Any sense of experimentation and freedom is impossible to find. Are Dinosaur Jr trying too hard to be Dinosaur Jr? It's the way it seems.

Whilst the album as a whole doesn't necessarily tread new ground, and admittedly is a little rough around the edges, it's a promising debut, and you can expect to hear more from Don Broco in the future.

'My Head Is An Animal' doesn't disappoint. Endearing, exciting, and downright enjoyable throughout, it is one of the finest debuts of the year so far.

Even if at times the album can be quite esoteric despite its pop veneer, there is a purity of expression that is addictive.

While Spoon and Wolf Parade fans may be mourning during the hiatus of their favourite bands, this is a tasty release in the interim.

Contact is a disappointment because it's packed with untapped potential, which never seems to be fully realised.

Experimental, psychedelic, mad, and oddly, very listenable pop music.

Recorded with longtime producer Neal Avron, Southern Air isn't a major step away from the band's previous work but a return to the original fire of their early years.

An album which is deluged in melancholy of the sweetest kind, 'Threads' undoubtedly deserves your ears.

Dignan Porch are slightly less effective at a less sprightly pace, veering too close to the point of collapse on 'And Are Now Not', but this is a fine exercise in pearly, bleary eyed acid pop.

It's one of the most powerful records to be released in a very long time.

when he gets it right, he's one of the best.... Let's be honest though, the hit rate isn't great.

Four is better [than debut album, Silent Alarm]. Or at the very least as good.

There's enough variances in the sound, with the tracklisting set up in such as way that you notice the changes in style, to make sure you pay attention to every minute.

Warm and opening yet still dazzlingly inventive.

As with all Dan Deacon albums, 'America' is a challenging listen and at times the sheer amount of things going on becomes a bit much, however it is also a supremely powerful album from a musician at the very top of his game.

[Tracer] is more expansive and impressive than their previous output.

For the most part this is a flawless, breathless lap around both pop and "underground" music. 'Devotion' is the sound of modern pop, modern love - and heartbreak.

Between sombre tones and esctasy highs, and with tracks like 'Folk Hero Shtick' and 'Reagan's Skeleton', this will leave you with a grin on your face and a confidence music will keep going.

Express Yourself is an excellent return showing that Diplo has saved enough creative juice for himself and, despite the whole host of guests featured throughout, the EP feels very much like Diplo's party.

'I Was A Cat From A Book' is a good album with top-class musicianship and production, that deserves your ear at least once even if folk is not your thing.

Just Tell Me That You Want Me does suffer from the lack of coherency caused by the inclusion of so many different artists and styles but fortunately, when the subject and the songs are so good, this matters little.

Loma Vista is a ultimately an immediately enjoyable, if easily forgettable album, far too one-sided for its own good, and more a showcase of a band who are capable of writing a handful of very good pop songs, but not an album worthy of any longevity.

[The album is] a reminder of musically, just what a great band the Flips themselves actually are.

This album is dizzyingly uplifting, as camp as a weekend at Butlins and effortlessly iridescent.

'Shrines' is a joy from start to finish, with a sticking power that so many others seem to lack.... It would be no surprise to see Purity Ring top the end of year round-ups.

The lyrics are a little more personal, the band a little more developed - it seems that this is the start of a new and exciting chapter for The Gaslight Anthem.

While this second album seems genuine, and at times very good, it just doesn't excite and satisfy in quite the same way as the spontaneous creativity of the debut. 'Gossamer' is one giant juxtaposition that can't quite sit comfortably.

'MTMTMK' may not quite carry the same dazzling shock of hearing something truly different in the way their debut did but it is certainly an album that carries on the spirit of the debut while progressing their sound at the same time.

It's the sound of Dirty Projectors just being themselves and fully justifying the royalty status Longstreth and Co. now enjoy.

It's one of the best rock albums of the year and shows there's no age limit on kicking up dust and splitting ear drums.

