Despite the evident WTF factor, this remains a record chock-full of invention, a pursuit of the new and--most importantly--gigantic songs.

Dutch Uncles’ most direct and user-friendly album yet.

Somersault raises the bar on 2013’s ‘Clash The Truth’.

Singles ‘Level’ and ‘Being Around’ are given a new lick of paint, while newies ‘I Wish It Was Sunday - an invigorating thrash defined by screeching guitar solos - and closer ‘Boring’--a live favourite that sounds even more intense on record--show that Our Girl can more than hold their own across a full-length. It’s what’ll come next that we’re most excited about though.

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.

It may not be a career defining record but The Something Rain is crammed full of twists and turns to create an emotionally rich and thoroughly rewarding listen.

A rare collection of songs that succeeds in both evoking the ethereal and forcing you to reach for the volume button.

From start to finish, Vultures is a relentless storm of roaring rock royalty.

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.

By keeping enough of the old--and allowing themselves the space to go a little heart-on-sleeve--their tales of 2010s disillusionment are a resounding success.

Where The Acid surpass their peers is with the sheer emotional depth layered into each track.

It’s powerfully honest and refreshingly unfiltered, beautifully crafted and distinctive. Most importantly of all it carries the legacy of Tom Searle, and of the remaining Architects members, forward.

The singer-songwriter’s most comprehensive release to date, turns up the production slickness while sacrificing none of his affable, boyish charm.

Resisting the twin urges to oversimplify or over-complicate where inappropriate, Vessels may have succeeded in making one of the smartest and most beguiling electronic albums of the year.

Silent Earthling is far from an reinvention: it’s simply Three Trapped Tigers adapting and tinkering with everything that made ‘Route One Or Die’ such an exciting debut, to end up here with a leaner, more focused, brilliant second album.

Blame Confusion is great.... It spends its whole ten tracks threatening to break out in to full-blown epic--but remains able to stop short every time.

15 years in and with no sign of slowing or calming down, Kasabian don’t have to prove anything anymore. If you’re not on board, it’s frankly your loss.

[In Our Heads] is another joyous triumph.

What’s crucial is that ‘Let the Festivities Begin!’ never feels like a case of throwing all of these different textures at the wall to see what sticks; instead, the sounds of everywhere from Turkey to Peru to Argentina are wound carefully together on the maddeningly catchy likes of ‘FFS’ and ‘Change of Heart’, before being relayed with exhilarating gusto. There will be few debuts this year that feel like such glorious exercises in musical technicolour.

Reaching further and further afield from their early experimental niche sound, Pulled Apart By Horses are now more accessible than ever.

Each track conjures up dusty Nashville bars, from the spoken word sandwiched between a lament to love on album closer ‘Chain Of Tears’ to a knowing play on country cliches on Jenny’s exploration of happiness in her forties, ‘Puppy and a Truck’.

Deleter successfully blurs boundaries between time and space while gifting the listener with the unexpected opportunity for a total sonic catharsis.

Admittedly, her debut has been a bit of a long time coming--with last minute changes delaying until 2015--but with her songwriting already sounding accomplished and confident, it’s been time well spent.

All in all, seemingly indebted to many, this is a band equipped with new-found confidence, poise and an incredibly impressive sophomore effort.

The record’s finest moments relate to everyone’s lives, in one way or another. Whether it’s golden youth or present day regrets, there’s something to cling onto.

‘The Art Of The Lie’ won’t act as an accessible gateway into John Grant’s catalogue, but for those already sold, it’s a deeper excavation into the mind of the man.

86TVs are clearly cut from the same cloth as The Maccabees, but a newfound succinctness and dynamism make for a forward-facing project.

For the most part, though, what ‘Path of Wellness’ signifies is Sleater-Kinney pulling away from their past, towards an era likely to lean heavily not just on their pop sensibilities, but on the move beyond the old push-and-pull relationship between the now-duo - a songwriting bond once defined by their differences has given way to a seamless understanding.