What "Happy New Year" really represents is Oneida's finest, most complete record to date, and as such it's the perfect starting point for anyone who's as yet unfamiliar with their rather daunting back catalog.

She might not quite have made it through the wilderness just yet, but she's chosen the most glittering road to resurrection she could find, and it's one she walks with no small smattering of style.

They no longer rely on dense production and atmospherics, because they don’t need to: ‘Antics’ is bare-boned and beautiful.

They've created a world of tender reflection encompassing engaging melodic cycles, pastoral textures, glitchy interjections, acoustic decoration, melancholic strings, loose, jazz tinged drums, lonely horns, yearning guitar laments and delicate vocals: All melded into ebbs and flows that form a coherent universe through songs which all have their own defining characteristics.

What's beyond doubt is the magical blend of the surreal and the fantastical that made 'The Unseen' so memorable is once again in the fullest effect on this showcase of fearlessly skewed production, dense organic vibes and hemp & helium-fuelled raps that make up this smoked-out saunter through the back streets of the cosmo-according-to-Lord Quas.

Anyone expecting any of the more experimental tangential qualities of the German group will be disappointed, as will anyone expecting intense lyrical workouts from Smith. Instead we have an extremely convincing whistlestop tour round current electronic music with a partially deranged, completely eccentric lexicographer raving brilliantly over the top.

Rabid Dinosaur Jr fans will find plenty here to enjoy.

This may not quite live up to 'Ocean Songs', but it still stands up on its own.

The ghosts of prog exorcised fully at last, Gorky's have once more put in a serious challenge to the Super Furries as Wales' most inventive band, and they've produced an album that, both in terms of its astounding quantum leap and its ambitious orchestration, swings excitingly near to the Delgados' genius breakthrough opus 'The Great Eastern'.

As good as 'Tio Bitar' is, it's actually a weaker album than 'Ta Det Lungt' in some respects.

The pop album of the year.

More than anything else, 'Cripple Crow' is an album that it sounds like it was born amidst a fun, exuberant creative process.

Her voice is still like clear honey dripped on freshly baked bread, and almost sounds nourishing.

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.

Fiercely intelligent, heavy as fuck, powerful and utterly concise, it's a perfect reminder of the potency of great guitar music and a kick up the jacksy of rock bands everywhere. Yup, it's that damn good.

Unlike 2002's 'Geogaddi', it's a wholly gripping journey throughout.

'See You Next Tuesday' is so good it should be the soundtrack to a smash hit Broadway musical.

There's a kind of timeless haze that drifts through 'Yellow House' and makes it a pleasingly elusive listen.

This is woeful, otherworldly - and wonderful.

Here is an album with all-new complexity, unforseen depth and many delightful hidden layers.

In truth, there's no good reason to only confine yourself to just one of these albums when both have charms to spare.

This is music that relies entirely on feeling, and while not for everyone it is music at its most impulsively, spontaneously creative.

If 'Fever To Tell' was a scratchy post punk effort, then this is their gothic record.

'The Warning' is a splendid combination of braindance and footdance.

It's not all pleasant.... However, there are some total gems, as you'd expect.

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

Unassuming, unpretentious and totally listenable too, this is thirteen songs and fifty minutes that might just make her famous.

For the first time in what seems like a long time, here is an album that is going to be deservedly huge.