There are strokes of brilliance on Twin Shadow's second full length, 'Confess', as Lewis Jr. blends 80s influences with dashes of funk and pop to create a largely cohesive record that is steeped in lustful atmosphere.

A collection that is perfectly pitched between old and new with nothing too challenging. It hangs together very well for both a casual listen or as a soundtrack to a night out.

Reptar have pieced emotions together, both euphoric and heartbreaking, to create a debut that, although perhaps too varied in places, is a great starting point for the quartet.

It's a patchy but rich tapestry of sounds whose strange shape bewitches you.

'Days Go By' doesn't catapult them back to their prime; there's a lot of issues that can be picked out, be it recognisable musicality or questionable song choices. Having said that, when The Offspring do get it right on this record, they are great.

'Dry Land Is Not A Myth' is a mixed bag. Church's high-pitched voice could prove to be a bit marmite, as could the songs on here without much focus. Clocking in a couple minutes over a half-hour though, it's short enough to deserve at least one spin this summer.

>> is not a pleasurable listen and it is not an easy listen, but it is an incredible one.

A record that does the musical equivalent of wrapping its arms around your body and giving you a nice, warm hug.

'The Tarnished Gold' is a tighter, more familiar album from a band that have always done their own thing, and it's a very well-worked compromise – this is fantastic stuff.

'There's No Leaving Now' in fact resonates like the stark antithesis to Jeffrey Lewis' wry, comical anti-folk. It's dreary as hell.

Though a dulcet voice the lass may have, some of the songs prove all too 'big' for her.

'Mutual Friends' is an album that just gets better and better with every listen.

The perfect soundtrack to the festival season and those long days when you sit in the shade with a cool drink.

A lot of the songs are solid hits in the making.

An album that immerses you into its world, a headphones record that is at once both their most accessible and their most challenging, revealing new layers after every listen. Unpredictable, in the very best way.

In a contemporary pop age of increasingly tired homogeneity, AlunaGeorge are a very welcome breath of fresh air.

At times, Tucson feels life an afterthought, lacking in the kinetic intensity and corrosive experimentalism of earlier releases.

An exhaustingly incoherent listen.

It's entirely possible that by proving they can make anything their own, they've become one of Britain's best bands.

A passable if disappointing montage of mid-tempo electro-pop that flirts dangerously close to dull trip-hop.

[In Our Heads] is another joyous triumph.

Full of campy affectation presented with a shiny flourish, 'Do Things' is not fundamentally a bad album, but the constant happy-go-lucky nonsense, along with the un-imaginative songwriting, just seems a little contrived.

There is a willful lack of originality on the album in so much as at times it has such a faithful synth-pop sound that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a 1980s reissue.

At the end of The National Health, you won't be disappointed, but you won't be itching for more.

While this album will neither shock nor rewrite opinion, there is no denying 'Strangeland' is solid enough.

This is eccentric indie pop with a slightly off-kilt flavour.

As loud and aggressive Flats can sound it can't come close to hiding a lack of pretty much everything other than extreme volume and misplaced nothing-better-to-do-than-have-a-go-at-everyone-else small-minded aggression.

If we're honest, the first half of the album, title track aside, is slightly cringeworthy, both in terms of music and the production. But the whole record is redeemed, beautifully, by the last three tracks.

There may well be no such thing as a ten out of ten album, a level of perfection and flawlessness that is by all likelihood totally unobtainable; but it's hard to imagine anyone coming closer than these five men from New York.

Endless Flowers is an amazing effort that deserves a place at the top of its genre. This album deserves to be heard and loved. Do yourself a favour and get yourself a copy once it hits the stores.

Howlin' Pelle and co... have returned with the pomp, charisma and contagious sense of fun they're known for, with a surprising variety added in to the mix.

[Anxiety] retains all the best things about her debut while expanding on both her sound and style.

But like a fine pastiche, the presented elements are enjoyable, but there's a detached lack of soul and ardor.

A vital, woozy summer repose, nine tracks in the perfect sequence for drifting off on a lazy, languorous May afternoon.

