2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize: the nominees

Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid: “Elbow sound beautifully understated rather than underwhelming, less underachieving than desperately undervalued.” Alexis Petridis Photograph: PR/PR

Estelle, Shine: “Twinkling, breezy and unintentionally funny thanks to guest Kanye West's verses about British phenomena like Ribena and Wags, American Boy typifies the album's uplifting vibe.” Caroline Sullivan Photograph: PR/PR

Radiohead, In Rainbows: "Witty, romantic, life-affirming: you don't need to be an expert in the minutae of their back catalogue to know that these are not adjectives readily associated with Radiohead...yet that's precisely what In Rainbows seems to be." Alexis Petridis. Photograph: PR/PR

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, The Bairns: “Her all-female band play an equally important role, matching her compelling vocals with sparse piano and fiddle, harmony work or passages that veer towards free jazz. One of the folk records of the year.” Robin Denselow. Photograph: Unknown/Guardian

Portico Quartet, Knee-Deep In The North Sea: “Hook-based music out of the traditions of Philip Glass and Steve Reich and contemporary jazz, with engagingly chiming themes delivered by steel pan-like Hang drums.” John Fordham Photograph: PR/PR

Last Shadow Puppets, The Age of the Understatement: ‘Their pastiches feature such an abundance of loving detail that The Age of the Understatement frequently seems as much about the overwhelming effect Scott Walker's greatest hits can have on the listener as the mysterious femme fatale who inhabits almost every lyric.” Alexis Petridis Photograph: PR/PR

Burial, Untrue: "Untrue confirms that Burial possesses not just the keen ear of a Lee Perry or Martin Hannett - the album teems with unplaceably familiar noises which might be the hot click of a lighter or the cold scrape of metal on metal - but a capacious heart." Dorian Lynskey Photograph: PR/PR

Adele, 19: “Rather than screaming for attention, there's an artistically focused stillness at the centre of so many of these bruising love songs.” Caspar Llewellyn-Smith Photograph: Getty Images/Getty

Laura Marling, Alas, I Cannot Swim: “Simplicity is the key: playing acoustic guitar and singing in a gentle verge-of-womanhood voice, she keeps things homespun and rootsy.” Caroline Sullivan Photograph: PA/PA

British Sea Power, Do You Like Rock Music?: “Do You Like Rock Music? is the glorious sound of a unique band going for broke.” Alexis Petridis Photograph: PR/PR

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand: “This is an album of deep, dark Americana, a scintillatingly stitched patchwork of country, R'n'B and singer-songwriters that represents what Plant describes as 'the America I have always loved musically'." Neil Spencer Photograph: PR/PR

Neon Neon, Stainless Style:“Detours into hip-hop and rap slow down the fast-paced action, but Neon Neon have poured as much love and attention to detail in this prototype as their hero put into his.” Betty Clarke. Photograph: PR/PR