She is as captivating as ever, but the rougher edges have been removed slightly giving us a more polished, and immediate, album.

On her seventh studio album, the Canadian musician spreads her brash and ultra-horny sentiment across another collection of vibrant, high-energy bangers.

2014 saw many bands trying to recreate sounds of the past in their own way, but with Viet Cong, the band are remoulding genre conventions and confirming that they’re not settling for anything other than pushing the boundaries.

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 record that improves on their second effort, placing them in a strong position to break through even further.

It might not be perfect and it might be reductive in parts, but it’s not contrived or calculated.

Kintsugi sees their eighteen-year-in-the-making intentions fully realised, and--eight albums in--Death Cab For Cutie are born again; a little cracked, but all the more golden for it.

Sprinter is a bruising, brilliant record from a singular talent. It won’t soothe or placate. It’s all teeth.

Possesses a lyrical tone that tilts from confident to uncertain, and nostalgic to forward-looking, with immaculate precision.

‘Past // Present // Future’ does what it says on the tin in a masterful way, melding the influences of the past into something that sounds shiny and modern, and achieving the rare feat of making pop punk still sound distinctive.

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.

IV is a wondrous beast.

At its heaviest, ‘TEXIS’ is blistering, ‘Justine Go Genesis’ as mind-bendingly intense as it gets, with closer ‘Hummingbird Bomb’ and single ‘Locust Laced’ not far behind. And when synths do take centre stage, no impact is lost: ‘True Seekers’ and ‘I’m Not Down’ are akin to a more in-your-face Chvrches, Alexis’ vocal sitting juxtaposed with expansive electronics. It’s the best of both worlds.

The music is the same gorgeous blend of folk-rock in the vein of Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks as on previous albums, and indeed, many of the song titles, such as ‘Children of the Empire’, feel lifted from the dusty cover of a forgotten LP of ballads.

Streamlined and with every moment as vital as the next yet playful and curious, Heydays manages to craft a new path from a well-travelled landscape.

It should come as little surprise that Lydia has spent time on the standup circuit, and it’s this ability to send up any notions of seriousness that’s Gustaf’s greatest trick. Add some suitable spiky, metronomic riffs and ‘Audio Drag…’ is anything but.

Gallows at their harshest, their angriest and their most thrilling and it turns out that no change in frontman can stop that.

It stands before you with the reverence of a cathedral and leaves you with a lasting sense of piety and clarity.

The LP’s darker moments are its most affecting, but the playful brushes of humour throughout never diminish anything; in fact, they make ‘It Is What It Is’ a richer, more human experience.

Lysandre frequently charms. It is a primarily low-key statement, but does enough to suggest that Owens' future post-Girls may be very promising.

Still, for all his determination to thumb his nose at convention, I Love You, Honeybear finds Tillman falling face first into perhaps the most expected of musical tropes: the “mature” sophomore release.

While more of a slow burn than his previous efforts, ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’ sees Leon Bridges shine brighter as a songwriter, as an artist and as a man than ever.

Richly nuanced, effortlessly cool and at times beautifully bleak, ‘Home for Now’ feels like the sound of Babeheaven finding their feet in an atmosphere of uncertainty.

‘Migration Stories’, might be his most impressionistic yet, a collection that began life as eleven woozy instrumentals that came together during sessions in Québec with two members of Arcade Fire, Tim Kingsbury and Richard Reed Parry.

There are plenty of shout-a-long moments along the way though (the frantic whoa’s and blah-blah’s on ‘Lionheart’ arrive at exactly the right time), and all-in-all it’s an extremely commendable effort that solidifies PUP as one of this year’s bands to get sweaty to at a festival.

Witty, complex, and endlessly intriguing, Lust For Life is a painstakingly woven record from start to finish, with very few gripes.

What you see is what you get with Kero Kero Bonito. Instant sugar rush pop with extra icing on top, they’ve perfected the quick fix formula.

Westerman may be less accessible than either artist, but his latest is just as notable in its ambition. ‘An Inbuilt Fault’ is an acquired taste, but well worth the effort.