Ten years after

Glorious fifth album proper from ever-shifting Bostonians reaches down through the years

The Wachowski brothers' kick-ass cyber-noir sequel bows to mainstream demands but still delivers

Deathless proto-ambient dinosaur that punk could not kill returns for 21st-century remake

How New York's hippie hoppers ushered in the philosophical D.A.I.S.Y. Age. And then pronounced themselves Dead

Second album from French four-piece sets this year's pop gold standard

After the early patronage of Howe Gelb, Oregon's Matt Ward dished up 2001's End Of Amnesia, one of the most breathtaking albums of recent years. Transfiguration...is another masterclass in deft guitar picking, smudged with piano, harmonica and a voice like honey drizzled onto a dry creekbed. The behind-a-screen-door quality of production adds to the strangeness, while the likes of "Undertaker" often stop, start, scuff around then veer off at a tangent. Somewhere between a Gelb bothering to finish off songs and The Band at their most bucolic.

Best album in years from British eccentric

In most cultures, seven is a magic number. Not in rock'n'roll, where to sustain any degree of originality beyond album three or four is about as rare as a sober Shane MacGowan.

Prefab Sprout mainman releases extraordinary "talking book" opus

Quality return from icon of rock-chick chic