By insisting on its purpose as soundtrack, Daniel Lopatin addresses that separation head-on. This defiance asserts Good Time as a record to listen to in the here and now, with or without its filmic accompaniment.

With Compliments Please, Taylor reclaims the path that the industry had laid out for a pretty girl in an indie band--and she proves, with ample sauciness and class, that strong independent women aren’t just riding trends to cash out. This is metaphorical gold.

If you liked Beirut, you’ll love this.

It's undoubtedly complex, awkward and occasionally without direction, but it also produces moments of astonishing splendour, each with the capacity to bring neck hairs bristling to attention.

In execution, 13&God is a surprisingly sombre album that'll appeal to fans of forward-thinking hip-hop and beyond.

There’s a sense of immediacy and even unpredictability in the most restless moments on Everything In Love, which saves the album from being a rather static and defiant contemplation of The Carters’ victories.

If you're not interested in music that makes you feel reflective then perhaps steer clear, otherwise this is a stark, brutally honest exploration of the human psyche that is indeed special.

Blake’s musical pallet is a fair bit brighter of late and you can expect a deeper, stronger and more solid vocal tone on much of the album.

It feels effortless. Even after repeated listening it somehow grows on you.

Though Losing Feeling remains EP in stature and with its intentions, it’s still enjoyable and represents a need to keep testing different waters before diving headlong into their next murky stretch of creative water.

Asobi Seksu are a band possessing talent and ability far beyond their years and with Citrus they have fully realised their potential in a particularly short time. It is difficult to see how they will be able to better this sophomore release, but you wouldn't bet against them having a few trump cards left up their collective sleeves.

If you had the latest Pig Destroyer record high up on your ‘Best of 2012’ list, if you hold John Peel’s Napalm Death and Carcass sessions close to your heart then Abandon All Life will be a record for you to cherish. If not: move along, there’s nothing for you here.

What Calvi's debut is a mixture of sprawling guitars that teeter somewhere between Tortoise's mathy noodlings, Deerhunter's brownish hue, Hendrix's fade outs and Howling Bells' shimmering grunge-gaze.

Thankfully, the album’s final act is as convincing as its opening movements.

The total lack of sonic subtlety can feel kind of exhausting, on repeated listens, and if you prize music which purports to sound ‘organic’ or similar, this may make you puke blood. If nothing else, though, they’ve made an album which is unlikely to be mistaken for many other bands.

Hands down, ‘Pawn Shoppe Heart’ is the record to blow their contemporaries out of the water.

I’m perfectly happy settling for an upgrade rather than a complete overhaul.

By balancing their instinctive, intricate side within a tight, concise framework, White Denim have created something that’s both accessible and unorthodox.

It is utterly engaging, totally absorbing and, well, absolutely essential.

Small Town Heroes holds enough versatility and charm to captivate even the most jaded soul; songs that will wend their way into your consciousness and stay with you long after the album is done.

It's one of those hard to grasp music forms--listen to it on headphones and the acuity of it improves, listen to it on speakers and another side is revealed.

A record that will endure beyond this year, this decade and the rest.

The fact this singular Brit-hop record's "indie" production is the least interesting of its selling points is quite the testament to Dels and his masterful verbal/lyrical recoil.

Gioele Valenti and Nicola Giunta have created an album that is not a gale, or a draught; it is an engaging, sonic zephyr.

This is perhaps the most deeply rewarding album from a singer songwriter released this year. Each time you think you have the measure of it, it takes things in a wildly different direction.

In this debut, she emerges fully-formed yet ethereal, a spirit slipping between silky and sassy, between clattering beats and electro grinds.

It’s fun, bizarre and slightly derivative all rolled into one package and there aren’t many bands around in 2015 that could achieve that feat.

One of the most hauntingly beautiful records you'll ever hear.

It’s easy to call XAM Duo a Hookworms side project, but to be honest, these days it kind of feels like Hookworms are the side project, not the other way round.

In an age when subtlety is far from the most prized connotative currency, Isotach is a quite literal stark reminder that finesse and restraint can still bound forth on their own terms.

The fact is that Lovers is an almost unremarkable debut, except for the fact that it hits every target set for itself with clinical accuracy. If you’re in the market for something harder than Celine Dion but a little softer than Dragonette, you could do a lot worse than Anna of the North’s debut.

Goat Girl might be 19 tracks long but don't let that put you off. At just 40 minutes in length it doesn't stick around long enough to incur tedium, and what's more, each of its consistent parts makes for an explosive whole that demands repeat listens.

Silver Age's songs come across as a little homogeneous, but it's an exhilarating homogeneous mass, which is all that really counts.

That they have dealt with personal strife and getting older while recalibrating their sound and their approach to songwriting is an impressive feat indeed.

