A skittering collage of vocal drum'n'bass, garage, and funky house that parties, in the best way, like it's July 1999.

Too late for those album of the year polls?

In a crowd of loudish country and R&B guitars he tells brief stories of everyday lives with a correspondingly everyday voice, but with a kind of unslung abandonment that goes rather well with the guitars. It's very good.

While there is nothing here which startles, the spirit of the music is vivid.

"What's Wrong with America" is the masterpiece, doo-wop and social protest mixed with God-bothering. Someone book them for a festival, quick.

We get grooves as smooth and tight as Lycra, funky stabs of brass and arch lyrics delivered with cool detachment.

It's derivative and is a near hybrid of Mew, the Postal Service, M83 and Empire of the Sun, but it's perfectly likeable without ever inspiring outright love.

Two non-trad covers (Anais Mitchell and Fleetwood Mac) remind you that he's earnt the right to do what the hell he wants.

An album which should win prizes (but won't), and hearts (and will).

This is an artist with taste and opinions of her own, not just a schedule and a fanbase to satisfy.

For all Bird's reverence for American rural music of the past, Hands is startlingly contemporary.

It is a glossy thing that entwines her Californian folky yin around his Southern gothic yang.

Sounds like Kraftwerk's Autobahn driven by a tractor. Forget Krautrock, and say hello to Yokelrock.

“Inside the Idle Hour Club” is the comedown: woozy, wavy, lush, long. Not exactly cohesive then, but hey--it’s a trip.

They've enlisted non-dance musos such as Robert Fripp, Barry Adamson, Nick Zinner and Josh Homme, as well as relative young 'uns Cat's Eyes and Factory Floor, with often delicious results

A real gem.

If this isn't Foals' pop classic or their art masterpiece, they're having a huge amount of fun squaring that circle.

[An] exceptionally artful debut.

The danger is that they might spread themselves too thin, but on this evidence they've kept their best ideas close to their chests.

In spite of the self-conscious effort to create something "beautiful", the songs slowly reveal themselves to be things of real beauty.

There are 36 performances, most of them evincing a spumey "aaaargh, Jim-lad" recreational vibe.

Though it's far from his worst album, it's his least commercial – with its harsh beats, mangled vocals, and Marilyn Manson samples, it mimics the aesthetics of a DIY mixtape.

Redemption by plucked string. Buddy Miller produces analogically.

His most enjoyable LP since Our Favourite Shop.

The odds-and-ends nature of this compilation is spelt out by its title, but the quality barely suffers for that.

And whaddayaknow, this ugly duckling – out of a hoodie and into a tux – turns out to have a fine white soul voice and has followed a record you couldn't bear to hear more than once with a record you'll want to play over and over.

Halstead's songs and Euros Childs-like voice breathe the sort of honesty and goodness that's harder and harder to find in the iTunes age.

There’s less barn-floor stomp than on previous albums, but Country Mile is still rousing, with trumpet, fiddle and much--occasionally dicey--harmonising.