The post-Christmas slump has well and truly subsided, or so it seems. February was a wonderful month for records, particularly in comparison to December and January's relatively meagre pickings.

A long-awaited return from M. Ward and a plum Beastie Boys re-master, as well as Emmy The Great's eagerly awaited debut, were our scribes' top picks, but there were a fair fews 8s kicking around too: School Of Seven Bells (my personal record of the month, no contest), Crystal Stilts and the wonderful Dark Was The Night compilation are equally worthy of your time and money.

Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique

EMI

Says Adam Anonymous: "So what'cha want? 'Intergalactic'? Tibetan free noise ethics? With Paul's Boutique you get close to both and everything in between, only with anti-commercial ethos Thom Yorke would be proud of and a bristling sense of humour since lost post-panning The Prodigy." [Read the review]

Emmy The Great First Love

Close Harbour

Says Alexander Tudor: "It's been a while since Next Big Thing Tips by the NME and DiS but Emmy The Great's debut is a triumph, with a maturity beyond her years, and with a humour no less enjoyable for being subtler. Can you imagine what her second or third album will be like, when she's the same age Leonard Cohen made his first record?" [Read the review]

M. Ward Hold Time

4AD

Says James Skinner: "On his sixth solo album, M. Ward turns in a star-studded set that feels at once a logical progression from 2006's Post-War and a step closer to that all-out classic his preceding suggests; an assimilation and appropriation of American blues, gospel, country and folk." [Read the review]

School Of Seven Bells Alpinisms

Full Time Hobby

Says Alexander Tudor: "This is superior dream-pop (as Americans call it), closest to Blonde Redhead on their last album, suggestive of M83 making slightly more effort with the lyrics, and in places nodding to Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Curve." [Read the review]

Various Dark Was The Night

4AD

Says James Skinner: "Whether this compilation is the equal of 1993's era-defining No Alternative remains to be seen: it'll take years before such perspective will be granted us. Too safe, too slow, too similar, too sanctimonious? Not on your alliterated life. As a document of the (musical) times, a beautiful, sundry package and admirable unification of today's very finest towards a common goal, Dark Was The Night is unbeatable." [Read the review]

Belle & Sebastian The BBC Sessions

Matador [Read the review]

Passion Pit Chunk Of Change EP

Columbia) [Read the review]

These Are Powers All Aboard Future

Dead Oceans [Read the review]

Wintersleep Welcome To The Night Sky

Labwerk/EMI [Read the review]

Zu Carboniferous

Ipecac [Read the review]

Crystal Stilts Alight Of Night

Angular

Says Dom Gourlay: "Go through each of the eleven songs that make up Crystal Stilts' debut long player and it almost feels like being driven through a guided tour of rock'n'roll's most incisive, dare I say coolest, esprit de corps of the previous four decades." [Read the review]

LPs we're looking forward to in March: Black Lips, Dan Deacon, The Decemberists, Fever Ray and Grammatics - should be another cracking month!