It’s comfortable, casual and--as is Iggy--a little bit weird at times. It’s catchy and has some great stories nestling in there--Post Pop Depression gets its hooks into you gradually with each listen.

HÆLOS are clearly intent on shunning tradition. With that in mind, this is a promising start.

The more you listen, the more you start to learn this is not an album of ‘Eleanor Rigby’s; it’s an album of ‘A Day in the Life’s.

If it could be more dynamic, there’s no doubting the precision of the songwriting, as each track digs its way into your brain, lodging itself in the shadows.

It’s simply the mark of a record that’s captured them exactly as they are at this moment in time. Although it’s tempting to call Instructions a ‘fascinating document’, it’s probably more accurate to settle for ‘rad record’.

Know It All isn’t perfect, but it’d be a challenge not to fall for even just some its charms.

Good Grief marks an important next step in the realisation of their sassy pop character.

While All My DemonS is a listen that’s at times varied, interesting and progressive, any connections made here are purely at surface level.

To call untitled unmastered a follow-up would be unfair, but what it reveals is that rap’s most innovative has a lot more left in his locker.

For an overwhelming portion of this Ryan Adams-produced record, La Sera just sound a bit too polite, and lacking in the smirking mischief of previous releases.

With a stark lyrical dexterity and deliciously noodling guitar riffs, the album is torn between crippling sentiment and stark detachment.

They don’t often get the time to build a song from nothingness to explosion quite as well as they mastered on their debut. It’s a powerplay that largely works, yet still takes enough rests to showcase a frantically beating heart and a definite intelligence underneath.

While their hooks are huge, there are moments within Limitless that seem too polished.

Falling somewhere in between the sophistication of Everything Everything and the flamboyancy of Maroon Five, it isn’t until the halfway point, and ‘I Feel the Weight’ that the familiar chill of previous releases is restored.

Throughout, United Crushers teases with an array of complex stick-work and trickling synths. Everything suggests that Poliça have finally drawn straws and found something to stick with--and they definitely haven’t picked the shortest.

On Long Way Home, she delivers these in spades.

Essentially, what each track on At Hope’s Ravine has in common, is the blistering intensity with which it’s delivered, culminating in the ever-intensifying title track and the cathartic sonic explosion with which it bows out. A staggering debut album.

It’s hard to ignore the inconsistency and feeling that something’s lacking from its second half. That said, the rough-around-the-edges charm and guitar-packed indie give DMA’s a great starting point on this album.

A bright, well constructed and boldly vivid first outing, showing a first rate ear for instantly osmosing melody, this debut is written for the Christine in everyone.

As impressively considered as the group are when it comes to their compositions, they evoke a cold feeling of invulnerability within their music that’s hard to avoid.

Unexplored avenues, Nutriblended genre combinations, and left-field pop gold have always been Santigold’s bag, and though the price tag here may be 99¢, she’s never sounded freer.

In boldly delving into their pop sensibilities, the group have created an album that encompasses their intriguing convictions for different genres and refined it into a record of high quality.

Trim the fat and you’d wind up with a special record, but with those bizarre moments gone, The 1975 would also lose some of their bombastic charm.

From the shifting tempos of ‘Copper Mines’ to the serene beginning and raucous math-y crescendo of closer ‘Hold Your Own Hand’ When You Walk A Long Distance And You Are Tired is never settled, and never should be.

It’s all too nice, too safe, and ultimately, too predictable.

They didn’t rush into Operator, and the compelling finished article is proof that patience pays dividends in the album game. Other rock debuts this year may well prove more immediately accessible, but few are likely to be as thrillingly original.

Though the London band don’t exactly attack in a fist-raised blaze of mega-riffs, they hit hard all the same with quick, sharp, and consistently executed blows of effortless songwriting.

Come the curtain call closer of ‘Push’, it’s evident to see Love Yes serves as the most iridescent article of TEEN’s discography--a crowning jewel that’s wildly flamboyant on first impression yet deeply personal upon closer inspection.

There’s no doubt that the record’s production is second to none and Garratt’s talent is as obvious as an Uber driver’s Sat Nav, but his USP is somewhat dimmed by hours and hours of carefully chosen layers, vocals and everything else in between.

Taking an unmistakable euphoria and driving it home, with Life Of Pause Wild Nothing might have planted their feet firmly on the ground, but that hasn’t stopped Jack Tatum from creating a soundscape straight from your wooziest daydream.

Following two discouraging albums, Need Your Light represents another stumble in the New Yorkers’ career. A disappointment.

With every sound shoved forward in the mix, oodles of white space floats inbetween the sound-splats. Every moment is for the taking. Painting With marks an immediate, and physical new direction, and anything seems possible.

