It may have taken over a decade for Doves to pour their souls into ‘The Universal Want’ but if it turns out to be their final transmission, it will be a worthy closing chapter to their epic legacy.

Bejar creates an astonishing world in just nine songs; it's his finest work to date, and excessive, but irresistibly so.

Vocodered, stretched, distorted, warped, deliberately upstaged by beats so showy they belong in a strip joint - quite simply, she's almost managed to make herself disappear. That bluntly explicit title isn't just pointless irony. This record is about the music, not Madonna; about the sounds, not the image.

It's great.

These two rap entrepreneurs have proven that it was worth the wait for another studio album. The years between ‘Revenge Is Sweet’ and their debut ‘Long Way Home’ have been fruitful for the duo, but – for all their dabbling – this is a welcome return to their roots.

Everything pushed to the limit, it becomes abundantly clear they’ve made an album that sounds as at home on the dust-stained subway as it does at the peak of the Empire State Building.

Impressive debut. Somehow, he manages to tame the album’s kinks into a cohesive if not beguiling whole that’s eminently challenging and comforting to listen to.

With the help of former Coral man Bill Ryder-Jones, Liverpool's We Are Catchers (aka Peter Jackson) has captured the melancholy essence of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's solo album 'Pacific Ocean Blue' and distilled it in the murky Mersey to produce this confident debut.

While Saint Etienne will always sound like Saint Etienne, these songs are their sharpest in over a decade.

Picking us up where the laptop prof's 'Los Angeles' debut dropped us for another nocturnal journey through LA that serves as a moody, widescreen, be-bopping riposte to UK dubstep. Only this time it's a flashier ride.

Starsailor have produced a debut album of real emotional depth.

Against the odds, 'Think Tank' is a success, a record which might not mean much to Strokes fans but which shows Blur's creative spark is undimmed even while their stomach for the pop fight fades.

There's light, shade and careful nuance throughout.

Confident, relevant and full of gorgeous instrumentation, Ella Mai’s debut proves that she is more than worth the hype.

But while 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress' delivered an aural punch above B&S's usual weight, it wasn't quite the return to form many claimed. That return is delivered here, on 'The Life Pursuit', Belle And Sebastian's seventh album and their best since '...Sinister'.

You’re Dead is a madly inventive record, one that takes hip-hop and jazz as starting points, beats them both to death and then brings them back to life in an almost unrecognisable form.

Spiky and cool where 'Songs For The Deaf' was smooth and tanned, tense and alien where that record was baked and ready to party, 'Era Vulgaris' is a record that feels like rust and stings like battery acid.

This is often quite brilliant genre-busting music from a girl who makes a mockery of Lily Allen’s status as the voice of ‘ordinary’ Britain.

Fans of whiskey-drenched, feedback-fuddled blues-rock, form an orderly line.

This madcap might raise the occasional laugh, but inside he’s crying, and for all your voyeuristic unease, you won’t be able to look away.

Those waiting for another record as challenging as 'Vitalogy' will be left disappointed. But 'Riot Act' is the sound of a band entering a powerful middle-age. They still deserve your attention.

The past eight years have seen Blanck Mass creep forwards to slowly become one of the UK’s most exciting experimental producers. Animated Violence Mild is the pay-off, a fantastic, delirious soundtrack to our demise.

‘Edna’ is proof that he’s the unmistakeable, global ‘King of drill’, and much more besides.

Welcome home, The Boss. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

Full of fraught, frivolous fun. [11 Jun 2005, p.67]

While the meaning part is sometimes tough to decipher – far more so than her previous work – it’s not the answer here that’s important but the journey. It takes a little time to immerse yourself in Harvey’s world, but once there, you won’t want to leave.

It’s a high-quality project, but we lost Mac way too soon, and that’s hard to accept. So while it’s hard to listen to him talking about self-deterioration and how he spends far too much time in his own head, it’s a privilege to hear him share his inner most thoughts over a bed of sweeping, inventive sonics. This is the album Mac Miller was born to make.

Perfect pop without the pretence, basically.