His second EP after a Young Turks-released four-tracker of 2010, does a lot with little: three tracks contain vocals, but each hits a sweet spot with incredible accuracy, doing in a few minutes what some bands take an album to deliver.

The scattered approach showcased on this set needs polish and original thought to develop.

Without compromising their artistic vision one iota, Sweet Billy Pilgrim have gone from black-and-white art-house to breathtaking widescreen, and the results are quite simply glorious.

Once you manage to pull away from Bloom's magnified scenery and consider the record as a whole it's difficult to think of it as anything other than its makers' best work so far.

Best Coast still sound like Best Coast, but now they're tidier, shinier and looking us right in the eye.

This thoroughly enjoyable release does include one surprising blast of brass.

Torche have always been a good band and sometimes even a great one, but with Harmonicraft they've found the songs to match their extraordinary sound.

This is an album worth living and breathing to at least attempt to become acquainted with its wealth of emotional nuances and playful eccentricities.

This impressive debut belies Harvieu's tender years.

Sharp, disciplined, and seriously compelling.

He's blessed with a gift for clear language, rarely missing his point and delivering his thoughtful lines with flinty disdain.

A significant step forwards then, and all just a click away.

Albarn has done his research but this is no dry slice of worthy academia; the way the spirit of each style interlocks is brilliant, and he continues to pull memorable melodies out of his (Elizabethan) hat.

Sneering like the New York Dolls transplanted to a nighthawk-populated diner after exchanging their shiny skin-tight trousers for leather jackets and Elvis LPs, this is a rock'n'roll record and no mistake....fantastique in anyone's language.

These are sleek soothing balms sombrely and meticulously crafted to usher the listener in.

The men are going to love it. But the women will still love Richard Hawley, too.

They sound like a pub soul covers band allowed to let rip on a few originals.

Those glimpses on Perfect Symmetry of something flashier and sexier make this retreat to familiarity a somewhat saddening step backwards.

Barchords is an enormously likeable set of songs... ranks as one of the most refreshingly direct and enjoyable albums of the year so far.

Tunes are plentiful, but competing with angularity and dissonance to establish a prevailing mood.

[A] fine and adventurous release, which finds depth and nuance in the often tryingly two-dimensional world of garage revivalism.

Rumer's debut is an immediately engaging, gently engrossing set. It wears its cracked heart on a neatly stitched sleeve of the most luxurious fabric, strong and elegant despite the hardships that sit of the centre of every song.

Bawdy, smart, big-hearted and mischievous, Mermaid Avenue is simply all about a personality that is rich with life.

While no longer the carefree creatures of their early records, Mystery Jets sound as bracingly hit-and-miss as they've ever done on Radlands, and for that much alone we can be thankful.

Electra Heart manages to balance the ironic and the heartfelt, the quirky and the mainstream, the real and the fake with remarkable aplomb.

[Cyrk] is a rare beast: a genuinely off-kilter pop record that never feels too self-conscious or contrived.

This home-grown loveliness... melts your soul.

Not quite yet the coherent full album that its time in the making hinted at, but nonetheless a welcome addition to record collections.

Produced by ECM proprietor Manfred Eicher, Snakeoil sounds as good as any album from Berne, without conforming to stereotypes of "the ECM sound".

Death Grips achieve the density and intensity of several Bomb Squads, Public Enemy's famous production wing.

Generation Freakshow is more mature, more considered, and less noisy, but it's nonetheless got Feeder stamped all over it.

While slightly more subdued than before, the pint-sized sparkplug proves she can still churn a stimulating groove, and doesn't need cartoonish gimmicks to do so.

It's an album that envelops even as it blurs and drifts, its hooks no less insistent for their subtlety.

California 37's peculiar teenage stance offers as many toe-curling moments as it does pleasant surprises.

Out of the Game is very much a master class in restraint. Rather than straining for the big choruses, here Wainwright intones over smooth backings, horns and the gospel harmonies of Brooklyn soul-stirrers The Dap-Kings.

