There’s a marked step forward in the deceptive depth of Sun Coming Down, and Ought perhaps traded in some of their debut longplayer’s immediacy in getting it, but their wit and emotional complexity remain stronger than ever.

There’s nothing to break the mould here, nothing that stands out and surprises like ‘Dakota’ did.

The melodies are polymerous, and Hauff’s deft technical flourishes mean that different instruments merge in and out of each other to create ever changing, but constant patterns.

As a debut record, La Vie Est Belle / Life is Beautiful is bold, beautiful and brilliantly honed.

This was written to be listened to, and to be lived. Don’t dream this away.

There may be plenty of meat left on his bones, but for this fine album to take the plaudits it truly deserves, we have to hope that there are many with open ears and hearts. Richard Hawley: troubadour in chief for this generation.

It’s not going to convince anyone new to pick up Duran Duran's records and it doesn’t surpass their previous work.

It’s another subtly heart-rending effort from a band that remains one of the very finest in the world. If you needed a reminder of why Low are an institution then this is it.

Invite the Light should be regarded as a triumph, a neo-funk gem which stays true to Dâm-Funk’s vision, without alienating those who’re arriving fresh to the party.

The entire record sounds like a calmly-executed upswing, both personally and professionally.

This album has its dancing shoes straddling very different musical camps and somehow manages to bind them together with skill and personality.

A solid, quality record with atmosphere and character in spades that proves its creators as an active and current force.

This feels like an opportunity missed; his defences are never truly down, and we’re only offered tantalising glimpses of what might have been.

Heavyweight names add gloss and will no doubt result in dollar signs but Tesfaye is infinitely more interesting when lashing out largely alone.

It’s a very strong album, one that I found myself wanting to listen to over and over again. Highly recommended.

Illegals in Heaven is not an album you ponder about-the words and the grooves stab your brain and tap fountains of hormones. Blank Realm have done it again, and together they’ll take on the world for love.

Although on the relative straight and narrow, the band have lost none of their attitude.

What The World Needs Now... is solid proof that reformations never sound good on record.

Five or so years ago, it felt like they were shedding relevance. This is the sound of them rediscovering importance.

Sadly what Yours, Dreamily needs is a little bit of oomph every now and again to wake us, and the rest of the band from our collective stupors. Even compared to his debut solo album, this feels second rate.

All in all, there’s not much here that’s likely to blow your mind; if you’re already a Motörhead fan then you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in for, and even the most die-hard may find themselves wanting to skip a track or two, but there’s always something impressive about a band so dedicated and single-minded about fulfilling the simple goal of being the best rock band on the planet.

Ultimately, expectedly, Rock 'N' Roll is a functioning collection of… well, rock'n'roll songs, and, save for the odd cringer, entirely passable.

It’s one of the most thrilling and confident debut records of the year.

As an accompaniment to the original album--which I'm sure most people reading this will already own (and if you don't, you should)--it stands proud as a comprehensive update to a timeless record.

There’s enough allure in Poison Season’s oddities to make it highly listenable.

It comes across more as a work that’ll maintain their admittedly excellent level of consistency, rather than proving itself to be the defining album of an already blessed year for music.

With this fine writing, you show us you, unguarded, complex, sincere, like a dear friend I’ve invited over for tea that I haven’t seen in ages.

As odd of a notion it is, as a setlist for a show, Weirdo Shrine is a miraculous endeavour to behold, but as an album, it suffers because of its untamed splendour.

It won’t change the world, but at the very least, Highest Point In Cliff Town offers us a welcome distraction from it for 40 brief minutes.

This is music that lingers in the mind and seeps into the bones. And while you can view it as melancholic, Scally and Legrand never dwell on sentimentality or allow anything to sink into despondency.

While Don Broco’s desire not to retread old ground is commendable, their stated desire to focus on what makes them stand out as a rock band has fallen a little flat.

Nocturnes comes off as a monochrome drag.

The truth is that, for possibly the first time in Yo La Tengo’s discography, they're a bit boring.

Whilst Deradoorian’s ambitions were undoubtedly high in creating The Expanding Flower Planet, the end result is more miss than hit, leaning too heavily and too often on dense harmonies at a slow pace which ends in a record lacking cohesion and direction.