Despite a noble resume, no other album comes closer to capturing the true essence of their onstage presence.

This is a great rock and roll record.

With Hot Dreams Timber Timbre have continued to perfect their sound and aesthetic: no matter what influences or styles they are drawing upon, they are still at their most powerful when they're sending mixed messages.

Claustrophobia feels richer and more worthy of exploring than the likes of ‘Hardbody’ or his Phenix releases.

The band have taken on an ambitious project, and have pulled it off with much aplomb.

It’s a pleasure to hear a group take a step forward on a record of reflection and insight, and whilst it may lack a visceral thrill for some and needs to be approached with a careful ear, many will appreciate the nuance, engagement and depth it offers.

Pale Young Gentlemen–-as an album--is musical theatre. Switching between moments of mid-tempo melancholy to upbeat cabaret, they strike a perfect juxtaposition.

To be frank, it’s pretty much business as usual for Dinosaur Jr on Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, but when the formula works this well, what’s the point in switching it up? Love live the fuzz.

It defies the listener not to nod their head and tap a foot, layering foreboding piano, languid acoustic guitar and a swampy riff under semi-rapped verses and a chorus about being found at the bottom of a river, and demonstrates Mason embracing his albatross with the ease of a man only too pleased to have one.

It's the (insert made-up genre here, including the word 'progressive' and/or suffix '-core') album of the year.

Songs for Christmas is beautiful.

Overall, there's a natural interplay between the players, and it lends the album a relaxed, easy-going vibe.

From the filtered Cut Copy of "Hours" through "Adrift's" hip-hop tape signals to the final patter of "Elegy," Dive is a postcard from a pantone Miami, and a perfect memento for the summer weather we've all been deprived of in Britain.

Kitsune is a powerful and fragile album and composes itself with the grace required to step ahead of the current glut of bands that are revisiting the post-rock genre, believing that all that all post-rock requires is distortion pedals and patience.

Far from falling under the weight of either expectation or ambition, {awayland} is a far more magnificent progression from Jackal than any of us could have hoped for.

This is the sound of a band that, all things considered, has upheld remarkably high standards over a four decade career, and this eighteenth studio album is the latest highlight in a long list of very genuine standouts.

Yet even for all the familiarity to be found within its looping guitars and drums, I’ll Be Lightning also announces the arrival of a promising voice.

A remarkable record that simply demands your attention.

In Cascade the loop is repeated fairly cleanly, although the piano is drenched in a magical, woozy and slightly unsettling echo; while it is certainly quite relaxing and takes you on a wonderful eleven minute journey there is something oddly otherworldly and plaintive about the whole thing.

Heaven takes another firm and measured stride forward in what is rapidly becoming a celebratory jog towards brilliance: a re-affirmation of what heart, skill, craft and guile can birth given time and experience.

Its their frivolous experimentalism and willingness to toy with all aspects of the past that make Girls such an invitingly warm and honest proposition

As we approach the centre, the violent and promiscuous impulses usually reserved for men bubble into view, reclaimed firmly in terms that Trent Reznor only wishes he could convey again. Caught undertow in this wreckage, you might mistake such a layout for entropy; step back, however, and the boarders and subdivisions wrought by EMA’s hand become clear.

Let's just call it an hour's worth of creepy, organic, nearly always-tension-building electronic ambience which certainly owes as much, if not more, to the hidden influences as the obvious ones.

His songs are chiefly good, and there's little more you want of a loose garage punk rock record than that.

Overall, Rewind The Film won't be afforded the same reverence as Manic Street Preachers more definitive outings. Nevertheless, in the context of the present, it's the sound of a band growing old gracefully in reminiscent mood yet firmly at ease with their lot.

Mason might have a lot of worries on his mind, but he’s managed to express them beautifully here.

There are ten fine new songs here, each beautiful and sorrowful, sparse and complex, sacred and profane: this is what to expect from a new record by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy.

There’s a lot more going on besides, maybe a touchstone too much at times, but you’d have to have either incredibly specific or incredibly boring taste to not find some gold herein.

One Breath benefits from its variety and from a taste for experimentation which, striking subtle chords that invite the listener to stay and revisit.

Ruins is at once more formally stately than those [previous] albums, with Harris accompanied only by a stiff piano, and more emotionally obtuse, her lyrics back under a slight veil, taken out of the stark glare that made songs like ‘We’ve Become Invisible’ so touching.

El-P has masterfully used New York’s dark corners as a productive muse on I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead.

A warm and personable record then, but one that doesn’t put its head above the parapet often enough to properly engage.

It seems a little mean to judge this against song-based records - if anything, the narrative arc suggests it's 'about' the deterioration of meaning / tunefulness / drama into the inconsequentiality of real life; still, on its own terms, it's rather precious.

