To pretend that Life is Good is flawless would be misleading, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable return to form.

Picaresque is more than an indie-pop album, it's a collection of eleven lavishly arranged acts rife with the whiff of greasepaint and the roar of an adoring crowd, which you should be a part of.

Throughout the record the ooo-oooh swoopiness is enchanting and the constant SNES-soundtrack bubblings take you back to a simpler, more tranquil and ultimately a place filled with hope.

The album is an enjoyable hodgepodge that trades neat cohesion for scattish variety.

Women write songs, but they tease us by keeping them hidden, interspersing the teeniest seconds of dazzling clarity with cool sounding sonic murk. And credit to returning producer Chan VanGaalen for whipping up an ambience as dense and seductive as that sepia blizzard on the front sleeve. His proteges are writing good songs, but it's not so much a production job as a sleight of hand trick--VanGaalan stops you from seeing Women's full workings.

If you put in the effort this is one of the most rewarding albums of the year so far, but like pronouncing its title, don’t be surprised if you don’t get it first time.

By shirking an introspective approach, he has succeeded brilliantly in wending a line between intricacy and intimacy. The output is a genuinely majestic creation, brimming with a richness of substance to both enthral and devastate.

Where Everything Everything’s previous releases were as bonkers-crammed full of a surfeit of different stylistic tics, flourishes, embellishments and more not only from song to song within each album but even in every individual track, here, a definite sound and style has been settled on.

Only time will tell whether CSFLY turns out to be as seminal as Crooks and Lovers, but that isn’t important. What is important is that it’s an accomplished, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable body of work that will be played again and again and again, on the radio, at festivals and in bedrooms the world over.

While Shah’s tunes are so enjoyable to listen to, that unsettling harmonic twang continues to add a feverish subsidy to her soulful voice, a reminder of the uneasiness of the subject matter.

The songs are little self-contained vignettes about various characters and their journeys, resembling campfire or drinking songs. Some are really bland and instantly forgettable, others--really poetic and imaginative.

Konoyo exists as a glorious symphony that brings together the starkness of electronic experimentation and the human warmth of traditional acoustics into an astonishing whole.

Civilian has just enough personality to stop it being completely pedestrian.

It’s the sound of a gifted songwriter comfortable with his craft and in his own skin, offering glinting new facets to earlier sounds and the songs present on Ruminations, and it makes for a subtle, yet striking departure from everything that came before.

Burst Apart deserves all the plaudits that can be thrown at it; albums are rarely as unashamedly, gut-wrenchingly, genuinely emotional as this.

Avatar may not be as intense or as out-of-loop as expected, but its otherworldy mix of prog-rock and freeform more than lives up to the expectations formed in the wake of 2004's Blue Cathedral.

At once Herndon’s most accessible and most adventurous record, this is digital age avant-garde sound art put through a pop prism, and it’s all the more exciting as a result.

The fact that Smith rarely untangles The Fall from the cryptic absurdist approach that has become his stock-in-trade, to head toward this type of profoundly personal material, only makes it that more affecting when he actually does deviate from his path most traveled.

It’s broodingly mechanic, and yet harrowingly human; it’s truly Bristolian, and neither futuristic nor nostalgic; it’s simply and unignorably now.

Ritual Spirit tantalises with the promise of a staggering force should the next LP surface soon.

R Plus Seven can be confusing, jam packed with samples and contrasting elements, but it's never overbearing. At the same time it is hard to put your finger on exactly what is appealing about it.

Push the Sky Away, then, is not the Bad Seeds at their zenith, but pretty bloody spectacular for a fifteenth (or seventeenth, or twentieth) album.

Imperial Wax Solvent is another remarkable batch of brilliantly deranged tales no whiskey-breathed war veteran across the bar could trump.

It's a record that can be enjoyed on a simple music level, but also explored as an interesting take on a particular historical period.

It is a record to indulge in, one melting synth note at a time.

Overall Where the Gods Are in Peace is another solid album in a ridiculously exceptional back catalogue.

This is the organic culmination of our protagonist’s most singular travels, and he’s reached a most puzzling bliss.

While the ten songs that follow aren’t quite as arresting, there are still plenty of earworms to be found.

An entrancing, wonderfully surprising record which manages to feel both refreshing new and strangely timeless.

This is music that challenges and provokes.

Full of guest musicians helping to bring his songs to life, this latest record might be a little different to previous Hiss Golden Messenger outings, but it also might be his best.

Every note is considered and played with joy, care and a sense of craft. Together with the record's beautiful packaging, Cervantine feels like a personal historical document, speaking to and from the soul.

I Speak Because I Can is an album of elegance and brilliance. Marling has developed from her debut, and her voice has grown both physically and lyrically.

Overall, Still In A Dream: A Story Of Shoegaze 1988-1995 is an essential purchase for anyone with an interest in the genre. And while the omission of certain acts make it just fall short of being definitive, there's more than enough sonic gold here to compensate.

It's amazing, actually, that despite having been around for over a decade, through trauma and breakups and now their fifth record, Menomena still sound fresh and uncontrived and, well, endearingly innocent.

Literally, Potential comes from a place of empathy. So it’s not surprising that it’s best when it isolates all the feelings loaded into a single word or phrase.

