It's still apparent that Mogwai have, once again, produced a record of astonishing subtlety.

Revel in the gloom.

It's hard to fathom how Bardo Pond have made their life-in-a-lava-lamp jams for the best part of 20 years with--we're assuming--their marbles still intact, but here they are, bubbling away with no sign of letting the quality dip.

For those who are not familiar with Monotonix, they're the garage rock band from Israel who are best known for their live sets [...] that leaves this forlorn album reviewer with no visuals nor an earhole full of sweat, instead just 10 songs of crude, cave-art proto-metal and a duty to tell you that actually, Monotonix have a relevance outside of the live context.

Nothing Earth-shattering, but enough solid riffs and spiffy one-liners that won't seem too out-of-place during a headlining set.

They've not lost their ability to craft subtly alluring, idiosyncratic songs in that time.

The downside is that their understandable fear of becoming just another indie band leads them into too many changes of direction. Just having great tunes has never been enough.

The way they put together their country-rock is rarely less than tasteful with some nice moments, like the sinuous guitar riff of 'Calamity Song'. Only on 'January Hymn', though, where they capture the stillness and melancholy of winter beautifully, do you forget to check the joinery.

Their songs, while essentially playful and lovable--more so than ever on Vs Evil, the San Francisco band's 10th album, which features near-lounge music moments--have a hard centre and are often tricky to parse, thanks in no small part to Satomi Matsuzaki's lyrics.

This record manages the remarkable feat of balancing true integrity with universal appeal.

Earworms are decidedly less abundant than normal, though, sad to say.

Lonesome guitars wend their way through the shimmer of rising heat, synth swells collapse into dust and a plaintive violin calls to a long-lost lover, all of which twines itself together to form a rich experimental drone that's as vast, lonely and unending as the desert images they conjure.

While it may have been captured through a somewhat disjointed creative process, though, there's no sense of No Name No Color lacking cohesion.

Still shrouded in mystery yet sounding clearer in their intentions than ever before, the familiar mix of strained vocals, propulsive yet unobtrusive instrumentation and haunted piano refrains serve as a perfect example of why we missed them so damn much in the first place.

What this means is that if you find this band annoying, you'll probably hate them 10 times more after hearing Wonders Of The Younger. For the rest of us, there's no denying that 'Rhythm Of Love' and 'Killer' are guilty pleasures in the making--consider us thoroughly killed with kindness.

With Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, AC/DC) producing, Stephen Christian's vocals cry out louder than ever across closer 'Depraved' and it proves that five albums in Anberlin have moved beyond the light of 'New Surrender' to dabble with a more interesting, darker edge that borders on Circa Survive.

MCR have made an album that is as fun as it is meaningful, as experimental as it is familiar. Let's see the Daily Mail hijack this one...

It would be churlish to deny that some of the selections on Born Free feature tunes on which the listener can truly chew, but it would also be wrong to ignore the fact that without this music Kid Rock's lyrics are, at best, the work of a sentimentalist and at worst, the mewlings of a moron. [13 Nov 2010, p.52]

Most strikingly, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa displays a masterful control over the multi-faceted Cradle Of Filth sound; brutal vocal gymnastics, skull-rattling double-kicks, symphonic flourishes, dramatic narrative and balls-out axe-slinging all make their presence known, but in a manner which routinely serves to bolster the coherency of the greater whole.

Amoral proves that Violens will stand proud knowing they can give a name to their organized mess, even if they don't know what it is yet.

Commercially-driven producers or not, though, the band have a knack for keeping their sound current and contemporary –- while still being reminiscent of their early material.

Spiral Shadow might just be the album of the year so far. All hail the kings (and queen) of nouveau-prog.

Songs For Singles is unmistakably a Torche record; primal, punishing, yet irresistibly sweet. It may make a mockery of the traditional album format, but then again, would you expect anything less?

Recitation finds the band at their genre-bridging best, sounding, if anything, even more euphoric and life-affirming than before.

The Massachusetts five-piece don't hit as many compositional peaks as predecessor Overcome, although tracks like Hold On and The Last Time bridge the gap considerably.

For all its bluster, There Is A Hell is far more than the story of a man battling his self-perpetuated inner turmoil; it is the sound of a remarkable band establishing themselves as one of the finest of their generation.

The likes of 'The Resist Stance' and 'Someone To Believe' burn with righteous anger and the energy of a band half their age. Only the closer, the toothless 'I Won't Say Anything', isn't up to scratch. A fine addition to their cannon.

'Coffee And Cigarettes' and the title track slowly uncurl themselves over the course of a few days and before you know it, it feels like Jimmy Eat World never went away.