Like The Polyphonic Spree stripped of all their faux compound dwelling arse wittery, this is an unambiguous shot of serotonin straight to your head and heart.

At the end of the day this is a bit more of a grower than the last one, but is easily as good.

Where Ladytron's first two albums might have felt to some to be alienating and monochrome, like a shallow bender on champers and very nice drugs, but a shallow bender nonetheless; 'The Witching Hour' is blessed with a far greater palette of sound and sensation, and is as fine a spell as you'll succumb to all year.

'Fall Heads Roll' as a whole might not quite scale the heights of 'The Real New Fall LP', but there's no doubt that elements of it are up there with it.

The most poetic, bookish and winsome of the anticon crew, his new album as Why? sees [Wolf] creating lavish wordscapes over the deceptively straightforward folk rock music.

Patchy, though when it's good (and nicked) it's very good.

The Birmingham band's finest hour yet.

More than anything else, 'Cripple Crow' is an album that it sounds like it was born amidst a fun, exuberant creative process.

One of the most witty, ambitious and intelligent British guitar albums thus far in 2005.

They seem to have recaptured a lot of the elegance and urgency that characterised the increasingly seminal 'Rings Around The World'... and the songwriting, even if it is roaming mostly uncharted territory, is back towards prime potency.

'Gold And Green' is such a joyous rattlebag of a record, so untrammelled by convention and received wisdom that it tends to make Keiran Hebden's last effort sound a bit like mid 90s stoner trip hop.

Z's leaden voice is what really makes The Like stand out.

If there's a snag it's not that the album exactly dips - it's just there's a lack of variation of pace, meaning it can be difficult to consume in its entirety at just one sitting. But, with a little patience, it comes alive.

An assortment of evocative instrumental journeys that warm the cockles.

With clever lyrics, batshit crazy instrumentation, and several songs you'll soon be whistling on your way to juvey, Sons and Daughters should have you leering scarily from the school bus for a good long time.

It's highly unlikely that Buck 65 is ever going to become the cash cow that his paymasters probably thought he was going to be, but let's hope that he is invited to keep on presenting us with his skewed worldview; a beautiful painting seen in a shattered and blood stained mirror.

If there's a quibble, 'Honeycomb' does lack variation of pace. Though it doesn't matter when the tunes are as consistently as good as 'Sing for Joy'.

If you are the sort of person who thinks of cannabis in terms of how much you smoke a day rather than how much you smoke in a month or a year, then you are going to like this album very much indeed.

Sophomore set of the century, near enough.

[A] confusing but entertainingly eccentric package.

'Multiply' sees the flavours of Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Prince and Sly Stone twisted into 2005 with subtly inventive touches and modern production suss.

So once you get behind the relatively unobstructive and emotive voice, what you have is the sound of NYC circa '77 pushed through the ramshackle indie filter.

A great release from a great new talent, Kano has the words and the beats to deliver.

It's a warm and welcoming experience all round, and very much the mark of a band that know exactly what they're doing even if they sound remarkably out of step with everyone else.

This album is sublime.

As with other really good bands in this genre (such as Franz Ferdinand and Interpol) it transcends being just a mere mash of influences.

Here is an album with all-new complexity, unforseen depth and many delightful hidden layers.

This is a subtle record that rewards what you're willing to put in.