Stereophonics deserve doughty, workmanlike praise: they're a safe pair of hands, and this record does exactly what it promises. There are worse crimes.

So where do you go when you've been a backing singer for the Pussycat Dolls? Not straight to the scrapheap but kooky la-la land, it transpires here.

The first LP for nigh on a decade from Tjinder Singh and co feels like rummaging through rock's dressing-up box on a wet afternoon.

Yet far from heralding a more obviously commercial taint, major label backing finds them ever more extreme. This album may not be quite as bleak as The Bairns, and the sound is more sophisticated, but they still sound like nobody else.

You know, deep down, that the These New Puritans set is the one that you'll be listening to in a decade, enjoying the fact that you can never quite decipher its codes, and probably being amazed at how many more commercially successful records it inspired.

Mostly, it works well. Intriguingly, Gabriel fares better with more recent material.

Black's more soft-centred approach has since lagged behind, though this idiosyncrantic debut should help him make up ground.

I wasn't sure whether to listen to the record or call Ghostbusters. But once I plumped for the former, I was somewhat shocked to discover a pop record, full of grooves, melodies and recognisable chorus type-affairs.

Something magical may well have rubbed off [while working with with Robert Wyatt], as One Life Stand not only sees them back on track, it's also their best work, paring down those past excesses and unifying them into an extraordinarily lovely whole.

I'm New Here might turn out to be a footnote rather than an American Recordings-style new chapter, but this is as striking a return as we're likely to hear all y.

Then, six songs into a characterless album, one on which ambience takes precedence over tunes, 3D and Daddy G unveil three stunning numbers that compare with anything in their back catalogue.

The result is a fifth Four Tet album which has the power to delight someone who has never listened to a Kraftwerk record all the way through, just as much as those who know their Walter from their Wendy Carlos.

Like its physical namesake, The Sea is capable of being dull and flat, but at its most winning it provides glimpses of a new horizon shining beyond the riptides of pain and sorrow.

Any fears that the zippy Afro-pop of these New York-based hipsters was a novelty--so very 2008--are quickly dispelled on this confident and completely entertaining second album.

The loose, spontaneous nature of the exercise means there's the odd dud, but there are far more hits than misses. The result? A dead concept is temporarily revived.

The music's Pharrell Williams-assisted dancefloor pop; the words entirely Shakira's. Preposterously brilliant.

For the most part, Reality... swings between the mawkish strings and piano overproduction which Williams has seemed overly attached to ever since 1998's Bond-inspired 'Millennium,' and flashes of genuine pop frivolity, for which he likely has producer Trevor Horn to thank.

A handful of upbeat numbers–-including an unexpected foray into frothy high-speed electro–-pull Leona back from the brink of boring, while 'I Got You' is an impressive distant relative of 'Bleeding Love.'

It's an effortless success, from the opener, Ruby, big on melody and plaintive harmonies, to the dream-like Bells of Harlem, moving river-slow to a brushed snare and ending this quite terrific record with a meandering coda of wistful strings.

Underproduced by Nick Cave producer Nick Launay, results are less the Smiths' heroic jangle than something from the muddier end of John Peel's Festive 50 circa 1987. Fans of "real indie" will be thrilled.

It's likely that their slabs of noise are too explosive. But for Team Biffy, their followers, this is a strength, not a failing.

It is also a sound that on this, their fifth album, seems as resistant to change as the forces of nature and while seemingly limited in palette, is as expansive as it is inventive.

Hudson Mohawke, whose debut album contrives to be both idiosyncratic and soulful. The spirits of OutKast and Prince loom large, and, along with most of the albums here, it crackles with imagination.

White Denim somehow manage to cover all points of the musical compass without ever losing their overall sense of direction.

Sometimes the rough edges have been over-smoothed: there are all kinds of strange, cheap synthesised noises buried under the layers of polish that I'd like to hear more clearly. But this is a minor gripe, for despite its dark heart, there's a real joy about this debut.

It's the best pop album about beating depression since 1983's Soul Mining by The The. Buy now, and avoid the winter rush for Prozac.

