Yes, it's clearly obvious what Yuck's main influences are; they're placed very firmly on the band's sleeve. But with sounds that tie the band to modern indie as much as alt-rock, Yuck have crafted something incredibly refreshing, and more importantly, good.

In the end, you get 44 minutes of solid beats and bars and a handful of songs to put on your best-of playlists for Savage and/or Metro. That’s not the worst thing, but on Savage Mode II it feels like there’s both too much and not enough going on at once.

2 finds Mac DeMarco growing as an artist, settling into a workman-like rhythm and puttering through some of the catchiest tracks of the year.

A new album from a new artist, with an old sound newly restored, think of this as a letter of recommendation to you, dear America.

While these influences [Nick Drake and Ella Fitzgerald] are certainly present, A Common Turn is undeniably and entirely Savage’s own; these are her trials and confessions, and it’s a stroke of great bravery and generosity for her to have released them in this enrapturing manner.

With Transcendental Youth, the Mountain Goats have proven that they're more than capable of engaging us with even without the unimpeachable witticisms of their frontman.

It is perhaps her most approachable and her most celebratory, and a solid reminder of why she garnered our attention in the first place.

It’s big, heavy, and worthy to soundtrack plenty of dancefloors. The only thing Ghost System Rave is arguably missing is the real personality from its creators.

Ultimately, Colourgrade feels like staying up all night on the couch alongside Tirzah, but rather than chatting away, you exchange the occasional warm remarks, getting no nearer to knowing what’s really going on inside her head.

All ten of the songs here are grandiose and muscular in the great tradition of Spiritualized songs.

Kveikur is the band’s noisiest and most muscular record yet. The variety of experience it offers not just from Valtari, but from the band’s entire catalogue, means that it stands among their best.

The diversity of styles on CAPRISONGS would likely end up a disjointed mess in any other hands, but with twigs (and her stacked team) on hand, it all sews together brilliantly. It bounces back and forth from outwardly confident to more stately anthems of self-love, and even songs that might seem throwaway in isolation are key in sequence.

It's bold, cathartic, and essential; a candidate for not only one of 2012's best, but one of the most important records in all of American soul.

This record – like most dark art – is not merely meant as an extreme experience, but a critique of structure that commodifies human bodies.

The end result then, is the sound of Bird settling down, becoming comfortable with his music and letting it come off as natural, without losing the sense of enjoyment and the hypnotic dynamism of his core elements.

With a heavier reliance on piano and this newer emphasis on these samples, it's an astounding achievement in a young career already marked by solid works.

As good as Poppy’s previous work was, this is a whole new level.

That’s what How Many Times is: another record about lost love. Yet, what saves Rose’s version from sinking into tired banality is the earnestness of it all: she displays the full gamut of her emotions in the songs, from longing to anger, yearning to acceptance.

Two of the more prolific musicians of our time have come together to put out eight interesting tracks.

The 12 tracks on Play Me unfurl as abstract sketches of real-time angst, collages wrapped in thorny roils and gritty yet entrancing textures. Play Me also includes some of Gordon’s most pop-leaning work.

Here is an album that's neither forgettable nor empty.

ILYSM captures its maker’s emotional state urgently and obtusely. Though sonically more subdued than other recent Wild Pink material (like the celestial alt-country stunner “Florida”), the transitions between the songs are often brisk and quite abrasive. They manifest like cracks formed inside a glass sculpture right before collapse.

The Ascension is at its best when Sufjan calls forth light in the darkness.

You don’t get the sense that either over-rides the other in terms of input, and this project allows them to fully immerse themselves in the creation of sounds and musical structures that do not lean on the output of their other projects. There is a range of emotions and musical textures present on this album and it feels like quite a ride by the end.

Out And About strikes as a series of stories cut off halfway from their conclusion, leaving the rest to the listener to fill in. It’s probably the most generous way Lewsberg has applied their trademark pragmatism to their music. They’ve always had a unique gift for painting vivid scenery with even the simplest, most barren of means.