She keeps the mood fairly moderate amongst Burton's fluid soundtrack, setting the pace with a wry bravado that makes this album a dynamic listen.

It'd be easy to breeze through Give Up the Ghost on first listen and take away nothing but the beauty of it all. Yet it sucks you in, and with every listen a new line flickers into the fray.

He still swaggers with the best of them.

The subject matter may be familiar territory, but this is no comfort zone.

While Labrinth makes the right kind of noise, and provides a window into himself as an artist, at a fleeting 10 tracks Electronic Earth doesn't exactly give away the farm.

If you're drawn to Battles' nimble melodic turmoil and general musical messiness, you may find some of these electro excursions to be hard work.

Black Is Beautiful is their most immediately accessible album, but its 15 tracks (14 of which are untitled) don't sound much like hits. Like its predecessors, this set works best taken as a whole, when its unstable collage has time to establish what turns out to be a powerful atmosphere.

As a tastefully populist exercise this set represents a job well done.

This chilled-out collection is an easy, pleasant listen, but it is far from an essential purchase for anyone except Florence completists.

Forget austere, bleak, slavishly traditional renditions – this is Roberts and Morrison we're talking about. These love and 'waulking' songs – one of them originally sung by women weaving tweed – are expansive, joyful, mysterious things.

This is a Spiritualized album down to its marrow, replete with the Velvet Underground-meets-Brian Wilson melodies, symphonic crescendos and widescreen riffs that Pierce has made his own since the beginning.... and [it's] a great one.

The sequencing seems illogical on first listen, but someone as dab-handed as Ward surely intended this, and the rollercoaster becomes easier to digest with each listen.

Downbeat words are buoyed up by light pop textures, leaning heavily for character on the fragile virtues of a voice that, while full of expression, is not designed for pop.

Cancer Bats haven't lost their swagger or even their appeal, but this is uneasy listening in every sense.

While diehard converts won't feel short-changed, others might wonder whether the duo could have sprung more surprises similar to the appearance of the Harlem String Quartet on the classical fantasia Mozart Goes Dancing.

It's a comfortable masterclass, in short, from a songwriter in complete command of his aesthetic.

It's a tight 40 minutes of compacted, runaway virtuosity.

Provides a vital, authentic taste of the United States, one steeped in history but simultaneously bang up-to-date.

Lyrics are route-one effective throughout, as you'd expect from an album called Boys & Girls, but the Shakes are not one-dimensional.

It's easy to hear that they spent upwards of two years putting this album together, because First Serve is all about the joy of sublime musicianship.

This is a fine album that warrants serious investigation from any and every rock circle.

Jokes are fairly hard to come by on a record chocked with sleepy, lilting stomp-alongs like these, but fortunately the gaps are filled by warmth, quality and not a little fiddle-playing.

Referring to Quakers as a collective is a touch disingenuous.... But, fresh and subtle spins on hip hop are sufficiently widespread throughout this set that it's just about the only complaint worth making.

The album unfolds an immeasurable amalgam of genres and inspirations, all fused together in a diamond-encrusted bubble of futuristic, day-glo hip hop. The energy is palpable, the pace rarely lets up, and personality pervades throughout.

This self-titled album is never less than pleasant, but only rarely is it truly memorable.

It assures us all that Meshuggah can still bury their copyists while leading the way when it comes to intelligent, thoughtful and undeniably brutal heavy metal.

More selective souls may find themselves reaching for the fast-forward button, as perhaps the original plan would have yielded a more cohesive whole.

Their music is full of joy, of sensuousness and sensuality, of acid wit and ambitious creativity.

Nobody would expect an eighth album by a band 20-plus years into its career to sound this fantastic, but time away has obviously helped re-energise the brothers into crafting this triumphantly grand return.

