Top Of The Pops

Elbow do not make bad albums; on the contrary they only make very good ones and Build A Rocket Boys! is no exception.

Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore delivers a poignant solo album with the help of producer — and rockstar in his own right — Beck.

Bill Callahan returns with his third solo full-length and Apocalypse may well be his finest, most intimate and exploratory outing to date.

The Beastie Boys are back with their first full-length since 2007′s The Mix-Up and they certainly still have the goods to captivate.

Fleet Foxes indulge in their ambitions on Helplessness Blues and deliver another rich album which proves their debut was no fluke.

Drone duo Higuma releases its most cohesive and compelling effort to date by tracing the grandeur of the sun’s daily movements.

Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs moves out of the basement and emerges with a brief but positively stellar second album.

Noah Lennox returns with his highly anticipated follow-up to 2007′s Person Pitch and delivers the goods via understated bedroom pop.

Hawaiian songstress Mailani puts forth another strong collection of world music reconciling her roots and mainstream currents.

Mixtape of the year? Fashawn has released a stellar collection here which should appeal to a wide-ranging scope of listeners.

There’s little doubt, Several Shades Of Why is another charmingly modest and effective acoustic addition to J Mascis’ solo discography.

Buzz-heavy dubstepper James Blake stretches the walls of his parent genre to include blues and ambient sensibilities on his debut.

Living legends Faust prove that rock ‘n’ rollers can age well and keep with the times without jeopardizing their identity on Something Dirty.

On his follow-up to 2008′s Trouble In Dreams, Dan Bejar puts forth his most distinctive and perhaps definitive Destroyer release to date.

Among the first great records of 2011, The Joy Formidable’s album The Big Roar is a soaring and sinewy rock ‘n’ roll gem.