The songs reverberate stronger than those on the group’s more recent albums. Yet at the same time, Stiletto isn’t as epic as Girl with Basket of Fruit or Ignore Grief, and it’s not as varied as Fabulous Muscles. It feels at times like an experiment to imagine a different Xiu Xiu; one that find themselves on the top of year end lists, that are played in rock clubs, that reside in New York and wear shades. In this gesture, they’ve become more approachable, but also more distant.

The whole EP feels weightless and aloft as if we have a clear view of the blinding blue gap between its heights and depths.

The album takes many of Malkmus' favorite indie and classic rock influences and creates something fresh and dazzling.

This set of songs, intimate and filled with lyrical and musical nuances that encourage repeated listening, is supremely rewarding. That resilient streak is sure to take Anjimile places.

CHAI see no line whatsoever between taking on whatever issues get to them and being able to completely bliss out, and it’s this very energy that continues to make them absolutely essential. WINK is simply the warmest, most open way they’ve chosen to engage in that battle yet.

As a listening experience in one sweep, the album fascinates and lulls the listener in equal measure. Moments across the near 40 minute runtime pique your attention and are dazzling in a peculiar way.

This is them coming to grips with their heritage and their age, although it’s no swan song. But American Head does what its predecessors haven’t been able to do – it shows the Flaming Lips still know how to write thoughtful and sincere songs that also tap into the psychedelics their fans have come to expect.

Some might lament the lack of tension in this album, but when the music's this beautiful, who needs it?

It's said that Lamar's goal here was to prove himself capable of standing alone. Well, in certainly one of the greatest critical understatements written, he's done it.

It has the potential to sidle next to records like Movements and We Are Monster as a genre classic, but it's just as assured to find a broader audience as well.

Despite an array of musical styles, the songs all tend to plod along at the same tempo, which becomes a little frustrating in places. The portraits of sombre and solemn humanity painted on the best songs here are rich, whereas they fall into caricatures on the weaker tracks – although these are in the minority, to be fair. Even when the material is less than hoped for, his voice can still manage to grab you square in the heart.

UGLY is surely his most intense, unvarnished, unrelenting personal excavation

Such is Krug’s way with words: deliberately or not, he’s weaving a huge tapestry that makes the author clearer to us. Julia With Blue Jeans On is another section in it and is a damned beautiful, it not great one at that.

Thursday continues a linear narrative that House of Balloons started and its far from an afterthought or epilogue.

It's not quite a masterpiece, but its successes are both grand and numerous enough to suggest that the next time Chromatics come around, they'll likely be delivering one.

It is true you can very easily lose orientation amidst the billowing clouds and beatless productions (which makes the title Atlas seem ironic) but that only compels you to venture further, to learn the album’s unseeable contours.

End of Everything is not an obviously uplifting album, but it is in many places breathtaking.

The terror and helplessness that define the song’s first half takes a revelatory turn in its final leg, as the demons respond again to her cries for freedom.

This is why Dye It Blonde is truly a success: the band have moved from the garage noise-rock sound to a much more atmospheric one wherein the noise is harnessed into multiple layers of melodic instrumentation.

Lucky Shiner has all the facets of something good. It breathes on its downbeats, sings rickety sampler loops, and, most enjoyably, it takes its time.

A Beginner’s Mind proves the two are not only capable of making beautiful music as a duo, but bodes well for their solo work to come — it’s yet another captivating plot point in their overarching narratives.

It promises even better material to come if he can blend the astounding songcraft from earlier efforts with the atmosphere of this album.

Oshin is undeniably a record tailored for driving around with some friends in the dead heat of summer, but the music also packs a range of raw emotions.

The Golden Age of Apocalypse is a great album that shows Bruner utilizing all of his bass wizardry.

No doubt that momentum they’ve built up will take them to plenty of new places when they can get back to playing live next year; they set out to capture that feeling on record this time around, and they’ve succeeded, with an album that makes Hope Downs feel like a warmup. After all this travelling, they’ve finally arrived.

Though lacking in musical revelations, there are more than a few moments on the album that highlight her sharp instincts as a songwriter. There is a catharsis to Someone New that’s palpable, and if Deland harnesses that going forward, things can only get brighter from here.

