You can almost see the soul evaporating off this into nothing. But the good stuff struts through the sludge of the bad, and it's worth it.

'Skull Ring' is Iggy's strongest and most consistent album since 1993's 'American Caesar'.

While 'You Are The Quarry' is a very good album it's not the earth shattering masterpiece many had hoped for, nay, expected.

Of course, if you've never particularly liked rickety, no frills, folk albums complete with twanging country guitar solos, banjos, the odd duff note and gloriously lo-fi percussion, then 'Where The Humans Eat' really isn't the record for you.

It's a more oblique successor to 1999's self-explanatory 'Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet', and, paradoxically, their most focused effort yet.

Challenging, arresting and moving in equal measures.

It might be easy to criticise 'Those The Brokes' as a stab at busting through into the MOR mainstream, but it's fairer to see it as The Magic Numbers developing their expression while staying faithful to their core sound, and quiet charm.

It's not just the vocals that captivate. The sheer busyness of the whole production and all the sounds are to be marvelled at, and though it would be easy to over-egg, they never allow any of the tracks to be cluttered or overblown.

However, despite all the smarty-pants ideas, let's be clear on one thing. You FEEL this on a GUT level, because 'Untilted' packs a punch that rips through your speakers.

A great release from a great new talent, Kano has the words and the beats to deliver.

This is a record for the late night after a later one; the cauterised throat, the yellow of the reading lamp, and the restless shifts in twisted sheets.

There's little here that you won't have heard countless times before but as a pretension-free house album, 'Muzikizum' is an accomplished, pumping affair.

They’re perhaps a tad unoriginal - a hint of Felix here, a spot of 'Positive Education' there, a sniff of classic Sabres Of Paradise and some 'Stakker Humanoid' round the corner ­ but hey, what’s wrong with nostalgia? Especially when it gets your hands in the air like you just don’t care.

'Everything Is' is as frenzied as music gets, full of the energy that only comes with youthfulness, but also tinged with a world weariness that comes with being part of a hugely disaffected and cynical generation.

While this album is hardly a sellout or a mellowing down, its shifting in direction, its differing textures make it far better than 'Iowa'.

I defy anyone not to seep happiness through the pores of their skin once in possession of this record.

Sonically, there's no radical steps forward here, but then standing still for Kristin Hersh is pretty much the equivalent of most people's sprinting: we could do with a few more of her.

This is a smart LP. From the opening chunder of 'One Note', a mean bass riff and some grade A wittering, their throb is pure and their thrum sweet.

'Multiply' sees the flavours of Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Prince and Sly Stone twisted into 2005 with subtly inventive touches and modern production suss.

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

It sounds oh-so-fashionable, but it isn't simply an instance of über-credible semi-celeb DJ/producer wanking all over his decks and a handful of records no one ever heard of; every single track is not only quality, but accessible.

When 'Arular' works - a good three-quarters of the time - it's unmissable.

It's a move on from 'Here Be Monsters', musically if not lyrically, and, for all his world-weary posturing, he's still only 25 for God's sake, though obviously in love with the idea of being a great singer songwriter.

'...Broken Seas', though understated and pretty, tingles with furtive sexual chemistry.

'Young Machetes' is both a magnificent and important album.

This is a Warp-inspired wonderland of intricate glitches, murmuring glacial low-end smoothness, and subtle, filmic orchestration.

This is probably the most adventurous musical journey of Garnier's life.

So yeah, he's moved on a little but no, he hasn't gone soft on our perilously-leaping arses, and his personal holy trinity still seems to be the deeply unfashionable but unironically ace Van Halen, Meat Loaf and Billy Idol.

This is a long soft sigh of an album, suggesting not a sudden relief of pressure but just a pleasant exclamation of contentment.

Quite simply, there are thirteen absolutely cracking tunes here.

A shining example of just how broad and brilliant electronic music can still be in the right hands.

'The Runaway Found' may have sounded great in 1996, but it also sounds great now, and by our reckoning it always will.

Challenging, ingenious, electronic surrealism for the brain and ears.

It's in the vein of 'Debut' in terms of songwriting but there are a lot more samples of foghorns on this record.

One of those classy records that will sound good forever, no matter what you do with it.

An assortment of evocative instrumental journeys that warm the cockles.

An absolute triumph from one of the most consistently forward looking hip hop bands in the world today.

A confident, rampant holler that bristles with the energies of prime new wave, the proselytising vigour of the most barnstorming white soul, and the wry, cerebral kickback of most of the artier artists of the last thirty years.

This album is sublime.

After the patchy pleasures of 'Wanderland', 'Tasty' is a huge Roman orgy of an album.

As with other really good bands in this genre (such as Franz Ferdinand and Interpol) it transcends being just a mere mash of influences.

The energy that spills forth from these grooves hails both the positive power of loud guitars and gorges itself on the general insanity of life, but nails it all home with a knowing melodic sense of the anthemic and a musical complexity which elevates the entire album beyond mere thrash and burn histrionics.

Like post-Kelli Sneaker Pimps or a goth Massive Attack, it adds slow trip-hop beats and whispery vocals to a dreamy soundscape.

His best music has a kind of timbral vulnerability about it that makes you want to reach out and kiss his computer better.

This is Justin Timberlake squealing like Michael Jackson's pet monkey, a recipe for joy if ever there was one.