It’s an emotional record.

Form and function crystallize together here, and man does it feel so right.

On its own, Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006-2008 definitely manages to holds its own as a brilliant slice of pure AFX acid, and a sure fire way to get your Aphix for a couple of months.

Despite the difference between le Bon’s and Presley’s median outputs, they produce a fresh and rich stylistic centre on Hermits on Holiday.

Spector balance out their miserablia with the kind of choruses that nag at you for days at a time.

It is sprawling, messy, and bursting at the seams--but certainly when listening to it, you see how it could have worked with a bit of quality assurance.

On occasion, it’s actually borderline thrilling but those moments are too few and far between.

If you like your pop music intelligent, layered and tinged with drama, this is an album you can’t afford to ignore.

Devastating until the very last note subsides, this is arguably The Telescopes' finest record for over a decade. Prepare to be pulverised.

The four Californians smother their country-fried rock with more southern tropes than a gravy-sodden biscuit, from the bits of blues and gospel and old timey R&B.

Green Lanes, the second album from Ultimate Painting, is really, really nice. It doesn’t do anything special, or new, or especially original.

It's a stunning collection of the most forward thinking dance and electronica I've heard all year.

As an alternative introduction to one of our greatest bands, or a gateway towards getting to know them a little better, it is excellent. If you’re a superfan already, then the novelty of having this particular collection of songs you already own in a nice gatefold package is about as far as it will go.

It’s left to the previously-released singles to save Dornik from disappointing mediocrity.

A strong bottom line is that Whine of the Mystic is, above all else, an enjoyable album.

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.

The plot is complicated and would take innumerable listens to get the complete story without the aid of RZA’s interludes, but the storytelling is vivid and full of colour.

There is the air of HEALTH now being at a cross roads. Their rampaging style of yore feels a little constrained and tamed by the booming production and ‘nice’ singing, but at the same time they are beginning to write some pretty stupendous ‘proper’ songs.

If Lovers Know initially feels like it’s dipping into the golden age of the American songbook, then this must be the most fruitful panning for gold to be released in eons.

Abyss proves that there's still much work to do in the dark side of alt rock. Chelsea Wolfe is surely ahead of the curve.

Waters is on fiery form, and you get the sense that by 1992, he’d finally settled into his own corner of the world a little more.

What Another One does provide--in abundance--is proof that DeMarco has the songwriting chops to back up his reputation as one of indie rock’s last true characters.

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

At his best Turner can be immensely charming and gloriously witty. Sadly, these facts only makes the dreary, alarmingly soulless retreads that populate most of Positive Songs for Negative People all the more depressing.

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.

When Grossi nails the sweet spot between these two poles the result is nigh-on perfection (Curtis Lane’s 'I'm In Your Church at Night' and 'Hanging On' from 2011’s gorgeous You’re All I See to seize on the most obvious). The disappointment with Mercy is that he never quite finds that spot to the same extent.

While Matt Bellamy drowned in pretension and tone-deaf bombast, Stickles astutely embraces the grandiose, distilling his troubles into some of the sharpest songwriting of his career and a spectacular display of ownership.

This is music that the listener can plunge into and summon up her own images and sense from.

This is a beautifully composed album and one which frequently feels like a blessing that we even get to hear it at all.

An album-long search for new ways to express old thoughts, and far from any prescribed formula of tempos and buggery that would entail techno or drum n’ bass or other electronic information media.

Although Blood only features ten predominantly short songs, the myriad flashes of brilliance render the album’s brevity irrelevant.

The more restrained, and slightly less expansive feel, of some of the tracks here perhaps makes the record as a whole feel slightly undercooked in comparison to its predecessor. Nevertheless it is another fine entry into the enviable discography of one of the most sadly underrated of British songwriters.

The lyrics ring true enough, but not forcefully enough to really resonate with any depth.

All Tense Now Lax, then, is brilliant precisely because of the way it flits disconcertingly between the two extremes presented in its title, between the constant and unrestrained tension of technological progress and the contrasting looseness of our day to day existence alongside it.

