Simply put, 'Worlds Apart' is a delicately violent piece of art.

'Victory for the Comic Muse' is the Divine Comedy's finest album since their post-Britpop Chris Evans-approved heyday.

The music on the album sounds muscular, more confident than before.

The Fall are the best new band in Britain.

'Milkwhite Sheets' will come to you offering kisses, but beware the knife behind its back

A third of this record sounds like the Cocteau Twins covering Enya, and another third sounds like a trip-hop Blind Melon... But the other third is pure Muggs.

Malin once more acts as skilled arbitrator between classic rock and punk, just this time around he's a little more sympathetic towards the boisterous aims of the latter.

An album which feels like a hand-me-down from a ghost.

The sad thing is, even at her most mainstream, Bjork's always been truly artful, but, in this case, she's merely painted a vulgar picture.

There's an abundance of softly slashing guitar, an air of sophistication writ indelibly large by its orchestration (with the string-laden weepie 'Epitaph' as probably the outstanding example), and, wrapped in Arnar's strong tones, there's more moodyness than you can shake a particularly angsty stick at.

This is an album that seethes with anger, ambition and malicious intent, and it's all the better for it.

Even if this was an instrumental album it'd be thoroughly charming.

'Public Warning' is a good record. It's just unfortunate that (no doubt at the behest of the major label moneymen) Sov's Stateside commitments have led to it emerging here rather bloated, feebly, and late.

A lesson in understatement, 'Into The Blue Again' reminds us that LaValle is the undisputed master of emitting emotion without embellishing it with perverse orchestration or all manner of multi-tracked trickery.

A joyously audacious opening salvo.

It's crude, certainly, but Ludacris has enough wit and chutzpah to elevate this above the dross.

This air of superiority is pervasive on 'Our Earthly Pleasures', which is a pity when you consider contemporaries such as Franz Ferdinand can do clever without it getting in the way of the fact all they're really doing is making good pop records.

The good news is that for a bunch of brats they're well in control of the complex, riddling, labyrinthine structures that go toward making the perfect pop punk songs.

'The Datsuns' is an album that could have been made in 1967, 1977 or 1987, but which, fortunately for them, was made in 2002.

Not even the added muscle of playaz like Kid Koala, Afrika Bambaataa, Plug 3, Prince Paul and Mike Patton manage to lift this album above the low level pastiche it seems happy to be.

What's apparent from playing this album is that almost everything they've got is a killer single.

Like Spiritualized re-scored and re-scripted by Timothy Leary, something inescapably dark, dread ridden and mesmeric lurks within these tracks.

Much of the LP's success can be put down to the completeness of the world that I'm From Barcelona create and promptly invite you into.

While a few get close, not one remix here stands up to the original on 'Guero'.

There are tunes galore, and ideas that some groups would do someone in for, it’s just a shame he decided to do an approximation of all his favourite bands, and didn’t try something a bit more progressive than 'Rock‘n’Roll'.

Minor aesthetic gripes aside though, ‘Winchester Cathedral’ is how you and I want Clinic to be.

It's terribly important that you don't give up on this record too easily. Given just a little bit of your precious time, the album will grow into something you never expected.

After listening to the whole of this album we'd have to admit that Pole remains as much of a mystery as ever. Only now we're not sure we're still interested in finding out much more...