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.

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

What's revealed is what's often been outshone by the originals: the sheer quality of the songwriting and vocals.

Even if [Psychedelic Pill is not essential], it's by some way the best non-essential album Neil Young has ever made.

Composer Joe Acheson seems more interested in texture than development and you can long for a discordant voice, but as head-nodding experiences go, this is pretty good.

Sweetly soaring stuff.

Tough, soulful, rockin' songs.

They don't significantly compromise the essential charm and glitchy poetry of the songcraft.

Krall's smoky contralto lacks the pungency of Wilson's, but compensates with greater mobility.

It's a skilled blend of the organic and the electronic.

Ten out of 14 tracks are outstanding, especially considering Bugg's only 18.

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

It's a less distinctive incarnation, but as evidenced by the stutteringly propulsive "Ye Ye", hardly less hypnotic.

More important on first contact, anyway, is the feel of the music, which grooves. Really good.

The none-more-Nietzschean, grandiose-apocalyptic mood continues through the utterly splendid Olympic theme "Survival", with its über-ELO arrangement, and "Animals", with its sound effects of an angry, riotous mob.

Their music which, as it happens, is a thrilling mix of raw vocal harmonies, rattling homemade guitars and handclaps.

It shows a musical maturity way beyond its creator's years.

A cool, edgy soundtrack for the summer, should it ever arrive.

There's not a duff track or dull moment in this 75 minutes of studio material.

These are tipsy juke-joint stompers with feeling in their heart as well as dust in their grooves.

It's a blast.

Another sweet viper's bite of post-Freudian dyspepsia from the singersongwriter who loves to mistrust.

The world adored the xx's Mercury Prize-winning debut album xx. Coexist is, if anything, an even finer piece of work.

In every sense, Theatre Is Evil sounds like a million dollars.

King Lear probably sounded like this after a couple of days on the heath.

Love This Giant is a skewed and funky instant classic.

If Elysium has a weakness, it is the absolute absence of thumping disco-pop monsters. Once you accept that, and surrender to the tranquil beauty of Chris Lowe's synth textures, you quickly realise that Neil Tennant is on top lyrical form.

14 songs of keening, romantic acoustic music of great seriousness and lightness of being.