This feels like a deeper record than its predecessor, 2012’s well-received Blunderbuss, not as pretty but certainly sharper and more elegantly formed, something that’s reflected in the respective titles.

Above all and aside from the frustrations, the album is a well-crafted beast, beautifully constructed.

Since her emergence as a solo artist, Hannigan has been drawn to all things nautical. On her third full length, she continues that fascination, treading new water and exploring new routes on many of the tracks, but still ultimately in search of new shores.

With Bright Sunny South, Amidon has taken a huge step forward as a folk artist, creating arrangements which preserve his musicianship, while deepening the maturity of his interpretive skills.

It’s clear that after a year on the road with the same musicians he’s back into thinking in band mode and how songs will best be served by a four piece line-up. This result is more fully-realised songs.

On the Water is surely one of the most unconventionally beautiful records of the year.

If you're tempted to go for a heavy dose of head nodding psychedelia any time soon, you probably won't find a better example released this year.

Death Is This Communion slays in all the right places, but had it ventured into some of the wrong places we might’ve had an album really worth dribbling about.

It is a record which drinks deeply from the well of the past but could only have been made today. Megafaun have cast off the weight of the canon and are spreading their wings.

Swing Lo Magellan, then--deadly serious even at its most eccentric, wilfully awkward even at its most accessible, dense and intricate even at its most freewheeling. Same as it ever was.

Lost Songs ain't a new direction for ToD. Far from it. But it's a frenetic, committed album oozing passion at every turn, and the world would be poorer without it.

Music is cathartic for Girlpool, allowing them to share their honest expressions while simultaneously allowing the listener to impose their own perceptions. This is a delicate balancing act that takes most artists years to master, but Tucker and Tividad provide enough give and take to make the overall experience one of constant intrigue.

Just as Waits has the power to infuse you with familiarity with the return of a chord, so do the songs of Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, like an embroidered pillow on an old porch that says ‘home sweet home’.

So far as newcomers are concerned: hop on here, while Oneida are perhaps at their most accessible, and discover one of music’s most inspirationally inventive outfits.

Colin Stetson is matchless, his record glorious, and you’ll likely never experience silence as dramatically as the moment when All This I do for Glory concludes.

King of Cowards confirms it’s Pigs that deserve to have their cake and eat it. But it’s also an open invitation to join in the overindulgence with a complete lack of contrition. To gorge on the fruits of their labour is to feel utterly replete, that said, I’m not one to turn down thirds. More more more more more more more!

Here, the former Supergrass leader is so busy trying to prove something with his lofty themes and overreaching stylisation, that all of the magic is lost.

It’s the sound of Low passing up the opportunity for a twentieth-anniversary blow-out and opting instead for a quiet get-together with old friends.

Slow Focus isn’t alienating, it’s other, and it’s a pleasure to take a wander around its unfamiliar landscapes.

It might not be their best-ever album--Phrenology can still claim that title--but Rising Down finds The Roots reinvigorated, more passionate than ever.

On The Optimist, Anathema really do cement their title as one of the UK’s most revered rock bands, prog or otherwise: it’s a big jumble of ambitious ideas, executed near-perfectly--a mess, but a big, sprawling, dense, euphoric, beautiful one.

Furr is the work of an assured band that are in confident command of their craft.

Interpol have produced a soaring, inventive album that, while incorporating the deliciously dark atmosphere of ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’, merely uses it as a base to create more ambitious, warmer soundscapes.

Paul's Tomb: A Triumph has two distinct modes – those slowburn instrumental passages, and the lyric driven, quicker, melodic segments. Frog Eyes succeed when the joins between the two really 'flow', when the segues work.

Okay, at times the journey might seem a little too long--Miss Tambourine Wrist' does grate with repetitive ideas--but for the most part, the pacing between the slow death like marches and the adrenaline injected thrash falls are executed brilliantly.

This reinterpretation of Vulnicura is a success that also surprises, given the simplicity of the premise. This is both a joy to listen to and a chance to focus on Björk’s string arrangements and the frustration contained therein.

Do yourself a favour and eschew fashion for something with real substance: Outside Closer is an album of the year, fact.

While a gradual refinement is noticeable from House Of Balloons to Echoes Of Silence, a lack of breathing space between the tracks does them no favours. You're better off dedicating yourself to each album's meaty serving of revelry and regret in turn.

It brings with it a deftly executed change in tone that we've only glimpsed in the past and a refreshing emotional honesty, which not only feels mature but enduring.

By consciously interrogating everything they do, they’ve created something that doesn’t need a condescending suffix to justify its existence. It’s a new high-water mark for the band, and one well worth the pain to reach.

What could so easily have been an obtuse exercise in wilful eccentricity actually ends up an engaging, focussed listen that’s deserving of a wider audience than its somewhat cliquey appeal might suggest.