This isn't really a party record, more of a reflective, late night curled up on the couch with a loved one record.

His most poignant and accessible album yet.

It feels like one of the most uncompromising and oddly impactful offerings they've produced in many years.

Tender melodies, modern scrapes and traditional beauty merge into a gently unfolded whole that touches the soul with its silky aesthetics.

His most ambitious and diverse album yet.

It’s this rediscovery of how to make pop music with loud guitars and peculiar sounds which makes Kaito so fresh.

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.

On 'Fox Confessor Brings The Flood' Neko's voice and sheer poetry of her song-writing make hyped also-rans like Jenny Lewis look like hot-pant wearing desperados, proving to her rivals and beyond that style and substance aren't mutually exclusive.

Underpinning this wry melancholy are the winsome languor of Stephin Merritt's voice and the generous stash of tunes.

Essentially, 'Employment' is a very British record; an entirely Britpop creation spawned ten years after the event.

'Gold And Green' is such a joyous rattlebag of a record, so untrammelled by convention and received wisdom that it tends to make Keiran Hebden's last effort sound a bit like mid 90s stoner trip hop.

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

She has rediscovered The Beat, giving us such funk-strewn gems as 'Trust A Try' and 'You Ain't Right'.

[A] confusing but entertainingly eccentric package.

The cool thing about Solex's sampledelia is that she can do it with humour and still avoid the high-frequency buzzing, 60s hi-fi demonstration records and bongwater bubble traps.

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.

There are moments of prog rock, jazz fusion and freakydelia in this rush of ideas and if that sounds awful then don't be put off. Instead of the shambolic mess that this kinda influence normally entails Mars Volta have come strictly disciplined.

'Destroy Rock & Roll' is exponentially more than the sum of its parts.

Gruff Rhys is one of our most imaginative and original musicians.

The record is littered with highlights.

For anyone with even half a hankering for electronic heaven, this is non-stop introspective wonderland.

Basically, it's the album they'd always promised us they'd make; consider 'The Decline...' British Sea Power's entrance pass to the ranks of the truly mighty.

'Playing the Angel' is hardly the most essential Depeche Mode album ever, but it is Depeche Mode doing what they do best.

An exceptional debut.

The confident arrangements throughout 'No Shouts, No Calls' are the finest Electrelane have yet committed to tape.

With clever lyrics, batshit crazy instrumentation, and several songs you'll soon be whistling on your way to juvey, Sons and Daughters should have you leering scarily from the school bus for a good long time.

Here Dylan has written a great part and acts it out beautifully. And, as usual, everything is out in the open but nothing, absolutely nothing, is revealed.

A travelogue of even richer and stranger territory than its storming predecessor ‘Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts’, although, inevitably, there’s more than a sprinkling of dead cities and lost ghosts throughout, to say nothing of the occasional red sea too.

This is anticon at their most approachable and reflective and should be filed on your shelf somewhere near Dosh, Boards of Canada and Arcade Fire.

The Raven... does fly on the side of the bizarre, but it holds some rich pickings.

With 'The Last Romance', a whole lot of people are at last going to fall in love with Arab Strap for the very first time.

It's all good folks but let's be clear. IT'S NOT GENIUS.

'5:55' is a welcome addition to the Gainsbourg family's musical legacy, and we can't give any higher compliment than that.

The Champs' music is so exhilaratingly, grin-inducingly, fist-shakingly wonderful you cannot help but want more. VI delivers in spades.

A staggering, synth-smeared beauty of a record.

It’s good fun, it’s a scream, and it stands up well to the likes of '...Do Dallas'.

A worthy endeavour from one of the most important bands alive.

The jewel in Scott's creative crown is that he has an uncanny knack of keeping it flowing, even when his beats and tones are jerking our sensibilities to shreds with their cerebral madness.

Aside from a few duff tracks 'Loose' is an absolute beauty that couldn't have arrived at a better moment.

'Brother Is To Son' has to be listened to many a times before certain things start to fall into place. But when they do, boy, they sound great!

If you are the sort of person who thinks of cannabis in terms of how much you smoke a day rather than how much you smoke in a month or a year, then you are going to like this album very much indeed.

Everything about Lemon Jelly is meticulous, extending beyond the detailed production and lush orchestration.

Aside from one or two bore-me-ups, this is an album of understated perfection.

[Delirium] is hardly the kind of record that will be everyone’s bag, but there is so much variety and so much imagination packed into it that we find ourselves recommending it despite ourselves.

Recalls the overwhelming splendour of the Go-Betweens at their finest.

The results are almost painfully fashionable, f'sure, but utterly essential nonetheless.

This record is, the odd awful phrase here or there aside, rather marvellous.

'The Loon' retains a genuinely empathetic sincerity that deserves applause, but should be praised to a greater degree for bringing weird, left-of-centre indie back to the fore.

It just feels that amidst his bare and heartfelt explorations of life and the old wooden box wherein we all end up, Brock has learned to dance, learned to allow himself a smile.

Moffat knows how to conduct, contort and concoct fountains of melancholia.

So once you get behind the relatively unobstructive and emotive voice, what you have is the sound of NYC circa '77 pushed through the ramshackle indie filter.

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

It's full-on, one-dimensional and perfect. It ain't clever, but it could be very big.