The gear changes on this particular autobahn are swift and sometimes a little clunky.

Embryonic is certainly not without charm, but its title gives the game away. Largely, it's the sound of a band seeking inspiration rather than finding it.

Rick Rubin produces; a mixed blessing.

There is a lightness of touch at play that gives the XX a sophistication beyond their years. It probably means that their dream pop will become the ubiquitous dinner party album du jour.

This is a beautiful album. Moving rather than maudlin, uplifting rather than depressing.

The live clips of the Very Best on YouTube suggest an almost chaotic stage presence, and this very easy-on-the-ear debut may inspire many imitators.

There's an intriguing synthetic wheeze lurking in the upper reaches of Jackson's vocal range. Those who feared this effect might pall over a whole album will find solace in the unexpected emotional intensity of her lower register.

All shuffling beats and pub wisdom, it's same again for Brown's latest.

His serious moments are as hard to comprehend as a Chuckle Brother tackling a eulogy: you know he must feel emotion because he is a human being, but you are constantly expecting the arrival, stage right, of a pantomime cow.

Although looser, Draw the Line doesn't reinvent the Gray wheel.

Although still flying the party flag, their hectic mash-up of house, disco and hedonism is no longer quite so thrilling, even with help from Santigold.

It's more jaunty nouveau Traveling Wilburys than folk rock summit as Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and M Ward join forces.

Refashioning 60s pop for today's pilled-up generation? Not such a bad idea, as it happens, even if it is a bit Spiritualized.

Still challenging preconceptions (with son Sean and Cornelius joining the band), and tender with it, too. Easily the best LP to be released by a 76-year-old this month.

Sixth album Truelove's Gutter is his best, thanks to easing back on the twanging guitar and ads for his native Sheffield in favour of more universally minded tunes, the finest of which, the 10-minute Remorse Code, edges into ambient territory.

Their debut is built from old Chapterhouse records.

It unquestionably adds up to a pop record sharp enough to be the bratty but irresistible younger brother of Lily Allen's "It's Not Me, It's You."

Not just a dignified salute to an absent friend, but a cracking album in its own right.

The wholeheartedness with which this album hurls itself into the abyss of cod-symphonic astral pretension is to be commended.

More Stravinsky than the Saturdays, this is still way more fun than the latter.

Think Scott Walker punching a side of beef, and know that here's another who's wandered off the path of teen pop success to find a world that's far more interesting (if far from easy listening).

Daffy girl pop with just the teensiest bit of attitude, enough retro influences and the odd acceptable ballad.

The heart of Two Dancers lies in these seemingly jarring juxtapositions. The individual ingredients may be a decidedly mixed bag, but the final product is both coherent and very satisfying.

Now comes the first album of new material for 35 years, and although never quite reaching the innocent glory of late 60s Mutantes, Haih or Amortecedor is still brimming with vitality and ideas.

Forget hi-life vibes: this psychedelic trip takes you from Jo'Burg to Brooklyn and way, way beyond.

It's most beguiling when the eastern influences are to the fore.

With this second album cementing the union between Mariam Wallentin's impassioned gut-bucket vocals and Andreas Werliin's busy percussion, they are on their way to becoming the White Stripes in reverse.

Something a bit crunchier that's been boiled up with producer Josh Homme in the Mojave Desert, but with the sweetener of Alex Turner's words.

Very modern, even if her pleasing sound never pushes real boundaries.

It's the sound of the summer! If summer for you means a fake tan and drinking WKD for a week in the Med with the likes of Kelly Rowland and Will.I.Am popping up as guests with your fave.

The Senegalese seer is joined by a polyglot cast: the future's calling.

Skins have been shed, batteries recharged and the traditionally difficult second album dashed out with apparent ease.

The Michigan singer-songwriter is now best known for providing the Raconteurs with tunes and his fourth solo album adds a splash of their heaviness to his trademark Beatles-indebted pop.

Fabulously moody third album from British production duo whose roster of gloomy vocalists now includes Richard Hawley and Jason Pierce alongside regular collaborator Mark Lanegan.

