Despite the handful of duff tracks and a couple of absolute howlers, 'Here Come The Tears' is a fine album - certainly not the best they've made together, nor even apart, but accomplished, ambitious and often highly impressive.

His best music has a kind of timbral vulnerability about it that makes you want to reach out and kiss his computer better.

A honky tonk Leonard Cohen, the music of Smog sounds like it's spent all its life half cut in a saloon bar way out in the American mid-west thinking far too deeply about love and life for far too long.

Yes, 'Don't Believe The Truth' is an improvement on the trilogy of folly that is 'Be Here Now', 'Heathen Chemistry' and 'Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants'. But so what? Can't polish a turd, you know.

The question is: do you actually need another disc like this, given that it doesn't quite have that sense of otherness that Boards of Canada have in spades, or that sound-as-texture that Aphex Twin utilised so sumptiously on 'Richard D James', or Amon Tobin's truly forward looking drum programming.

Quite simply, there are thirteen absolutely cracking tunes here.

About as disappointing a follow-up as you could ever imagine.

Malkmus seems to be firing on all cylinders for the first time as a solo artist.

Like 'Deserter Songs' and 'All Is Dream' before, 'The Secret Migration' is a compelling, visual album. And yet within this, Mercury Rev have moved on.

'Mesmerize' is a frantic, frenetic brutal assault on the senses. It mashes up the most intense hardcore, the fiercest fire-starting punk rock with ridiculously complex riffing that’s like amphetamine prog.

A slice of experimental pop, simultaneously bright and bleak.

While there's some fresh experimenting and choral loveliness, it sounds formulaic and tired by Electrelane's standards.

You can feel how dreadful this record is from the very first bar.

'See You Next Tuesday' is so good it should be the soundtrack to a smash hit Broadway musical.

This is anticon at their most approachable and reflective and should be filed on your shelf somewhere near Dosh, Boards of Canada and Arcade Fire.

A frustratingly self indulgent and inconsistent double album that pitches itself somewhere between the classic country rock of 2001's 'Gold' and the lovelorn despair of 2004's 'Love Is Hell'.

It displays the kind of emotion and movement that Four Tet, Boom Bip and Stereolab would all appreciate.

A lean, aggressive and thoroughly relevant album.... If you really need to spend any money on an album where a multi-millionaire relentlessly tells you how remorselessly shit life is; make it this one.

The Raveonettes genius is that they pay homage with such style, passion and grace that it's virtually impossible not to be converted to their cause.

What's beyond doubt is the magical blend of the surreal and the fantastical that made 'The Unseen' so memorable is once again in the fullest effect on this showcase of fearlessly skewed production, dense organic vibes and hemp & helium-fuelled raps that make up this smoked-out saunter through the back streets of the cosmo-according-to-Lord Quas.

This is a standout record even by his high standards.

This is pristine, state of the art, pop: the usual perfect combination of great melodies and swooping atmospherics that you can dance to.

Dicing with folly at every stage and coming out victorious, 'Blinking Lights...' is sprawling, galling and downright enthralling.

Not only is Folds singing better than ever, and not only is his song-writing oozing confidence - but the musician in him is also at the peak of his powers; the piano playing is just mesmerising.

Alas, it's not as consistently satisfying as 'Born To Run' or 'Born In The USA', and Springsteen's voice, always gravely at the best of times, has taken on an increasingly wizened air that sometimes renders it frustratingly impenetrable.

A stealthy, smoking beast of a thing: hip hop with a British passport and dubplate roots, embroidered with wiggly, scratching sound effects and made-to-measure production.

However, despite all the smarty-pants ideas, let's be clear on one thing. You FEEL this on a GUT level, because 'Untilted' packs a punch that rips through your speakers.