Familiar yet new and exciting, individualistic without being exclusive, ambitious yet welcoming and engaging, and inventive without becoming the sound of being clever for being clever's sake.

Ultimately Once More 'Round The Sun may not be as brilliant as last album 'The Hunter', but it's a fine piece of work and shows the band are not only ready for, but moreover deserving of their success.

Eighth studio album ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ emerges as a clear indication of someone who’s finally figured out who they are, resulting in a bold pop record oozing with the confidence and style that results from a period of self-discovery.

More often than not, musicians determined to avoid old tropes are exhausting. But 22, A Million stands out as Bon Iver’s finest moment yet, a cross between invention and beauty that’s delivered without compromise.

Willowbank is utterly charming, shimmering and another step in Yumi Zouma’s quietly fascinating evolution.

Last Building Burning is Cloud Nothings embracing a harsher component to their sound--almost recalling the likes of recent Oh Sees releases--which has grown into something unsettled, bold and reckless.

Rich, imaginative, and more than a little strange.

With Primrose Green, Walker has created a mystical record, balancing idyllic sonics with moving sensibility.

Whether they’re railing against the establishment or helping us escape, LIFE’s debut provides comfort and support for us all.

The most uncomfortable elements of life, colliding to create frantic, disorganised, but completely coherent mess, this record isn’t basic. It’s anything but.

[The Haunted Man is] beautiful, daring, and captivating, the sound of pop's dark heart carving out its own niche and cementing Khan's status as one of our most inventive, ambitious artists.

QTY is as timeless, compelling and clever as you could hope for first time round.

On the surface it may appear comparably safe in tone; a softer and arguably less frustrated sound runs throughout. Yet it never shies away from the unmistakable fact that Shamir has something to say, and that it’s always worth listening to.

While Sick Scenes is a record that questions its authors places in the world in tandem, it’s also one that shows that, for as long as they’re here, Los Campesinos! will always be able to express a certain character type better than most.

His most experimental release to date.

Both heavy and cumbersome and light and uncertain, it will prove difficult for some to find an entrance to it, but once you’re inside you’ll find yourself enveloped by its bold experimentation and the stunning way they execute it.

While the album ends with an echoed sigh of melancholic relief: “Finally I’m on my own”. It’s indicative of the confidence that runs through the band’s long-awaited debut, one that paints ‘Teething’ as both the party and the comedown.

Gone is some of the clinical coldness of their early work; instead, there’s a warm, embracing quality to their fully formed, imaginary universe where vulnerability and hope collide.

It’s novelistic. It’s smart. Of course it is, it’s a Destroyer album.

Not consolidating or scaling back their ambition in the slightest, mewithoutYou continue to be one of indie-rock’s most consistently fascinating voices, and on ‘[Untitled]’ they’re as weird and wonderful as ever.

Sometimes gloriously messy, sometimes just simply glorious, it is probably the most fun you'll have all year rhyming with harpists.

he 2 Bears have once again triumphed at what they do best, serving up a vibrant and joyous take on the music that has shaped them.

The Inevitable End accepts its own strengths and faults in one fatal blow, just like any last gasp should.

The first half of the album is a joy. The second half is even better.

Amid an existing height of musical Afrofuturism, ‘Sweet Justice’ is a crowning achievement - an assertion of self through distinct and precise perspective at the apex of a movement.

It’s the most eclectic punk record to emerge in ages, and even though it incorporates elements that might seem incongruous in a style that thrives off its simplicity, they’re carried off with enough class for it to sound intriguing rather than jarring. In fact, there’s a refreshing elegance about the whole thing.

There’s a diversity of stylistic approach and yet a singularity of vision that few artists are able to combine so early on.

Not the finished article, but as close as the (still) youthful band are likely to come at this stage.