On the evidence of Favourite Worst Nightmare, the Arctic Monkeys are playing at the very top of their and everyone else's game.

This is sexier than it should be by rights.

At the end of an extraordinary year in America, hip hop is witnessing the start of its lost icon's second term.

While the dewy-eyed mood of his last album, "Woke on a Whaleheart," suggested Callahan's romantic entanglement with Joanna Newsom had turned his brain to mush, this miraculous return to form finds the artist formerly known as Smog losing his girl, but rediscovering his mojo.

BSP have every right to feel content. After all, the almost men of sylvan, jagged rock, the pride of Britain's bookish, bird-watching bohemia, have made an album that's deserving of their swagger. Do you like rock music? If not, here's the perfect place to start.

At less than 40 minutes long, Vampire Weekend sounds paradoxically both brimming with confidence and something put down as a marker for the future.

Their fourth album picks up where 2005's "Leaders of the Free World" left off.

Detractors will complain that there's nothing to rival the brutal impact of his earlier recordings, but only towards the end does the new-found positivism grate.

The problem is that these songs are mostly too corny to have much drama restored to them. This is not folk music as mystery or romance or danger but as communal singalong.

This set has 21 unreleased folk and pop tracks, their conventional framework unable to contain the childlike dreaminess that marks their creator's best work, whatever the genre.

Lowe pulls it all together with warmth, wit and searing emotional honesty.

Their third album offers an advance on the ecstatic dance punk of 2003 debut "Fever to Tell" and beefy rock of 2006's "Gold Lion," boldly pushing synths centre stage while sacrificing none of their vitality.

The result is a fifth Four Tet album which has the power to delight someone who has never listened to a Kraftwerk record all the way through, just as much as those who know their Walter from their Wendy Carlos.

Beautifully sequenced, Jarvis makes the case for albums as opposed to downloads.

Stunning in places ('I'm Wild About You'), pedestrian in others, the song remains the same, which is achievement enough at Al's age.

A brilliant collection of spanking, multi-layered tunes.

Any fears that the zippy Afro-pop of these New York-based hipsters was a novelty--so very 2008--are quickly dispelled on this confident and completely entertaining second album.

At its core, Cross is loud, restless, and daring. A creative tour de force, Justice have unleashed an era-defining album for the children of acid house.

Here the folk legend rings in the new with songs from the old, sensitively produced by Joe Henry.

Yet far from heralding a more obviously commercial taint, major label backing finds them ever more extreme. This album may not be quite as bleak as The Bairns, and the sound is more sophisticated, but they still sound like nobody else.

It offers a thrillingly accessible demonstration of hip-hop's limitless creative possibilities to those whose experience of the medium stretches no farther than the occasional random episode of "Run's House."

Someone to Drive You Home is undeniably derivative, and over 12 songs the appeal of Jackson's fruity voice can dim. Still, with its cynical heart and high-octane bite, it's impossible not to warm to its visceral, lusty company.

It's an effortless success, from the opener, Ruby, big on melody and plaintive harmonies, to the dream-like Bells of Harlem, moving river-slow to a brushed snare and ending this quite terrific record with a meandering coda of wistful strings.

It's an inventive reimagining of hip hop with huge basslines underpinning the otherwise cinematic atmosphere.

Fantasy Black Channel is a tour de force comprising glam, techno, and rave, all of which he twists into unimaginable shapes.

Damaged is a transcendent record - poetic, mysterious, witty, wise and at times so musically grand that it changes the colour of a room and the weight of the air.

Med sud I eyrum ... is a beautiful collection that blows Sigur Rós beyond the place they come from, geographically and musically.

It works - even though this area of pop culture has been mined remorselessly for the past 50 years - by dint of its clever melody lines and smart lyrics.