The great strength of El Vy, by contrast, is that it brings forth both members’ strengths to create something that sounds like a proper polished debut from a 'real' band.

Make no mistake, these are all energising pop tunes, but by the time you reach the seventh track, you’re left wondering how many of them you can take in one go.

It’s comparable to blending all the best bits of Led Zep and hippie rockers Grateful Dead, with a spoonful of Motown classics to help the medicine go down.

Angel tells a story but it's nothing you haven't heard before.

The real genius of Tomorrow’s Hits is its shaking off not just fan expectations but the almighty shackles of credibility, innovation and, for want of a subtler term, corporate buzz-band etiquette.

A thoughtful and inventive debut album that is more accomplished and accessible than the first offering by [The Coral].

This is music to get lost in and lose yourself to at the same time. Strangely familiar, yet unique, in their own conservative way.

The overall effect is intoxicating -- some sort of triangulated point in the middle of REM, New Order and Statistics.

Troubled, Shaken Etc. won't win any prizes for instant accessibility; if anything, it's a deftly-secured trove of deeply hidden treasures, that once discovered, will be hard to resist.

This album will infuriate many but bewitch some.

Mystery Jets are old hands at this now--and while this offering doesn’t have the immediacy that classics such as ‘Two Doors Down’ and ‘Serotonin’ bring, it is a necessary record from a band that needs to work out where it goes from here.

There's no romance on this album. Nothing shine a stark white light on reality. As they always have.

There’s a nagging feeling that those derivative misses aren't so much accidental misfires as born out of a writer keen to remain free of the pressures of success. That prevents a promising record from being as good as it had the potential to be.

An album whose deep felt emotion and effortless execution proves that there’s nothing like a little trial and tribulation to get the artistic synapses firing.

With Eggs, Oh No Ono have created an album that, like Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion this time last year, allows you to forget the last vestiges of snow outside and look towards the summertime.

What we have in Pala is not some great band reinvention, or some desperately profound effort; it's giant choruses, relatable lyrics, a million earworm riffs and 11 dance anthems.

They're not concerned with clunky subgenres or fitting into anyone's neat little boxes. With Instrumental Tourist, it is what it is.

Indeed, the first half of the album is a tale of peaks and troughs, its highpoint being the dreamy 'Hamster Suite' which bears similarities to both Deerhunter and Blonde Redhead in its opulent make up. The second half of Pussy's Dead fares much better.

The Thermals are still a band in awkward transition resulting in a record that is reliably good by their own decent standards, but which fails to fulfil its very apparent potential to be great.

Take The BQE on its own terms and there’s plenty to enjoy.

Trimmed of a couple of tracks and with more than a single change of pace offered, the record could have been an excellent one. As it is, Velocifero stands as a fine piece of work that proves there’s a lot of life left in these synthetic machines.

While there's plenty to admire from a distance here, those who get in close will find little to cling onto.

As a a slice of accomplished, sophisticated urban pop you'll find none finer this summer.

The third album by Glasgow’s Chvrches, Love is Dead, is the sound of your heart as it falls back in love.

[The title track] may not be very Bonobo, but it is very beautiful, and--like much else on his latest long play--begs to be listened to.

Sounding big may be a pretty good way to get a support slot with the biggest bands in the country and, in time, the world, but after a point you need more to say.

Nonetheless, if you sense that Preoccupations have yet to nail a defining sound, then it’s part of their appeal that they may in fact never be defined by a sound. New Material hits the spot more often than not.

Harvey Milk has been referred to as The Bob Weston Sessions for some time; the remaster given to its ten songs serves to emphasise, rather than undermine, Weston’s keen ear for the dramatically heavy.

For once, he can consider the game well and truly played.

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.

While perhaps not as immediate or instantly accessible as Eagulls, it represents a marked progression for a band seemingly intent on developing themselves at every possible juncture.

This is an agreeable record, but it comes from a man who we know is capable of something sublime.

Part pep rally, part school-time innocence, In Case We Die is nothing if not full of life and enthusiasm.

The current trend of Nineties-leaning music shows little signs of abating, and Heydays is yet another gloriously messy, scratchy string to its bow.

With 2019 fresh upon us, hopefully the splendour of Outer Peace is an eclectic foreshadowing of a thrilling year in music.

Highway Songs feels both like an underwhelming experiment with moments of greatness, as well as a highly personal piece which is almost impossible to penetrate.

It’s not often that a side-project produces an album that deserves anything more than a footnote mention. Loose Fur deserves its own cult.

Over 13 tracks Transcontinental Hustle casts its spells, a record that fairly howls at the moon.

Hitch is a startling achievement of creativity. It doesn’t reinvent The Joy Formidable wheel but it refines everything they’ve done until this point and presents their most complete package yet.

Hearing rappers coming from this musical sphere is a refreshing novelty however, and the record is definitely one of the most interesting, if not exceptional things to emerge this year.

