Whenever Hard Candy threatens to get boring, something always happens to recapture your interest, but the three songs in which Madonna actually seems to forge a genuine connection with her musical helpmeet leave the rest of the album in the shade.

No Doubt-esque ska-pop forms the record's core, but her belting vocal hooks really come into their own on the robotic indie numbers.

Cajun, unquestionably, are the real deal.

Their fourth album picks up where 2005's "Leaders of the Free World" left off.

Six years after his last album, England, Half English, Bragg has come up trumps: Mr Love & Justice, with his band the Blokes, is his best realised work musically for ages.

This album will make your life considerably better.

The production is glossed to within an inch of its life, the mood is cheerfully upbeat--or 'festive' as Carey might put it herself--and the entire confection rings out with bold, sassy, brutally executed intent.

Musically, the album is a triumph from first to last.

Such is the balm-like propensity of her singing that the listener experiences it as a physical sensation as much as a sound. Yet as these 13 brief but perfectly formed songs rush by in 35 hectic, blissful minutes, the overall effect is galvanising rather than palliative.

A perfectly executed debut as might be expected from a band championed in OMM53 for their mathematical precision.

While their coming-of-age tales entertain some, it's their 'us versus the world ' spirit that makes this such an enthralling debut.

The result is a flawless (post)modernisation of heartland rock that wears its lovelorn pessimism proudly on its ruffled sleeve.

It's mostly fast and unfussy, convincing and committed.

On this relaxed and cohesive set, Van's band fall into simple and graceful grooves and play like a proper group, not hired hands.

Consolers of the Lonely is heftier than its predecessor, both in its Led Zep-go-garage wig-outs and in its cosmic balladeering.

It's the record's wholesome tracks, such as 'Young Love', a duet with folk darling Laura Marling, that prove Mystery Jets thrive in the gap between naivety and cynicism.

Hypnotic repetition, mysterious soundscapes and recurring lyrical codes render this debut utterly engrossing and totally essential.

With this unexpectedly moving concept album about disgraced Back to the Future car designer John DeLorean, US producer Boom Bip and moonlighting Super Furry Gruff Rhys have come up with a new twist on hip hop's unholy trinity of cars, money and coke.

And yet, as is often the case with music crafted solely in the key of strife, the result is bizarrely life-enhancing, chiefly thanks to the head-spinning fashion in which Gnarls condense 40 years of rock'n'roll into one seamless psychedelic whole.

A welcome return for this premier Leicestershire combo, who specialise is substance over style.

Straight out of Edmonton, Alberta, fast-talking MC Rollie Pemberton's impeccable second album confirms that the history of Canadian electro did not end with Neil Young's Trans.

Goldfrapp and Gregory have made an album as hummably lovely as it is knowingly referencing of a certain tradition of neo-psychedelic English whimsy.

While Britain and the US are succumbing to a very retro take on the US's R&B heritage, the original queen of neo-soul has taken a giant leap forward.

The good news is that the ninth album from these inveterate melancholics is a burnished pleasure.

For Emma, though only nine tracks long, is as beautiful, bleak and intimate as anything 2008 is likely to throw up.

Join With Us's classic radio pop unveils a band so accomplished, so guilelessly in love with the joy of a good melody, that they now sound like no one but themselves.

BSP have every right to feel content. After all, the almost men of sylvan, jagged rock, the pride of Britain's bookish, bird-watching bohemia, have made an album that's deserving of their swagger. Do you like rock music? If not, here's the perfect place to start.

Perhaps Made in the Dark's greatest achievement is to keep back a bit of mystery for itself above and beyond the enveloping sense of destiny fulfilled.