Some Clark fans will be disappointed with Iradelphic, but many others will see the promise in this little treasure.

Keaton Henson isn't a show off, but with talent like this, he has every right to be.

A timeless, anachronistic record, Barton Hollow could be from 30 years ago, or it could be from 30 years hence.

So while Rant may be a stunt album for The Futureheads, it's an exhilarating stunt, and one that more than whets the appetite for whatever it is they choose to do next.

The voice is still there, as is the attitude, and Auerbach has done an excellent job bringing an artist who will never be out of date into the 21st century.

Tracks like I Still Got It reaffirms that this dude, even at 61, is "cool and dangerous" – and back, back, back.

A joyless listen in and of itself, sure--but moreover, this is a puzzling eyesore exemplifying quite how this process of constructing and immediately normalising eccentricity can still have an appeal.

A mazy, fluid, ethereal suite of chamber jazz to get properly lost in.

It's not so certain that Cowley's taste-making always succeeds, despite the overall optimistic vitality of his tunes.

There may be arguments for Rusko's moves here; it's just that they're not very well executed.

Mathambo leaps about on a hotplate of styles, rarely dwelling on a groove for long. Move with him, though, because it's worth the breakneck effort.

What is present is that instant-click connection between artist and audience that only comes with the most naked of performances--Monotony is one such riveting recital, sketchy yet complete--and Beal's commitment to documenting the minutiae alongside the meaningful in comparable detail ensures that even-handedness permeates the entire set.

The same could be said for Lapalux's production ability; this is a brilliant EP, but he's still to reveal his full potential.

The results are expectedly analogue of warmth (exceptions: the 8-bit insistence of No Distance's bleeps; the crackle-and-squelch of Unknown Host), but just as enveloping as the best today's modulator manipulators can produce.

Spectacularly creative pop.

It's good to hear a new album that brims both with strong opinions and great pop songs, often at the same time.

While Blood Red Shoes displayed a more erratic style back in 2010 on second album Fire Like This, this third feels formulaic – highly thought-out and polished.

These four tracks--perhaps movements would be a more appropriate term--feel entirely alive, a spontaneous weld of anxious beats, the odd squirl of guitar and distortion, corrupted vocals and deep, chasmic bass.

Her songwriting is not greatly altered: tunes most often travel at an energetic tempo, with melodies shining through the thickly applied reverb and helping the likes of Know Me to soar. The presentation, however, recalls the Cocteau Twins during the album's most abstract moments.

He's a pop artist of substance, and as such brings a touch of class and sufficient flavour of another genre to the mainstream to make music that's interesting and lasting.

Goodman casts a spell on the listener with Sees the Light.

Her most vivid and enveloping achievement to date.

The OF Tape Vol 2 is an excellent addition to the group's canon.

A genuinely enjoyable find.

Ex Lives is guaranteed to change a few minds as to what stands out as their finest collection.

The Belbury Tales is infused with a deep vein of paranoia, a palpable fear, an attempt to reconcile the imminent unknown (evoking a reimagined or never experienced past).

It's deceptively powerful stuff.

It's got its faults, but MDNA isn't just a good pop album, it's a good Madonna album too.

Spalding is too able a musician to botch this template, so the obvious enquiry is: does she bring sufficient personality to the table to avoid being derivative? For the most part, yes.

It's perhaps too subtle and intricate for a marketplace accustomed to being bashed about the bonce by rave-fuelled RnB – but if your palate fancies some tuneful sweetness, Youth will melt in your mouth.

The Shape of Things is, by some margin, Foxx's best album since Metamatic, the 1980 solo debut that has become one of modern electronica's sacred touchstones.

All three players are articulating a ceaseless stream of fresh ideas throughout this electrically energised session.

When this 12-song set does hit its groove it is a punishing and relentless pleasure.

No Gods is a significant statement of intent. Despite its nihilistic title, it's an album that brims with vitality and could well be Sharks' ticket to the big leagues.