorating, so joyous about love, sex and living, all arguments are null and void.

An outstanding (dare I say ‘perfect’) debut.

The Seldom Seen Kid is a stunning record, a career-best from a band whose consistency has seldom been matched by any British indie band this decade.

Like Justin Vernon before him, with Lost In The Dream Adam Granduciel seems to be heading for things far bigger than anyone could ever have expected. This is one War On Drugs that might just succeed.

The lyrics, meanwhile, continue to move FOTL up two or three rungs of excellence.

This is an album to fall in love to, to break up to, to drown sorrows to, or to bounce around to. One-hit wonders? Well, the wonders part is right.

So contagious is their enthusiasm, you could start thinking that black-clad nihilism has kept music to itself for way too long.

An understated classic: a triumph of delicacy over decibels. [19 Jun 2004, p.56]

Sonically, it was staggering.

‘Room On Fire’ is a refining and tinkering with The Strokes sound, a carefully calibrated attempt not to fuck up too early in the face of untold temptations. The results are still sleek, sexy and thrilling, with a tantalising promise of even better to come.

By celebrating what it is to be a freak in 2004 they've made a debut that's unique yet uniting, deep yet designed for the dance-floor.

Slightly less lo-fi than previous efforts--although as it blends together Slayer, Japanese noisecore and warp-speed prog intricacy, sound recording fidelity is a relative concept. [5 Nov 2005, p.45]

It is miles better than 'Innerspeaker', and quite possibly the best album released so far this year.

A reverence-inspiring return.

A real-life pop record. Well, not pop in the Girls Aloud sense of the word obviously, more in the drop-dead, fuzz-box brilliant 'Here Comes Your Man' sense. [10 Jul 2004, p.48]

This is wild music, a celestial cabaret that absorbs and unsettles.

Girls are genuine drop-outs, bona-fide freaks who’ve made a record far removed from the predictable cycles of the music industry. Now that’s a real story.

The emotive finesse of ‘Cherry Blossoms’ might further the calls for a shoulder to blub on, but chugging full-band showstopper ‘Ramona’ shows Yellen’s songwriting to be as rich as his voice.

Cooked up in a session originally meant to spawn a batch of B-sides, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed instead debuts 10 songs that outstrip LC!’s debut album at every turn.

One of Sufjan’s most fat-free and consistently stunning records, but also his darkest.

The eloquence, barbarism, tenderness and sweat-drenched vitality of 'Elephant' make it the most fully-realised White Stripes album yet.