Think ‘Step Up’ from ‘Blue Songs’, developed full-length.

A U R O R A is both testing of boundaries and transcendental of beauty.

This is a sizzling and accomplished jaunt through the mind and talents of a British institution.

Reachy Prints is yet another artful and aerial treasure.

The production is an expertly judged combination of radio-friendly pop and club-influenced, sparse trap beats. Iggy’s the real deal.

Everybody Down might have created a new genre: the album noir.

Some of the fragile innocence may have been replaced by moments of casual philosophy and effortlessly grandiose anthemic pop (‘Zigzagging Toward The Light’, ‘Kick’), but Oberst can still throw out quietly stirring minor epics using little more than a guitar and quiet musings.

Separation is writ large across the themes of Ghost Stories--and knowing what came next in Martin’s personal life, perhaps that was always to be expected. What’s not is just how lifeless so much of this material is, how instantly forgettable these songs are.

Where previous Colourmusic albums were spiky, unpredictable things, this set often feels content just to wallow in an amorphous sonic soup.

Live, Little Dragon are weapons-grade ace. Now they’ve finally got an album to match.

First Mind is captivating, full of intricacies and influences that should see it celebrated as one of the great albums of 2014.

There’s a playful sense of bawdy humour at work across White Women. Some may find the irony unpalatable, but there’s little denying Chromeo’s cheeky pop mastery.

To Be Kind is altogether more colourful, an expansive record--fleshier, bloodier and lusciously psychedelic.... Near perfection.

This is a timeless collection of blossoming ballads.

A damaged but delightful long-player, then, perfect for fans of Daughter and Camera Obscura.

We’re submitting this one for further clinical studies.

A work of typically broad imagination, not everything on American Interior fully clicks into place. Yet when it does, there’s more than enough to suggest that Rhys need not cease his eternal voyaging.

Still splitting opinion. Still weaving rich pop tapestries from whatever fibres take their fancy. They deserved better.

This is invigorating, wilful and wildly exuberant--and one senses an invitation to collaboration with David Byrne might be in the post.

Across its 10 tracks, the album focuses more on the complete experience than unexpected instances of sidestepping intrigue.

Though her personal tragedy has been transformed into an affecting record of real beauty, one truly hopes Li’s next chapter isn’t quite so agonising.

9 Dead Alive demonstrates amazing talent, then--but the ideas and theme, as a whole, are a bit samey.

Passion is a puzzling thing, expressed in myriad manners. But it can never be fabricated, and Ought’s heated brand of it is amongst the most bracing sounds anyone can encounter in 2014.

Turn Blue is pure searing sexiness, hotter than a Nashville afternoon. Their best yet.

While it has it moments, Sheezus is largely devoid of Allen’s pragmatic charm of 10 years ago.

His music marries complexity with club-ready thump, resulting in a dystopian dancehall of morbid booty shaking.

At times her deliberate vocal style disconnects the listener, and one hopes as Green’s career progresses, she trades in the allegories for something a bit more emotionally inclusive.

Death III is the last of the group’s unreleased masters, a dusty odds-and-ends collection of songs from the ‘70s, 1980 and 1992 that’s full of drifting guitar melodies and psychedelic funk.