While Mannequin Pussy may not have necessarily progressed hugely, they have found thrilling new ways to implement the sounds that made Patience such a success. Most excitingly, the little glimpses of new ideas and chemistry suggest it’s just a stepping stone to what’s next.

The Nearer the Fountain, The More Pure the Stream Flows is perhaps the deepest inquiry into the artist – but again, we don’t really know if what we are seeing in the mirror is real.

This is a worthy comeback for the singer that is fun, catchy, bright and ultimately another addition to the canon of necessary, escapist music we need to forget the world’s impending descent into madness.

The record often flows nearly-imperceptibly from track to track, creating a sort of ecosystem all its own, which harkens to its deep ambient undercurrents. But, hanging together as it does, like a morning mist, YIAN is a bit of a soggy, homogenous listen.

It improves on its predecessor, is chock full of quotable lyrics (“I’m three words away from absolutely fucking ruining your life”), and even where it stumbles, it still manages to pick up the pace soon after. Perhaps best of all is all the ups and downs Gartland captures.

As major label rap debut albums go, Live from the Underground is a relative anomaly in that the artist seems to have escaped with most of his integrity intact.

Nothing Is Wrong sees the band not only avoiding the often-discussed sophomore slump, and rising to the challenge and delivering a far more accomplished record than their first; one that should make the band into one of the biggest and most respected in the current americana/folk rock community.

Iceage mine the clangorous middle ground between traditional punk structures and the often sterile world of Joy Division-indebted post-punk, but they transcend both of those genres, just by meaning what they say.

Rolling Golden Holy exudes a communal, back-to-basics charm. The threesome operate within an eternal country-folk formula of less-is-more that fosters a sense of instant familiarity.

Marissa Nadler is the sort of folk album that you'll be returning to simply because it is so varied.

Goodbye Bread may not change the face of music, cause, y'know, it's only rock 'n roll. But it's damn hard not to like it.

Clocking in at a hair over half an hour in length, Driver is similarly brief in nature as the albums which preceded it, but it stands apart from Adult Mom’s first two records in that it’s a more polished, bigger and brighter collection of songs, in spite of how its lyrical content may seem.

In the opening track “Weapon”, Njoku’s story takes off intriguingly with him weaponizing himself, his spirit and his music. The track builds up to a strong finish with rich, cinematic sounds that pull you in.

We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic delivers on the promise of Foxygen's previous material in almost every way possible, offering up full and complete songs filled with bright instrumentation and enough surprising songwriting turns to get lost in, but there's also a strong personality at its core bursting with a vibrancy that carries these songs beyond their specific musical waypoints and influences into a uniquely modern setting.

Yellow River Blue is a truly intoxicating experience, akin to a spellbinding late night story told by a stranger. As outsiders, we may not have the context, but we know more than enough to realize we’re witnessing something intimate and special. This is easy listening fit for deep reflection.

It manages to sound familiar while sounding entirely new, all the while making it clear that this is a sound only Lambchop could create.

What Silberman’s managed to accomplish with Green to Gold is admirable. Instead of quitting music he’s pushed forward and accepted his limitations in pursuit of his passion.

Although sonically the production can feel repetitive – especially towards the album’s middle – what ultimately anchors this project is the lyricism. He manages to explore his experience as a gay man and all its accompanying troubles and triumphs, yet also frame them in the universal understandings of heartbreak and alienation.

Overall, it seems that Motorists are the most compelling when infusing elements of krautrock and motorik into their work.

Their punk spirit is still there, but has been buried a little under the weight of heartfelt emotion, bolstered instrumentation and sugary harmonies – all of which work beautifully for these songs. Camp Cope have made an album for themselves, to bring some unity through honesty and self-expression. They can certainly be proud of that.

Van Etten gives us what is, quite possibly, her strongest album yet. And that sense of breakthrough, of sheer lift, is prevalent right from the start. ... There’s a powerful sincerity and confidence to her vocals throughout the record, as she weaves and bobs around her deceptively simple and emotive melodies, often hitting notes that sounds for a millisecond like they won’t quite work, and then suddenly, they do, as on the final heavenly note of “Darkness Fades”.