Its quickness to reach the climax leaves it a bit devoid of resolutions and making it feel like a bit of an empty statement. It's a shame because, Love is Love, for what it is, is such a well-composed album, that it feels like it's close to being a band-defining statement given its all too real context in which it exists.

At times Kidsticks feels a little uneven. Tempos and timbres shift regularly, never allowing the listener to truly settle into one mode, or gain a true sense of what is the coherent sonic voice at the heart of the album. That is, apart from Orton's voice itself, which has never sounded better or more in control.

If any criticism is to be levelled here, it would be that the album could so easily have been a double-disc effort, but this is a minor gripe on an otherwise flawless live document of a band striving for--and arguably achieving--greatness.

Some of the radio-friendly oompa of ‘The Last Broadcast’ has been cut back, and the new record bears more resemblance to their debut ‘Lost Souls’ in its ashen-faced detachment and bloodied-yet-unbowed pride.

It’s full of the minute anxieties of life that keep you awake in the early hours, but set to some of the most life-affirming sounds you’ll have heard for a long time.

It’s this seamless motion and playful interplay that makes Polar Bear such a thrill; they seem to know exactly what to do and when – when to surprise, when to comfort, when to excite, when to calm.

This is a surprisingly engaging record that highlights Ian Brown as an underrated songwriter and arranger, and underscores the point that while his enthusiasm for creativity is as infectious as ever, Spike Island and its ilk are unlikely to be revisited in the forseeable future.

New Clouds is as good a record as any to soundtrack disconnection from deep thought.

Folk Songs probably won’t soundtrack a woman exhorting you through your flatscreen to buy yoghurt in the foreseeable, but it will be received with a deserved warmth by an established cluster of fans.

You expect there to be an abundance of vibrancy and passion on European, the band’s third release; though tempered by doubt and restraint, emotion lies beneath the layers of onion peel in the grey gutter of sadness.

For a band whose frequent line-up changes repeatedly threaten to leave them at an impasse, Post Electric Blues is a testament to Idlewild's stylistic and thematic consistency, while standing head and shoulders above the two albums which preceded it, if not quite equalling their career highs.

An album that as a whole sounds like a collage depicting a comprehensive list of everyone who's anyone from the past 40 years of popular music.

The album just about manages to avoid the trappings of both quirky and medieval, which is no mean feat for a flute based album.

What the trio lack in pure, ear-fizzing originality, they happily make up for in solid listenability.

A powerful, graceful album.

The Raveonettes take you to the dark side and articulate every sharp pang of aching heartbreak and rejection you ever felt but they make it sound so goddamn lovely.

With nothing masking itself as filler here, it would be difficult to trim anything off without Mauve losing any of its impetus or impact. Indeed there's very little negative to say.

Almost everything here is pretty good when you sit down and concentrate on it, but there little that jumps up and demands your attention.

An album as beautifully conceived as If You Leave is one you follow from start to finish, riveted by the story it weaves and the emotion it bleeds.

There’s some inevitable long-album malaise in this contingent (particularly prominent on the second disc of rarities).... What redeems is that none of these signings reek of opportunism.

A joyous but intricate album, Edgeland is a perfectly paced outlet for Hyde’s cryptic urban snapshots.

It's hard to properly enjoy the songs when you’re constantly noticing their inspirations, like discovering one of those old Shine compilations made up entirely of b-sides you’ve never heard before.

Solar Year manage to take traditional choral music and refract it through a modern prism. It seems at once on the pulse of the zeitgiest, yet at the same time strangely timeless. The lush production creates an atmosphere of sustained reverie, which envelops a listener in a warm yet visceral way.

Palms is best at its tightest, but is perhaps a tad messier than it really needs to be.

Apart from that and ‘Micro Chip (Say No)’--which succeeds ‘Rebel’, closes the album and suffers from autotune abuse and the claim to be “the sons and daughters of Bob Marley”--Jungle Revolution consistently hits bullseyes.

If anything, the stitching on Push/Pull is much too tight, the tone rigid even when things veer off in wildly different directions.

While City Forgiveness does allow the trio breathing room, they never use that space to justify the length--they’re doing what they do, and doing it well, but the over-familiarity when faced with 90 minutes of this stuff does great songs a disservice.

There are a lot of great songs on Islands, lyrical depth is partnered with enough melodic and harmonic twists and turns to keep things interesting. Underneath it all, though, there lies the sense that here is a band who are playing it somewhat safe.

This is the sound of three of the human race’s finest sonic ramblers in conversation, and it’s a truly daunting experience to give yourself over to.

Geocidal is a fascinating listen purely for the fact that it acknowledges no boundaries: musical, geographical or otherwise. You may not love it; you may not even like it; but you'll pay rapt attention regardless. What it lacks in immediacy, the duo's debut album makes up for in sheer spirit.

