'Capture/Release' is fresh, unique, original even; its oh-so-contemporary reference points are revisited with such punk-rock vivacity and hell-for-charity-shop-leather vigour that they might be the first band you’d actually believe when they roll out the old "no, honestly, we were doing this long before we’d even heard of Bloc Party".

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

Daft Punk have pulled off a brilliant wheeze by re-inventing the mid-'80s as the coolest pop era ever. And not even the officially approved retro-kitsch cool of Madonna's lukewarm excursions into post-Daft terrain but all the bubble-permed, sports-jacket-and-jeans excesses they can muster.... Mostly, though, 'Discovery' is simply fantastic pop...

Despite all this seemingly new wave-laden, impeccably cool, retrograde influence, 'Make Up The Break Down' is indisputably now.

Let's Get Ready', Mystikal's fourth LP and his first Billboard chart-topper, is one wholesale fighting muthaf**ker, a full theatre of opportunities to offer the world outside. Women? Mystikal will take you down for one. Or, preferably, two. Reputation? Come see about him. Neighbourhood? You don't wanna go there... Mystikal is the fightingest bastard and his grin's never wider than when he's putting the hurt on.

The Adams of ‘Love Is Hell’ has gone out to make an album that actually is classic rock ‘n’ roll rather than one that can simply impersonate it, and sound convincing. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]

'Take Them On, On Your Own' is a masterpiece. You should get hold of it as soon as possible.

So believe it: this is the real thing, no-one’s crying wolf, not even Alan McGee.

In an age where even Britpop corpse-botherers Brother trumpet their desire to collaborate with Odd Future, the Monkeys have made a record heavily indebted to late-'80s indie and a small group of white, male '70s singer-songwriters: Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Leonard Cohen.

The wonder of 'Stars...' is how magnificently alive all this suburban angst sounds.

A monster of a record. [4 Mar 2006, p.31]

'Let It Come Down' is another towering achievement - both musically and emotionally.... This is music as it's meant to be: raw, colossal and awe-inspiring. No wonder everything else just pales in comparison.

Each track on their fourth boasting a captivating blend of experimentalism and depth.

Complex and artful, there’s no need to understand fugues and canons to appreciate this--its utter perfection and joy is self-evident.

King Night is sick. Not just in the sense that it's outstandingly good but in the fact that it seems extremely unwell.

Taking Mangum’s recorded-on-cardboard lo-fi folk epics as their ground zero, TRAA turn in the best alt.debut of the year.

All told, it's incredible this is a debut album. Accomplished, yet subtle, it works perfectly as a whole in a way all the production skills in the world couldn't replicate.

Confident, bold, ambitious, bunged with singles and impossible to contain, ‘X&Y’ doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it does reinforce Coldplay as the band of their time.

Muse have widened the goalposts and re-established what rock is allowed to stand for. Next to ‘Absolution’, even something as majestic as ‘Elephant’ sounds so painfully small.

They have done a hell of a lot of growing up. An immense album.

'Myths Of The Near Future' is charged with the same spirit which fuelled legendary rave pranksters The KLF's period of pop subversion.

It’s a sleeping giant of a dancefloor creeper that will be everyone’s favourite new electro album in approximately six months’ time.

This is an album of genuine depth, one expressing the nervous conservative shockwaves which charge through party kids once they start to come down.

A seething, furious album; a declamatory statement against cynicism and passivity and the simple injustices of everyday life.

Whenever Mr Rager sets off on his next adventure we're ready, musical machetes in hand, to follow him into the undergrowth…

The album is beautifully structured, leading from spare and shimmery beginnings into harder, weirder and more varied territories, all those snippets and elements and personalities crafted into a shifting, subtle whole that quietly captures your attention from start to end.

It still defiantly goes against the grain, but also explodes with immediate, attention-grabbing riffs.

They’re a shaggy-haired, surf’s up pop band and painfully vulnerable all at the same time.