A genius--and yes, perhaps a little bit crazy--with an attention to detail like no other, no matter what might slip from his grasp ($53 million for one, if recent statements are to be believed), Kanye West is in full control of every atom of The Life Of Pablo.

Whenever debut LP neo swerves close to normality, these formula-shunners tear things to shreds.

Packed with brilliance, ambition and warmth, SVIIB may be the full stop on the band’s work together, but it’s an album that will stand as the perfect goodbye.

Human Ceremony isn’t anywhere near fault-free, but its charm arrives when the trio get ahead of themselves.

For the most part it works--a few repeated listens and the melodies and hooks bury themselves in the brain. But on tracks like ‘Car’ and ‘Be Apart’, Maine’s determination to retain that sense of despair can overshadow everything and cause some slight desensitivity.

In the end, this is an album with a whimsical construct that fails to extend its ideas and live up to its musical promise.

What’s most impressive is in how Cole’s story peaks towards the end. Instead of dragging you down or being overbearing, Is The Is Are’s tale finds stark truths when it closes.

Resort allows their promise to be condensed into a single release, and if a debut album follows soon, the momentum could take them to big things.

A record that feels cathartic but never ruthless, freeing but still subtle.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a better document of troubled teenagehood than Vile Child.

It’s difficult to imagine the results being this good if Cross had limited studio time, or if she tried to record vocal takes with strangers listening in.

The visceral imagery and headlines that ushered in Suicide Songs ends up serving to hold it back a little; an album that’s excellent at times, but which arrived with preconceptions so strong that could never be matched.

Your Friend’s unusual combination of the ultra-real with the unnatural world of electronic manipulation makes for a slightly unsettling final product.

Unflinchingly honest, Wet don’t specialise in happy endings, but they’re always telling a good story.

Too often This is Acting is steeped in unimaginative cliche, and leans too heavily on familiar pop tropes in a way that her previous solo albums did not.

Too much of the album’s mid-section is plagued by Kele’s whimper, and the experimentation with guitar sounds sometimes prioritises method over melody, but there’s diamonds in the rough that shine as bright as the best of Bloc Party.

Rooted in its own creation, Night Thoughts is expansive and enchanting.

Infinite Summer is the classic case of an album that’s so fully-melded, so self-composed in its identity, that you get the nagging sense of déjà vu, that you’ve been here before, and yet it’s something brand new.

The Waiting Room is reserved and considered, yet you still come out of the other end feeling like you’ve run the emotional gamut; in that respect, at least, you have to recognise it as Staples’ strongest set of songs for a good long while.

Although the lyrical themes aren’t necessarily treading new ground--and at times sound feel more 1970s than 2010s--New View is the most self-assured realisation of the Friedberger’s delicately eloquent and intelligent musical talent.

This is a decent effort made frustrating by Segall’s prodigious talent.

They may have left behind their haunted house roots, which might rub some people off the wrong way, but Chairlift have found themselves creating something far more barmy, bold and exhilarating than ever before.

They claim to be writing about politics, death and sex on this record, but Songs For Our Mothers offers so little that’s actually new. There’s no light to shine, no tales to be told and no ground to be broken. Nothing to see here.

Harsh, aggressive, hungry, and urgent, Adore Life is everything a Savages album should be. Unexpectedly - and this proves its greatest success.

An incredibly accomplished effort from a band who have truly found their feet.

An unpredictable but spectacular ride through pop, rock and everything in between, it’s hard not to bowled over by Urie’s efforts yet again.

Not to Disappear is intentionally difficult to stomach. It finds a dark pit to nestle in and then digs deeper. But few acts could deliver these unceasingly grim details with such majesty.

They stick to their guns, and they end up emphasising their rough-around-the-edges strengths.

From challenging, in your face exploration to beautifully light-as-air soulful ballads, there’s a constant idea that there’s no clue as to where the next track will swerve. There’s a feeling that Bowie is having fun too.

Each track feels like a different corner of Pusha T’s mind, all coming together to form a complete brain, glimmering with glitz and glamour on the surface and exploring darkness and deep thought below. If this is ‘The Prelude’, imagine what Pusha T can do with the rest.

Kid Wave succeed the most when they go huge on the hooks and choruses.

It’s not so much a Meat Wave as it as an all-consuming fleshy tsunami. Although this breed of cut-the-brakes punk is obtrusive and in-your-face in all the right places, it offers little else in terms of versatility or gear changes.

Instead of its wide-eyed optimism rubbing off onto others, this album has the effect of canned laughter bouncing off the walls. It’s a hundred nutritional yoghurts being mushed into bland liquid nothingness.

Turning the lens on himself, it’s more introspective, touching on relationships and self-worth without ever losing that smirk and shrug in his delivery.

Big Grrrl Small World is an intentionally intense listen – Lizzo’s physical presence (a black woman,“statuesque and big as hell”) is placed meticulously front and centre.

