The freewheeling garage bangers of Original Pirate Material have receded into the distance and we’re left with stabbing high-range synths... resulting in an album that’s charming and witty, but not as exhilarating as it might have been.

He’s an acquired taste, perhaps, but a distinctive and extraordinarily talented songwriter.

This anthology of new and previously released 7” singles is inevitably somewhat dishevelled as an album, but then this extraordinary band has always worked best in bite-size.

Waterloo To Anywhere is more pro and muscular than former endeavours, chiming more with labelmates Razorlight’s ambitious professionalism.

It's brilliant: Broder's twisted tales are better than ever, this time underpinned by urgent guitar riffs, off-beats and perfect pacing.

My Dark Places captures the offbeat brilliance that made the TVPs indie legends in the 70s, characterised by Treacy’s endearingly slapdash attitude towards singing in tune and playing in time.

Throughout, monster riffs abound. Perhaps this monochrome-clad cartoon combo are as great as singer Howlin’ Pelle always said they were.

Experimental yet poppy, awkward yet unforced, Panic Prevention is a minor masterpiece from a truly bar-raising new talent.

As fun and full-on as it gets right now.

Their sophomore album is surprisingly world-weary, but brims with an almost brutal rawness and betrays the pair’s striking talent for storytelling.

It’s a one-trick pony album sure, but what a trick.

Klaxons serve up Day-Glo pagan ritual and pop silliness on toast, and kids get sick on it.

Overblown orchestrations, searing choruses, a demonic self-help tape pastiche and odes to Tom Cruise’s private life are tempered by sparse melodic interludes and tender songs of souls battling against grim routine.

At the heart of this album is a trio of absolute killers.

Roots And Echoes is an album of songs with all the warmth and familiarity of old leather--and as strangely unexciting as that sounds.

A fine album for autumn.

it's great to hear Banhart playing outside of type, and the swagger and muscle occasionally at work suit him surprisingly well.

The incessant hooklines cloy a little after repeated listens, but that’s hardly the most damning criticism of a pop band.

NYPC's restrained disco needs to rip it up and get wilder, cos this down‘n’dirty posse is actually cleaner than a Boots cosmetics counter.

It’s clear that chemistry was in the air.

This mini album sometimes feels as if it’s thrown together like quickly-packed luggage.

Occasionally veering into rakish skiffle in an annoying hat, it’s not quite the righteous sword-slash of vindication prayed for by fans; still, it’s a relief to see Doherty’s muse in surprisingly rude health.

If this was any more showbiz it’d be performed on ice.

There are few dynamic surprises here, and no serrated edges, but this disc's strength lies in its building mass of lumbering, decelerated funk, its textures gluey and thick.

Rather than play catch-up, the Chems are accentuating the difference, digging deeper into melody instead of piling on the noise.

Stately, midtempo tunes whose immaculate production belies the darkness at their core.

Preposterous, touching and brilliant.

For what both of Guillermo Scott Herren's alter-egos are concerned with is sound's texture rather than its structure, rendered here through the soft caressing of acoustic instruments instead of circuit board torture.

An addictive and immersive debut album.

The sort of euphoric, sweetly intentioned indie pop that, despite occasionally making Belle & Sebastian sound like Da Lench Mob, nevertheless manages to stay the right side of cloying.

All whoops and yelps, their third album jumps skittishly from primary-coloured electro to punk to poolside cabaret, with an impressive sense of its own silliness.

Overall, The Sun feels like three men taking things at their own leisurely pace but without wasting a second.

It's still heavy on the harmonies and hummable choruses, of course, and does meander into happy-clappy, round-the-campfire territory too often for those of us with a low saccharine threshold.

For Bonnie Prince Billy it's an atypically sexless affair with only his version of Richard Thompson’s Calvary Cross worthy of his previous covers record, More Revery.

It’s an evanescent experience, for whilst you’re awestruck by the sonics beneath the electronic sheen, you can’t remember anything much about them after they’ve evaporated at the end.

The sense of clutter, not to mention a recurring high-pitched motif, makes Preparations feel like being trapped in someone else’s nightmares too long.

Boasts little in the way of joie de vivre.

At their best, on Yankee Go Home and Five Easy Pieces, their sound becomes less indie rock than ecstatic chanting.

As lush and expansive as his former work was taut and aggro - only the quality remains.

Godin and Dunkel are peerless at conjuring a mood, and sonically this is typically impressive, but it needs more foreground, more focus.

While it’s a bit hit and miss, the sheer bullishness of this album is impressive.

The translations offer many witty surprises.

Caught between essentially meaningless singalongs and trying to actually mean something, what you get is average power-pop with crass attempts at poetry.

More incoherent than Dntel’s superb debut Life Is Full Of Possibilities.

This is the sound of a fighter punching below his weight.

What seemed fresh and charming on 2005's Noah's Ark sounds like an interminable racket this time round.

This may not measure up to The Hour Of Bewilderbeast, but it does boast a batch of sweet and deceptively unfussy, scruffily heartfelt tunes dealing with love, loss and the messiness of life that help redeem his unarguable songwriting talent.

Shot through with attention to detail and the lush production typical of Dunkel’s main concern, Darkel might have its moments of archness but it knows how to shake it’s booty, too.