A wonderful start.

This was bold move for Joyce Manor, but one that exemplifies exactly why they're loved.

It's a bold step, and one that can't quite sustain itself but Blood Speaks is a force of nature, and in more senses than one.

'Sit Tight', 'Melting', 'Never Get Tired' and 'All In One Day' all make you imagine the band having a really grand time recording this, but you'd have a hard time figuring out where these songs are going.

These guys just made you want to flail your arms around and shout the lyrics. Heel-stomping music. God-forbid, head-banging music.

'Magic Hour' is an album that equally frustrates and enthrals. The collection of excellent electro pop tracks show the band still know their way around a melody but the album is let down by a few too many tired and morose ballads and witless appropriations of chart successful sounds.

'2:54' is the sound of two Fallen Angels back to steal what's left of your soul; it's sultry, it's mischievous, and it's damn near magnificent.

A complete joy.

This is perhaps Sigur Rós' most human-sounding album to date, too. Prepped for intimate nights with loved ones and exhausting journeys back home; it's an album that ditches the dramatic and brings in the calm.

This is far from a bad album but it's also far from matching their best... 'This Machine' is both an attempt to recapture the glory days and a sad admission that it can't be done.

As a first collection of work from the band this is a stunning release, bursting with life and creativity and fully deserving of the attention and praise that is bound to come its way.

There is perhaps no band with a greater appreciation of the sheer joy and thrill of pop music in its purest form than Saint Etienne. 'Words And Music By Saint Etienne' is not only their own unique take on what pop means to them it is also an incredibly fine album.

A very impressive debut. The best thing about it is you get the sense he has only just started.

Gallery is an enjoyable offering from Craft Spells.

[Walk the River]is not for the faint-hearted but it's certainly for the soft-hearted - three albums along, they still feed our hunger for the big, the wild and the honest.

Best Coast will never win over the cynics who like their music to sport a more assured style of intelligence and invention, but for those who fell in love with the sunburnt stoner of old, there's plenty more to revel in, here.

A truly astonishing, unique and unchallenged sound.

A great album full of slightly haywire, unpretentious pop music.

Go Fly A Kite is a likeable album, but it sounds like Jet at its worst times and like an American alt-rock band past their sell by date at its best.

Highly recommended.

Another triumph.

Back to their scrappy, atonal, lo-fi sound of the band's early days it mightn't be, 'In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull' is still a good album which sees The Cribs exploring new sounds and old – stumbling upon some truly excellent songs in the process.

Though 'Europe' is an enchanting and elegant record, this is not a giant leap forward.

One of the most endlessly intriguing albums of the year so far.

'Time Team' is a hugely rewarding album that delivers rich emotional laden electronic music with a human heart and an impressive debut.

The final word sees Neck Of The Woods as a great alternative rock record that will hopefully spur the band onward where 'Swoon' had them treading water.

If this album is your first experience of Wymeswold's favourite songs, it's unlikely you will forget them. If you're a veteran, this is a good reminder of their brilliance.

This eponymous debut is a well-rounded effort for a band that clearly has a knack for stadium-filling melodies and angst-ridden confessions. Anthemic in most parts and enjoyable in all, Various Cruelties deliver a debut that's moving and memorable.

For all its playful charm, CYRK is deliciously dark: it revels in its ability to marry calmness with the uncomfortable.

Combined with the hypnotic instrumentation that blankets the record, it's easy to immerse yourself and get lost in its alluring character.

Lonely and desolate at times, the album would benefit from being reigned in slightly - amongst the 19 tracks is a brilliant 12 or 13 songs that, despite the subject matter, deserve to see the light of day.

Melancholic and joyful, it's both soft and harsh, but more impressive than any contradiction is the gorgeous use of timbre that takes over from the word go. A wonderfully simple, elegantly performed album that puts the importance of texture into perspective.

Its refined edges, percussion heavy sounds and understated opulence find the band's sonic landscape revitalised.