Just a series of great, swampy soul grooves, fronted by the most arresting new voice you'll hear this year, and the kind of natural songwriting that seems to contain the entire history of Southern music within its staves.

Felice fails to animate them in the manner of comparable storytellers like Johnny Dowd and Richmond Fontaine's Willy Vlautin, and thus leaves one's interest unignited.

It's not the greatest story ever told--the depth of insight runs to little more than "Friends--how many have them? How long before they split like atoms?"--but the overall warmth is engaging.

Taken together, the results demonstrate how adeptly Amadou & Mariam straddle both local and global, with a truly "world" music that deserves mainstream chart success rather than niche appreciation.

Further confirmation of the enduring strength of old-school electronic music.

While their retreads of "Robot" and "Thursday" come perilously close to "Bohemian Rhapsody", the makeovers of Kelis's "Acapella" and Sparks' "The No. 1 Song in Heaven" are brilliant.

The raw indie-punk grinds and krautrock pulses have a brutish drive and determination, though lingering this long among a cast of "wasted people in a wasted world" leaves a grim aftertaste.

The result is a dark, steamy sound that comes crawling from the Louisiana swamp like a mean-tempered 'gator.

In places, Portico Quartet's third album recalls old-school jazz-funk, from the chamber-jazz end of the spectrum rather than the party end.

With her delivery tacking impressively between sweet and smoky, "On the Road" recalls what happened when the Kind of Blue influence hit the likes of Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin.

Sometimes, the changes simply frustrate, as when Josh Homme rations out the hellhound gallop of "Mickey Bloody Mouse" too sparingly. But the additions can bring extra layers of exhilaration.

The splendid The Politics of Envy simply ratchets that process up a few notches.

The format sustains on subsequent tracks; but despite its apparent concreteness, the music is surprisingly warm.

It all comes together more fruitfully on the ensuing "Hey, Shooter." [...] From there, it gets more fecund than ever.

What's not in doubt is how faithfully he's stuck to the core deep-soul verities, with a delivery that vaults from spoken sermonising to raw, impassioned hurt in an instant.

MDNA represents a determined, no-nonsense restatement of the Madonna brand.

Debut album Up All Night consists of 15 installments of inoffensive daytime radio pop.

Despite this obvious recommendation, the more radio-friendly follow-up still proves hard to love.

He's devised a musical backdrop that subtly evokes the innocence, warmth and zoophiliac empathy of the film's message.

The homegrown characteristics of her distinctive style have been all but washed away in a flood of R&B clichés on All of Me, a routine blend of fidgety grooves and tiresome ruminations on life and love.

By the second listen, it's somehow found its place in one's affections, despite its lack of obvious hooks.

It's Rose's harmonies that make the album special: warm and breathy, they seem to sidle gently into position, rather than cut with razor precision.

A pleasant-enough handful of easy-going songs, in which the focus on warmth has left them lacking bite... but the warmth of that voice is undeniably beguiling.

The most potent and inventive electronica album I've heard in ages, a masterclass in punchy bleepscaping right from the low-register throb that opens "Lowly".

There's a familiar elemental tone to the Dirty Three's latest album – except this time the oceanic influence is replaced by snow and sky and rain.

The meringue-light and snow-bright Visions is a sort of cut-up, laptronica take on the kind of sugary, girly electro-pop confections Prince produced for a succession of female starlets in the late 1980s.

The band's mix of intelligence and drive, and their blend of guitar, accordion, organ and violin, echoes Arcade Fire. Certainly, Colin Meloy's songs have a comparable ambition.

While not as immediately career-defining as Wake Up the Nation, there's no denying that with Sonik Kicks, Paul Weller is continuing the courageous, exploratory course established on 2008's 22 Dreams.