Del Rey’s longest album to date by some distance – and not without the occasionally questionable choice. But the best moments, which abound, solidify Del Rey as one of the all-time greats.

In many ways, it is a sort of a musical retrospective of what the Notwist have done so far, both lyrically and musically – though the electronic aspects are a bit more subdued in favour of energetic, brass-imbued indie rock gusto, which suits the messaging.

They write very strong songs, but aural satiation sinks in over Bones‘ 48 minute runtime.

There’s no point on Atlas Vending that feels wasted, no meandering or time-sucks; it’s just pure adrenaline rock expertly produced and delivered piping hot.

Fittingly – and thankfully – she still resists playing into anyone’s hands, offering a statement that’s at once both delightfully palatable and explores new corners of her sound. What’s more, they’re clearly the corners that interest and excite her.

It not so much a record that juxtaposes itself, but rather one that sways between the two sides of whatever spectrum you put it in.

Translate is a wonderful album from a special artist. Evocative, cinematic and visceral, the body of work is testament to the evolution of Luke Abbott and his desire to challenge himself with each new release.

It’s an evocative thrill ride and a captivating rumination on mortality that also asks questions of life afterwards. It isn’t an easy listen but it’ll soon become something you’re drawn towards time and time again.

Yes, it’s a more mature album than those initial shots that audiences lost their minds and virginities to from 2004 to 2007. But it’s also a rich, passionate and clever album that, even if it ends up being underrated, deserves full attention and praise.

It’s noteworthy that this latest record is on par with those two [Soundtracks for the Blind and The Seer] in quality, because it marks his largest leap forward in a long time. By imagining a future without himself, Michel Gira has opened up an eternity of possibilities. He’s let the light shine in – and that is deeply moving. He’s found peace.

Rentals is uniformly great, and each track boasts its share of both gorgeous instrumentation and lines that are alternately poetic and prosaic.

A tangled and glorious mess of aggressive glitches and clipped synths and stuttering beats and hints, shadows, and fragments of tunefulness.

Their identity is hard to peg, and its just this that allows the music to completely possess the forefront, that makes it such an engaging, entertaining, and, perhaps most significantly, fascinating listen.

Songs seems to be the culmination of what The Telescopes have strived for over the last decade, and is an album that’s more truly shoegaze than the genre has seen in years.

It is a little short, some of the songs feel a bit undercooked, and occasionally her lyrics tiptoe over the line of poetic observation into eye-rolling territory — but it is her best and most genuinely surprising since Reprieve, as her last few albums have been pleasant but not exactly groundbreaking. But when an artist can so thoroughly show a new side of themselves this far into their career, that’s worth celebrating.

1991 is, in this final form, equal to the early EP material of Slowdive in its nocturnal, hazy glory, with Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley exchanging lead roles. It is confident in its psychedelic, abstract explorations, aided by the immense, groovy rhythm section of Chris Roof and Steve Zimmerman.

It's a refinement of what he accomplished with Sugar, and is arguably the most consistently engaging album he's made since Copper Blue.

Cracker Island’s forgettable, milquetoast assembly line of tracks – though crisply and professionally engineered – proves that having it all shouldn’t always mean using it all.

Sweep It Into Space has all the ingredients for a pleasant listen, while doing little to separate itself from the rest of their discography.

There’s no sense of wallowing in misery here. She makes no effort to hide the ugliness of what we can be but also draws attention to the light we hold within.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

Leaving Atlanta is far from a perfect record - there is not anything approaching 'classic status' on it – but it is a very fine one, and certainly one of the best we will see in its genre this year.

Subtle complexity may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that is yet another aspect of her music that is so impressive: unless paid close attention to, it will not appear to be all that complex. It will go down very smoothly regardless of the kind of lenses one views it through.

Narrative beauty and endless energy is abound, but you're going to have to play make believe to find out.

With Care, CLAMM continue to reconfigure their sources and refine their methods, offering their take on the current age, fractured as it is by pandemics, climate change, acute financial instabilities, and the rise of the autocratic impulse. They bemoan the human tragedy, but in so doing, experience a fleeting high.

In any case, Leave Home is no doubt one of the most gut-punched and brain-addled rock rock records to arrive in quite some time.