It's intrinsically a strange album though, trapped somewhere between The Knife, Nineties acid house, Kraftwerk, New Order’s Technique album, and literally anything Eno did in the Eighties, but the warped pop sensibilities and gloriously plastic production make it a hidden gem.

This album is another positive step in the evolution of an intriguing band.

The diversity of the influences found on What Do People Do All Day? is both the strength and the weakness of the album--a fascinating and beguiling collection of sounds, ideas and influences but a collection which never seems to fully belong together in its own company.

All three EPs--Junk, Dross and Dregs--featured in Resort hold their own standing alone--but when they are collated together it does have a feeling of doing it for the sake of it.

While not entirely unique, both [Mirrors and Second Encounter] provide a distinguished finale to Of Desire and one which suggests The KVB's finest hour might be just around the corner.

The mix of genres and presentation doesn’t always segue as well as they might, and strangely given that mix, it could do with being a little more radical at times. That said there’s plenty to enjoy and it’s often fun to hear these iconic works in unfamiliar fashion.

Arnalds says he spent months agonising over this mix, and the effort shows. This latest addition to the Late Night Tales catalogue isn’t just a seamless journey into his music collection--by the end, you definitely feel like you can relate to him too.

Going forward, The Molochs may want to deviate a bit from the formula they used on America’s Velvet Glory, which gets pretty well worn even though the record is fairly compact at only 11 tracks, but it works well as both a cohesive throwback and a character study.

It’s clear with Violence that Editors are working to build upon their new sound instead of re-inventing and re-producing, and though their efforts of combining dark indie disco pop with more morose lyrics and guitar undertones, it is a refreshing new direction.

It’s a--for the most part successful--attempt to reach across divides in a world which seems more confusing by the day, a battle against the increasing entropy which seems to be seeping in at the edges of all our existences.

There are moments of abject terror and suspense that perfectly sum up the show, that are flawlessly executed and deliver such a rush that you are swept along with them, and only after do you question what just happened. Like all the best things in life, this album is not what it initially seems.

The great thing about rkives, though, is that as much as it constitutes an absolute boon for long-time fans, it works as a fine introduction to the band on its own merit.

While not all of King’s attempts to focus her talent into ‘proper songs’ come off, when she nails it, we can’t help but agree with Dave Grohl that she’s one of the greatest guitarists in the world.

Salem deal in fragments and ambiguities; their music is unmistakably dark, in all the senses above and more, and saps power from the tension they set up between reality and dream. But there's light and beauty there too.

Ultimately Thing is an album that exceeds expectations, not to mention revealing new trajectories with every subsequent listen. Whether a heavy indulger or casual fan of electronically based music, it's hard to envisage a better record than Thing emerging from any of its sub-genres this year.

The sense of worship for the genre [dance pop] is laid on a bit thick sometimes too, even in the titles (see ‘Face 2 Face’, ‘Going Thru the Motions’ and ‘(Don’t) Wannabe’). So maybe the thing Kristin needs most is a sense of uniqueness.

As Program 91 soars over--here we go--fjords of excellence, it never really lands or takes off with any satisfying oomph.

Xenoula simply meanders at times, losing a distinct sense of urgency and focus and washing over the listener like gentle lapping waves leaving little in the way of residue behind. Nevertheless, there are times when Xeno’s music becomes less translucent, harnessing its subtleties to create hauntingly ethereal sounds that do evoke vibrant images of her dual lives.

Lousy with Sylvianbriar won’t ever be viewed as the quintessential Of Montreal album. But sourness aside, it’s the healthy sound of a restless spirit.

Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen attempts to splice that sound with a new, more varied approach. It isn't always entirely successful, it's sometimes awkward, but hey, what do you want?

If you were hankering for a return to their garage-rock roots, then Turn Blue is going to disappoint; however, if you’ve liked where the band have gone since Dangermouse came on board, you’ll find plenty to appreciate here.

Enter The Slasher House sounds like a direct sequel to his swampy solo album, and wrongly marginalises the influences of his collaborators.

With a greater use of the minor key, he's added flecks of sentiment to what is, predominantly, a very solid pop record. Just don't get bogged down in genre compartmentalisation.

Our Inventions feels terminally lacking in ambition and new ideas and a big step backwards for Lali Puna. The music is safe tweetronica, Trebejahr’s vocals inscrutable like a tasteful wallpaper.

Channeling both experience and innocence into his first solo collection. Against all odds, Omori has conjured up a solid debut that should ensure a bright future lies ahead.

Whilst Vernon's production does add a glossy sheen, Edwards' captivating character is ultimately untouched and as a result, she can finally stand loud and proud as a truly talented individual.

With a humble ten songs, Hynes banishes our woes and turns a shoulder to the glut of all too mundane music released this year, reminding us that someone can still make a perfectly influenced yet original collection of songs. This is how a record should be made.

Who knows what's real and what's not, but The Magnetic Fields write Great Pop songs, and this means a lot.