Jam is all well and good, but this record is at times lacking in the bread and butter of music--songs.

Engaging and draining, Parquet Courts have once again pushed their capabilities to the max, and as ever, the results are like nothing you’ll find elsewhere.

Despite coming from the same body that houses a personality so unbelievably erratic and off-the-wall in the best possible way, 25 is as straight-down-the-line ‘Adele album’ as it gets.

Kill The One You Love is a record built around hope, and around finding the optimism in fatalism, and the inevitable freedom that comes with such a discovery. As such, it feels much less a debut, and far more an aphorism from the mouths of a band wise beyond their years.

Aside from the brutal norm its twenty, overwhelming tracks follow, Mutant is also capable of digging up gold.

It’s a record bound in frustration and release, exacerbated by the band’s continuing reliance on repetition, and as it comes to roost with the tense ‘Bite Mark’ and its tumbling conclusion TRAAMS’ return shows itself to be one that’s all the better for its slow build.

Part folk, part neo-classical, part metal; The Miraculous could easily be pigeonholed as a gothic record--and sure, there are definitely elements of that.

Lanterns on the Lake are making rock music that, in terms of how vital it feels in 2015, is virtually without equal. Beings just about confirms that.

While things may start to sag towards the end as the wind in King Gizzard’s new sails dips low, Paper Maché Dream Balloon is undoubtedly one of their more confident statements yet.

He may not be in our world completely yet but you should keep making the trip to his: it really is a trip.

In this bubbling cauldron that refuses to be contained, Asher finds the liberation he’s been searching for.

It’s impossible to resist the instant, limb-grabbing appeal of the pop music Grimes is making here, and dizzyingly big, this is a record about shaking off every constraint, and wrenching hold of reality with both fists.

Sonically, it does what it sets out to do, delivering on the playful, biting riffs, singalong moments and charming, scrappy harmonies that accompany one big swell of emotion after the next.

Comparisons are all well and good, but ultimately Making Time’s strength is in asserting exactly what Woon specialises in. After so many years away, a reminder was much needed.

This is intelligent dance music (with no capital letters)--clever and warm, sophisticated and joy

Wiped Out! is a fine wine in a sea of vodka Red Bulls, and having successfully mixed pop, rock and hip-hop together, it seems like they have finally defined their sound as a band.

Bleeds bends and twists genres into more combinations than are possible on a Rubix cube; splicing hip-hop, techno and even classical in ways that make it one of the most original and emotionally charged British albums of the year.

These songs might be the result of time spent in-between projects, but they are no b-sides, and they show a bigger, more cinematic side to Courtney’s songwriting that not only provides solitude in its glistening nostalgia, but conjures excitement for his projects to come.

Courting The Squall touches and recaps on the ideas which Guy Garvey masters in his romanticisms and balladry, but gloriously glimpses his experimental and playful side.

By playing it too safe, Animal Nature isn’t worth recommending. It’s just sort of fine and that won’t cut it.

Never sitting still or dwelling on their influences for too long, the third incarnation of Cheatahs in 2015 have harnessed the hyperactivity of their release schedule, channelling it into a collection of tracks that houses some of their strongest moments to date.

The Philadelphia quartet’s appeal is built on an earnestness and an honesty that leaks from every sweat-channelling pore of The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us.

If kept short and sweet, Temple would have made a charmingly laconic record that blossomed in unconventionality, yet sadly here is muddled in his expansive means.

Pray For Rain is a sophisticated progression for Pure Bathing Culture. Despite brief drizzly moments, on the whole the album evokes the warmth of drying off after a torrential downpour.

When they get past their demons, Half Moon Run sit somewhere between accomplished musicians and potential game-changers. Too often they settle into a default mode, rarely hitting the melodic highs of ‘It Works Itself Out’ or the enraged bruiser ‘Consider Yourself’.

She takes a bold, explorative leap into the centre of her own mind.

They’re untouchable in one sense, but they don’t look to be building on more than solid foundations. Threading together moments of true beauty is a nagging sense that there’s so much of this parallel universe they’ve yet to explore.

Real Lies’ debut effort instead puts forward a group who’ve clearly agonised over every detail of their early ‘90s aesthetic, and forgotten about the songs in the process.

EL VY could have been many things for Matt Berninger--in the end his first non-National album serves to take him away from firm rooting in gloom to a certain extent, but largely just exhibits him doing everything he does so well, just with a few tweaks and exceptions.

A listen that encourages looking inwards and coming to the kind of realisations Welsh himself has poured into the album, a record it’s impossible not to be swept up by.

There’s still plenty to recommend here, but you can’t help but feel that Neon Indian have a top-drawer electro pop record in them, if only they can trim the fat accordingly.