Blue's watery explorations demonstrate an intriguing new facet to the project, but it might well come at the expense of the fearsome impact that earlier releases packed in the shedload.

Debut ‘Unlearn’ showed promise but Age of Fracture is that promise realised and then some.

While the emotions are big, the choruses are even bigger: ‘the good the bad the olga’ begs for a cathartic moshpit, while ‘pardee urgent care’ is a definitive phone-torches-in-the-air moment.

It's full of wonderfully written lines, often intimate, sincere and grotesque, and sometimes weirdly anglophile.

Celebratory, rich and more confident than ever before, they’re yet again the finest versions of themselves.

Its clarity, confidence, and cohesion set it apart from their debut which had room for improvement on those fronts.

In a world of easy sound bites and shallow narratives New Material has withdrawn from the spectacle to pursue a whole new goal--to teach you something about yourself.

What Clams Casino specialises in and what makes this record a success is his ability to seemingly carve beats from ice, so cold is the production. His signature sounds otherworldly, with the breathy synths and crisp bass a soundtrack to some interstellar gang warfare.

Their debut documented pure, unrelenting struggle. Ullages finds a way out. Mitchell remains a captivating frontman, but he’s an entirely different blend to the one we knew before.

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

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.

A transitional work perhaps, but whichever fork in the road he follows next, you feel he’ll continue to adapt.

With one foot in the classic NYC underground scenes that paved the way, ‘Underneath’ is pure bass-led, disco ball-flecked Studio 54, while the dance-punk footprints of ESG are all over ‘Cities’’ irrepressible hook and ‘Compromised’ tips a hat to godmother Debbie Harry. ‘Gentle Grip’ sounds timeless.

Bastille’s choral, digestible power pop DNA is present, but grittier than usual.

If the songwriting on Hitch is, to coin an old music hack turn-of-phrase, ‘mature’, it’s also concise--in a good way.

It’s obvious they’re well-practiced at the craft, conjuring up 35 minutes of their trademark melancholy. It’s also an album of firsts for them - newly added keyboard player Marta Cikojevic adds a vital new layer. This in turn frees up vocalist Jane Penny to add a couple of flute solos on the record, which is a pleasant surprise. In fact, it’s the broadness of flavour on the album that is its main strength.

With its Ramones-via-The Golden State garage punk, it's brilliantly noisy in all the best places ('White On White', 'Wait For The Man') and yet not afraid to tone down on occasion ('Gimme Something').

Although playful in a creative way, this is a serious album.

American Utopia isn’t a complete paradise. Yet, there’s enough upbeat vibes on offer here to perhaps make you feel a little more optimistic about the future.

This record is a playful, daring and capricious listen, and one of the first truly remarkable records of 2012.

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

The range of influences on the album ensures this is a rather uneven listen, unhelped by the cast of vocalists.

'Mauve' isn't a bad album. It's competently made, it's mixed pretty well. It's done well. But it's been done before, and better.

While all the elements are there it seems far too eager to drift into not only the background but also into itself, with it turning into musical wallpaper and into one, long indistinguishable track with worrying ease.

This isn’t britpop recooked, reheated or reserved. Be it 1993 or 2013, In Love stands proud.

Last year’s ‘Long Black Cars’ was already leaning in the direction of old school rock ‘n’ roll, but they fully embrace it here, and all the better for it (save for a few songs that could’ve done with less guitar solos, more Larkin-via-Cocker observations).

More power, more fury, more energy--it’s certainly a promising tone to set.

For the majority of tracks, they succeed in their goals. It’s only when looking back at the whole picture, somehow the pieces don’t quite appear to fit.