Album: Bloc Party, Four (Frenchkiss)

After flirting with electronica and Kele Okereke's disco-tastic solo adventures, the fourth Bloc Party album sees them rediscovering guitars with a vengeance – and many tracks here come with the sort of epic quality that has helped Muse filled arenas.

Not that this means Bloc Party have dumbed things down, necessarily: "V.A.L.I.S." is surely the only rock song ever to use the words "theophany" and "phenomenology".