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Hard to believe that two of 12 are already behind us, but the calendar doesn't lie. On the plus side, February was rather brilliant for new albums - as well as debuts from a handful of much-tipped sorts, we've seen cracking returns from much-loved old-timers which have led to us searching YouTube for their underground anthems of a decade ago.

Which brings me to my pick of the month - a truly head-turning, expectations-trumping seventh album from Texan rockers ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Emerging to prominence in the music press around the turn of the millennium, the band's 1999 Madonna album set something of a raucous blueprint for bleary eyed punks the world over; its successor, 2002's major label debut Source Tags & Codes, is one of those wonderfully deep listens that rewards investigations several years after its release. It's one of my personal favourites of all time. And Tao of the Dead is the band's best record since that high water mark.

Editor's Album of the Month

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Tao of the Dead
(Century Media, released 7 February)
Recommended by: Rock Show with Daniel P Carter

"As revered as Source Tags & Codes still is, there are moments on Tao... that surpass it for sheer joyous racket-making. Summer of All Dead Souls and Weight of the Sun (Or the Post-Modern Prometheus), for example, burn with firestorm guitars and air-punching choruses and mix melody and squalls of noise with the deft touch you'd expect from a band this accomplished. The core of the band, Jason Reece and Conrad Keely, might have chosen to switch up their supporting cast but in staying true to their ineffableness they've updated their sound without leaving anything behind."

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The Best of the Rest

James Blake - James Blake
(Atlas, released 7 February)
Recommended by: Benji B, Zane Lowe, Annie Mac

"On his long-awaited debut album, Blake moves his informed, excited mastery into yet another sphere; instead of manipulating tension through a library of beats, he now mostly draws on silence and vocal treatment. Each playback draws the listener in closer towards to the record's core, like a dimmer switch being raised incrementally - a true beauty to behold."

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Ghostpoet - Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
(Brownswood, released 7 February)
Recommended by: Nick Grimshaw, Radio 1 Review Show

"Hipster-hating hip hop aficionados may take one look at Ghostpoet and run a mile. Don't be dissuaded by his fashionable hat and spectacles: Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam throws its headgear into the ring as an early contender for 2011's finest out-of-leftfield long-players."

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Read our Album Reviews Q&A with Ghostpoet

Radiohead - The King of Limbs
(self-release/XL, released 18 February)
Recommended by: 6 Music Album of the Day, Annie Mac

"The King of Limbs is another great album from Britain's most consistently brilliant band. And come Codex, it truly strikes the listener dumb. Like Motion Picture Soundtrack, Street Spirit, Sail to the Moon, Nude - insert your own favourite slow-paced Radiohead numb-er here - it's a piece of rarefied beauty."

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Toro Y Moi - Underneath the Pine
(Carpark, released 21 February)
Recommended by: Rob da bank

"An album as equally rich in invention as his first offering, this is warm, wistful and nostalgic without ever coming on too maudlin. The ever-modest Chaz Bundick would also be the last to admit that he's mastered his craft, but on this evidence he's taken another step closer to perfecting it."

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PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
(Island, released 14 February)
Recommended by: Radcliffe & Maconie, 6 Music Album of the Day

"As a backdrop to this brutal battlefield, Harvey has shifted from White Chalk's gaunt piano ballads to a broader sound that is no less feverish and close to the bone. Imagine a minimalist take on her debut album Dry's folk-blues tilt, all urgent and wiry rhythm. This is another fearsomely creative, emotional record to lead the resistance."

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Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
(Rock Action, released 14 February)
Recommended by: Tom Robinson, Vic Galloway

"While Hardcore... is a shift of speed, downwards, it's only a gear change rather than a signal that the whole journey's coming to an end. It's not, and with these guys at the controls one can only imagine where they'll have taken us in another 14 years. This is perhaps their most wonderfully understated, delightfully melodic offering yet."

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Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
(Atlantic, released 28 February)
Recommended by: Nick Grimshaw, 6 Music Album of the Day

"Wounded Rhymes is another outstanding album, slightly better and definitely bigger than the preceding Youth Novels. Although there is a level of subtlety at work here far more sophisticated than most mainstream releases, the sound's sheer size is almost overwhelming. If her second record brings Lykke Li huge success, it will be richly deserved."

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Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx - We're New Here
(XL, released 21 February)
Recommended by: 6 Music Album of the day, Benji B, Nick Grimshaw

"Those approaching this release as fans, exclusively, of either Scott-Heron or The xx might be at a loss, but this collection works on separate level. It offers a multi-layered retrospective of the music which bore and surrounds Jamie xx. It's not merely a rehash of the original, but a cohesive, considered masterpiece in its own right."

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Frankie & The Heartstrings - Hunger
(Pop Sex Ltd, released 21 February)
Recommended by: Steve Lamacq

"At its best, tracks ingrain themselves immediately - the "whoa-whoa" joy of That Postcard, Hunger's brilliant celebration of standing up for one's friends and ideals, Tender's meandering guitar-work underpinning vocals that climb away to dizzy heights. And even when tracks pass without too much of an impression left, the listener is never without a smile on their face."

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Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
(PIAS, released 14 February)
Recommended by: Loose Ends, Another Country, The Late Show

"Georgia-based rockers Drive-By Truckers have to be one of the most prolific bands working today; ninth LP Go-Go Boots comes less than a year after the release of its predecessor The Big To-Do. This set is one of the best examples yet of the separate yet complementary skills of the Truckers' three leaders, melding styles and switching moods but retaining an overall feel that's distinctly theirs."

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Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
(Circus Company, released 14 February)
Recommended by: Gilles Peterson

"For a producer operating under the dance rubric, Jaar often seemed to approach the actual dancefloor from tangential, almost accidental directions - and Space Is Only Noise tilts the balance further towards music for the head rather than feet. It's unafraid to take its time, to wend slowly and sparsely towards its pay-offs via tantalisingly lightly sketched musical ideas."

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Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo - Almanac
(Everyone Sang, released 7 February)
Recommended by: Loose Ends

"From the bucolic build that opens Billowing Sea, via the mournful strings of Dancers - which, again, treads a lyrical path to bodies of water - to the sumptuous climax of Bones, a song capping the album's greatly graphical wordplay with talk of 'a wound of a thousand cuts', this is a dream of a record. A new Marling, then? No, Barker offers something else..."

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