You've heard all this before, but it still sounds glorious.

Make no mistake, 'Don't Be Afraid Of Love' is so much more ambitious and downright joyful than we had any right to expect that it's a flooring jolt to the system long after the first listen.

Restraint they were always good at, but now they're masters, and the melancholy that swelled up all over Young Team like a particularly ripe bruise is here for all the world to see in 'Rock Action''s damp eyes.

It's exactly the album we all demanded from them, but moreso.

Where 'Parklife' was exuberant and almost knowingly callow, 'The Good, The Bad & The Queen' is weary, confused, almost mourning for what once was.

'Hypnotise' is full on, paranoid, insane, intense, terrifying, and it's telling the truth too... dangerous stuff in other words.

What's so remarkable about Morrissey's writing on 'Ringleader...' is a seeming greater comfort with the more upbeat subject matter than with his usual morose metier, and what remains of that is executed with an exceedingly hammy fist.

The album sees the band moving on from the Libertines-aping chord structures of their debut and pushing in new directions.

This is an album on which EVERYTHING ace you can think of in indie happens.

The Raveonettes genius is that they pay homage with such style, passion and grace that it's virtually impossible not to be converted to their cause.

Stripped of the Pumpkins' pomp angst and invested with a new pop-rock sensibility by fellow cohorts David Pajo and Matt Sweeney, in Zwan Corgan has simply formed the perfect band.

This is heavy pop at its very best.

The whole thing makes for a masterclass in enigma and economy.

One trick pony's they may arguably be, but they've done the same trick twice and pulled it off.

LCD Soundsystem have set 2005's bar very high indeed and they sound like they’ve barely got started.

Of course Cohen can’t sing, but what matter that when the words are so rich?

Shimmeringly perfect.

'We Are The Pipettes' is perfection.

One of the most important rock bands ever meets one of the best, and guess what, they've only gone and knocked out a bonafide masterpiece. It's 1993 all over again, but it's also 1970 and 2002 and beyond, because an album this classic transcends any pigeonholing.

What need for artless posturing and sloganeering when you have music so powerful, so ugly, so revolting, so incredible?

Gone are the hippy, dippy platitudes of their do-good daisy age; replaced by the most bullish beats, the snakiest rhymes and the overwhelming sensation that you're listening to the undiluted thoughts of the three most intelligent men in hip-hop.

Lanegan's lyrics are poetic, well thought out and devastatingly honest, making this more a serious artistic account than some braggadocio bullshit. And then add to that the fact the music is just fantastic.

Everything feels bolder than before, more assured of the rightness of singing from places that most lyricists fear to tred. In textures and words alone, 'Open Season' is a country mile ahead of any of the supposedly heroic guitar debuts knocking around in 2005.

This album is jaunty, scruffy, carefree and accomplished.

But the use of the twin-pronged vocal attack as an instrument in its own right is never relied upon to be the sole weapon in Blood Brothers' arsenal. Intelligence is mirrored in the deployment of the music behind it.

FC Kahuna have aimed scandalously high with this record, and they've not been found wanting.

A tour de force of infectious acid techno and head-rush-inducing electroclash and, as likely as not, this year's essential dance purchase.

Fourteen listens deep, this is still getting better. All but a rap classic. You know, Kanye's good, but really, fuck that. Ghost for president.