Albert Hammond Jr. has a solid album on his hands, but it is what it is: Momentary Masters isn’t veal, but a damn fine cheeseburger.

The kind of details she hones in on are so easily overlooked, but often the most jarring. Sometimes... begs you stop to sit and think about them for a while.

Crain’s effortless yet potent vocal is the centre of things, as she seems to sing about making a box for herself to hide in, appropriating what is normally a downhome positive genre for her own more maudlin ends.

With Marks to Prove It, The Maccabees have created a record of gritty intimacy. While there are moments of astonishing beauty (the sizzling brass and ethereal vocals of ‘Dawn Chorus’ is one of many examples), true intimacy means getting close to something, often in spite of its flaws.

While Universes never quite reaches the heights that might be sought by this confident-sounding producer, there can be no denying that this is one of 2015’s boldest electronic releases, and that it deserves to be one of its foremost too.

Bahdeni Nami is nothing more than a dull and flat dance record, dressed in the trappings of the 'exotic' and 'worldly'.

Everything sounds fresh, new and different, but every song is still recognisably Wilco; it just sounds like Wilco at their best.

Music for Drifters definitely represents a diversion from whatever constitutes Field Music’s ‘normal’ work, but it’s also an unquestionably lovely addition to their impeccable discography.

This is comfortably the best effort from Matt Mondanile to date. A tribute to the power of not just belief but also the idea that patience can be your best weapon in terms of creating your best work.

Within its perameters It’s an inventive and carefree album, a joyful re-engagement with a well loved sound, one that will undoubtedly remain fresh for as long as its creators are happy to stir the electro-rock-cauldron.

Born in the Echoes isn’t the sound of stagnation, nor the grim realisation of irrelevance, and there are numerous flourishes that can only come from a knowing skill set, but in the end, it’s only just good enough.

Pattern of Excel is a difficult album. It subverts your expectations and deliberately goes against what convention would suggest in terms of direction and vibe.

It's rammed full of solid psychedelia that no one could really get annoyed at, but conversely, no one could ever fall in love with.

Like their previous records, Decency is at its best when Heartstrings are indulging their knack for straight up, grin-on-its-face pop music.

Rose's voice is always likeable, accessible and expressive, sadly in the case of Work It Out it rarely has anything very interesting to express.

There probably won’t be a better instrumental album than this in 2015. It will certainly be one of the most inventive, delicate and fearless records the year will offer.

This is a record that demands your reflection and immersion, rather than just mindlessly wigging out.

Array 1 contains enough moments of unparalleled brilliance to make autumn's projected follow-up EP a mouthwatering prospect.

The weight of it all means it could be quite impenetrable for some, and it nearly crashes under it's own heaviness sometimes--but for those of us with a melancholic heart, this could be our record of the year.

There is certainly something interesting about it, but it’s also a bit hard to embrace wholeheartedly.

This is a record that feels alarmingly lacking in purpose from a band whose glory days are now a good decade behind them. This one is for completists only.

If you found Sleaford Mods too thuggish or laddish for your tastes, Key Markets won’t change your mind.

It’s definitely not a ‘grower’, but you won’t love it for two minutes then leave it, either. Rather, it sits somewhere in between: impressively easy to like, refreshingly difficult to get tired of.

There’s a lot here that’s nice, but nothing that really screams out its demands to be listened to.

When ambition is your only criticism, you know you’re probably onto something quite special.

There is much to enjoy in I Aubade, though, if you’re willing to pay attention.

An album which starts feeling a bit dense and chewy halfway through.

This album is full of emotive and nuanced performances, the aches of her heart resonating powerfully. However, the sheen and the bombast of much of the production reeks not just of a kind of entitlement, but of desperation.

There are passages of relative inaction in the music, while Frahm gives the narrative momentum its space. But happily, not only does this create what’s probably a remarkably well judged score which neither overpowers nor outperforms a film it’s supposed to be complimenting, it also results in a strong stand-alone mood piece, thoroughly deserves to be heard by all of his admirers.

It’s hard to properly describe an album which needs to be experienced from start to finish rather than intimately analysed. Give yourself the opportunity to become part of Meg Baird’s brave new world. You won’t be disappointed.