Richly textured electro-pop teems with flamboyance and sees Wolf come over like a cosmic Martin Fry.

The Fife songsmith breathes new life into traditional songs cribbed from versions by the likes of Anne Briggs and Nic Jones.

Amid the sighs and groans, she hits the pop G-spot with her savvy hooks and superlative rhyming.

They hail from sunny Sydney, but this solid second set cements the Bells firmly in rock's melancholia tradition, echoing the Bunnymen and Tindersticks.

It's a much cleaner, subtle, more uplifting sound, but one which, ultimately, is a little devoid of personality.

Mostly, Jon McLure's against Bad Stuff and in favour of Good Stuff, as well as being dead keen on 90s sounding dance-rock.

The kind of album that sounds like it should be No 1 in Germany, which, of course, it was recently.

This is beautifully fragile music, not disposable but built to last.

Despite the speed at which it came together, the album sounds as polished. But sometimes you wish he would reach beyond his grab-bag of influences and push out something with shocks-a-mighty.

This is intoxicating psych-indie for heady days in unbroken sunshine.

Maxwell's voice is so unusually rich and supple that at best, as on the mercurial 'Bad Habits,' you cannot help but disregard his fondness for cliche.

Played, boys, oh well played.

North London outfit from the same school (literally) as Cajun Dance Party, earning high marks for their winsome indie tunes.

So let's hear it for Living With a Tiger, which makes a point of scrambling everyone's tastes. Not since Jr Walker & the All Stars in the 60s have a sax-led band reached out and communicated as Wareham does on Gratitude, which is apparently informed by grime.

Chicago's veteran alt-rockers haven't sounded this much fun in ages, their seventh album balancing their easy-going and experimental sides.

Yes, he's still plugging away, swapping the frenetic disco of 2008's "Last Night" for a more cultured sound.

Continues where 2007's sprightly comeback album "Beyond" left off.

Tired of her peculiar singer-songwriter pop being a fringe taste, the Russian-born New Yorker's gone for the commercial jugular, polishing her strangeness with help from ELO's Jeff Lynne among others.

What the 22-year-old does with his whimsical art rock influences is less predictable; the arrangements take the songs in odd directions, piquing interest even when the genre experiments drag.

Finally, the sequel to Break Like The Wind...

By virtue of its sheer irreverence, Guns Don't Kill... seems to encapsulate everything you always loved about reggae, and perhaps thought had disappeared.

Their seventh album remembers to add tunes, and is thus less baffling than before.

Still sounding like an evening in your company will encompass discussions of Yves Klein and Lindsay Lohan? Check, check, check. But still cool.

A heavier take on their gothic moan-rock.

It offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities to those whose experience of the medium stretches no farther than the occasional random episode of "Run's House."

All of which leads you to conclude that in their struggle to position themselves, Kasabian are trying too hard to be all things to all men.

Somehow, though, it soars, the title track especially.

This odd and occasionally lovely concoction might just redeem Iggy from that insurance ignominy.

It's Elvis (or Mr Diana Krall as he's also known) in fine, lovelorn country form.

This exhaustive project is the most impressive retro-fest of recordings, photographs, video footage and digiti sed memorabilia ever assembled.

Several of the songs seem embryonic, lacking direction and resolution, while Nutini's voice--as stevedore-gruff as Blunt's is officer-class posh--can be a deal-breaker on certain songs

Veckatimest's only down side is a touch of preciousness, a need for refinement that, unchecked, might nudge Grizzly Bear towards the polite rather than imaginative. It's a small quibble. For now, this is almost perfect.

This is sexier than it should be by rights.

A trippy marvel.

A perfectly summery blend of Krautrock, prog rock and more danceable grooves.

Montreal 's Tiga Sontag has always nodded to the genre's 80s origins but keeps it fresh by drawing from rave past and present.

Euphoric, feelgood electro-pop of the indie rather than chart-topping persuasion, with the Massachusetts quartet's debut substituting lost-boy yearning for outright hedonism.