Boy manage to tease something close to pop perfection.

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

Classy pianos, minor chords and brushed drums back her ever-elegant, half-spoken syllables.

A couple of tunes, including the title track (one of two West Side Story selections, along with "Tonight"), can even sound a little pedestrian, the swing faltering. But, given time, most of it works.

The warm human purr of her ethereal vocals is juxtaposed towith fluid electronic elements and the occasional welcome interjection of bluesy guitar and jagged off-beat percussion.

It's as close to a perfect Americana album as there's been this year--fans of the California sound from CS&N to the Jayhawks will find much to love.

Big only because Arcade Fire think big, Reflektor stretches stadium rock’s reach in the acts of self-reinvention and revitalisation. Now that’s entertainment.

Taken on its own merits, however, there's plenty to enjoy, as Bush sings new vocals over remixed and re-edited backing tracks in a deeper, more weathered voice.

Fluent melodies, nature metaphors, and expressive settings are the robust ties that bind these reveries.

This album shimmers.

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

Daves is a guitarist, Thile a genius of the mandolin. Both sing. Together they hammer and tongs the songs like smiths.

Simultaneously grounded and spiralling off into the stratosphere, this is urgent, epic stuff that doesn't let up for a moment.

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

Between the pub and the high seas, Elbow reset their mission statement here: to navigate the heart’s tides with their art intact.

It's that rare commodity: an album to immerse yourself in and spend time with, both things no one does any more.

The King Of Limbs, named after a famous oak in the Savernake forest near the studio where In Rainbows was made, is good but not great.

Ageing is a war they can’t win, but by facing it head-on, the Manics have found the spur to move forwards.

It's testament to his songcraft that it feels all of a piece.

One Breath draws on choppy emotions--grief, depression, anxiety--but Calvi commands the tides with the imperious authority of Barbara Stanwyck leading her posse in Sam Fuller's wild western Forty Guns.

Truth is, the release of Tin Star should set Ortega’s adopted home town alight.

It may not be for everyone, but it's evidence that there are still some restless minds out there.

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

There's no progression or narrative, it's immersive rather than engrossing. Slow Focus is an album to steep yourself in.

The Instagram of albums, which is to say a source of instant nostalgia, its 70s- and 80s-inspired cocktail of disco, house, lounge, samba et al, could be merely kitsch but is elevated both by the meticulousness of its production and the sinuous seductiveness of its melodies.

It's a rather beautiful thing.

It finds the singer in meditative mood--this is, by some distance, the least playful Björk album--and, amid soundscapes made from tinkling harps and bells and deep electronic burps and farts, she's an uncharacteristically discreet presence, a humble narrator of the wider story she's trying to tell.

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