With greater room for booming electro-ballads and crisply produced dance numbers, Tenderness is more engaging than its predecessor but no less immersive, making it on the whole a hugely accomplished return.

While this sonic nonchalance means it can lack singularity and impact, Parallels feels like an organic and necessary evolution for Chung, his affinity for dense, hazy, dreamlike production still as mind-altering as ever.

While Harmony Of Difference will delight jazz fans, it is a truly incredible record irrespective of genre. If you are capable of feeling, you will find much to love here.

The songs are forgettable odes to familiar topics--home, heartbreak, dusting yourself off and picking yourself back up--that wouldn’t get a second glance if they’d been penned by someone less famous. Add to that some horrifically hackneyed clichés.

Maybe the product of a transitional period in Rowsell’s life, it’s easy to get lost yourself in the singer’s endearing lyricism.

V is the record that has finally given The Horrors a set identity. Perfecting every element they did so well on their four previous records, V is a pure and unadulterated celebration of The Horrors.

Aside from a few big hitters, Wonderful Wonderful has too many middle-of-the-road moments. ‘Life Itself’, ‘The Rut’, and ‘Have All The Songs Been Written’ are barely distinguishable, and instantly forgettable.

While there’s nothing that will diminish their legacy or standing in rock music, there’s very little material that pushes the band forward either.

Sleep Well Beast is an album that rewards repeat listens and unfurls its beauty slowly over time: The National have yet again made an album that’s as brilliant as it is ambitious.

Dedicated to Bobby Jameson offers an enticing preview, delicately ebbing and flowing between irreverent pastiche and tender melancholy, and in the end striking a balance that makes it one of Pink's more accessible and immediately gratifying records in recent memory.

A strutting, assured 42 minutes of funky indie-pop indulgence born out of the ashes of a pretty stagnant indie rock band. Proof everyone deserves a second-chance.

The end product is another outstanding record, executed with fearlessness and grace.

On each listen Love What Survives is a record full of raw honesty, both musically and artistically, and is worth your undivided attention.

A solid album that despite getting into a more forward stride, does slow burner as patience tester.

Aat only just in their twenties, they’re still wracked with as much uncertain as they self-assure; a dichotomy conveyed perfectly across Try Not to Freak Out, and something which makes the record both ballsy, and utterly irresistable.

CCCLX is fantastic as a momentary escape from the lights and sounds of the mad world we’re living in, but once you’ve holstered the pastel pink desert eagle and left the booth, you’re left with only a handful of killer moments that might entice you to return.

While A Moment Apart has the foundations of a great album, ODESZA fall slightly short of the mark.

Even if the laid-back and relaxed atmospherics are endearing, there’s plenty of room to push the musical perimeters which the London duo fail to take advantage of.

Pure vaudeville, pure theatre--and pure Sparks.

The production is absolutely masterful. The conviction is assured; the weightiest of subjects: that of 'life' and 'death' are tackled and shackled by Zola exper

The intuitive, steady flow of writing in the studio means that the record can lack form. And yet, despite some generic meandering, none of the productions come across as derivative.

Outrage! finds them actually enjoying the process of writing and experimenting with the potent formula they concocted back at the start of the millennium.

With such weighty subject matter, and with some own personal trauma influencing the record, it’s sadly lacking in bite or overall attack.

Fifteen years on from their first album, it reminds you that this band's trajectory is beholden to nothing except Andrew's own insatiable curiosity. Long may it remain this wayward.

Being a tad derivative isn't a crime, however, and everyone needs an influence. What's important is that the songs are good--and they are.

Vivid, compelling and unafraid of delving into new territory, Mogwai have found the ideal combination of progression and familiarity.

With this expertly curated and brilliantly sequenced collection, BadBadNotGood have demonstrated that there’s still life in the compilation, and have shown the benefit of getting professionals on board to create them.

By focussing in on softer deployments of electronics and more subtle processing, and staying resolutely in an ambient soundworld, Art In The Age Of Automation does feel comparatively safe; well turned-out and nicely polished, but generally risk-free in execution.