For all that pomp and bombast, it does remain difficult to fully engage with a record like this, and Strange Keys is never an effortless listen. Nor is it an entirely effective record.

Bright Like Neon Love feels like the record The Human League could have made if they’d remade Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in 1985. It’s like the soundtrack to the best party you’ve never been too, but always wish you had.

Sprinter manages to be defiant at its most minimal: she may not have made a fully realized masterpiece yet, but she’s staking-out the place between noise and silence where a masterpiece will be built.

Paramore feels far more human and honest than anything the band have committed to tape to date, and even at its most intense, the record feels intimate (or at least like a gig happening in the back corner of your mind).

With or without the four unreleased songs, this was always going to be an essential collection for any Belle & Sebastian obsessive, and the credits are a reminder there’s plenty more to come.

It’s kind of sloppy, but it also sounds pretty astonishing cranked up loud, and despite the mixed emotional messages I suspect it’ll find its calling this summer as the band’s most fun album.

This is an intellectual jaunt that reveals the beauty of pop music, both musically and lyrically.

There might be less going on than with the cut-and-paste stuff elsewhere, but ironically that makes these tracks seem like most fully formed moments here, the points of contrast which, as with all successful collages, make The Way Out work as a whole.

Even when 03/07 – 09/07 seems too cute or too pussy it’s still kind of heartening. Sincere environmentalism isn’t the sort of thing the ironic, narcissistic hipster hordes usually go for, so High Places must be doing something right, right?

This is Marling at her finest, but as she’s proved five times in a row, the best is always yet to come.

Meet the Humans is the most concise and immediate record Mason has released in over a decade.

Jakes and the band have so much inherent chemistry the flaws almost don't matter: the likes of 'Diamond Days' and 'Jaws of Hell' temporarily make the little misfires an afterthought.

If the results could always mesmerise and captivate as much as LUMP’s too-brief debut, perhaps we’d listen and follow suit.

They've made a modestly magnificent record that entirely validates this reformation.

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

On this record they have taken a bold step forward. It shows them as a band with greater vision and ambition than they first seemed and one who want to lead conversations rather than follow them.

Room remains Ought’s most beautiful--yes, beautiful--album to date.

Boca Negra isn’t an album that’s easy to get acquainted with — this is music designed to induce a fundamental paradigm shift in our expectations of what a band can be and how they should operate, with two accomplished players bringing agitation and affection together at an uneasy meeting point.

The risks that Damien Jurado and producer Richard Swift take on Maraqopa are small and subtle adjustments to those already made on Saint Bartlett, but they are small steps which reap exquisite rewards for the listener.

Boldness, you realise, is not the same thing as greatness, and James Blake is not a great album. It has great moments, some of which hint at possible directions after the dust has settled around this release.

Guidance is a masterpiece in the art of emotional communication through musicianship, an album which ultimately, despite its darkness, serves to inspire and uplift--a true reflection of the human experience.

Basinski is a true master in the way he can overlay true emotion onto his subject matter, and there’s a sense of sadness for these black holes in their destruction and rebirth and the fabric of spacetime they tear apart within that. To close out with that sense of wonder and discovery relieves the weight of his material.

Outspoken and even prone to some fairly loony conspiracy theorising, The Ecstatic thankfully does not become such a platform, and is a refined selection of strong tracks, which skilfully tread the balance between tight beats and forthright exclamations.

It’s not rocket science, that’s for sure, but there are tunes here that most million-selling bands would give away all of their mansions for.

In the classic sense this is yet another worthy piece from an undeniable master.

World Eater contains some of Power’s most serene work to date.

The brisk bout of choral sighing that rounds off ‘I’ll Be Glad’ provides an effective grace note for this hugely likeable record, if underlining slightly the notion of Lie Down In The Light as a worthy, somewhat minor addition to Oldham’s formidable oeuvre.

Shadows illustrates the band's strong points - simple yet effective melodies coupled with sumptuous vocal harmonies courtesy of Blake, McGinley and Love while lyrically scaling a fine line between happy-go-lucky romanticism and solemn melancholy.

An honest, forthright and accomplished LP.

Highly Deadly Black Tarantula is, then, not quite the beast that its title suggests. It’s more elusive than that.

Inevitably, critics will place Devils & Dust in a trio with Springsteen's other quiet albums Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad, but be aware that there’s significantly more production polish on Devils & Dust, as well as a wider palette of moods.

Despite her numerous contemporaries, Torres stands out as a distinct and compelling performer.

Despite their new compositional brief, A Winged Victory for the Sullen’s music is still, at its core, just a beautiful example of orchestral ambient music, in the most Eno-est sense of the word: music that you simply join and leave, not music that starts and stops.

Kannon, like Terrestrials, says its three-section piece in under 40 minutes, but is a more intense, punishing affair.

The record is almost as seamless as it is engaging, and it subtly commands your attention from start to finish.

Waiting For You is hardly the kind of record that grabs and demands your undivided attention. Instead it offers gems buried deep amongst its cityscape’s gently fluorescing streetlamps and slow-moving traffic, crafting a distinctive, defiantly twenty-first century urban soul music that, given due care and attention, leaves an afterglow simmering long after the CD spins to a halt.

These songs rest quite naturally between the forlorn, heartbroken ballads, making this an album of exceptional and understated maturity and beauty. Sadness has rarely felt this good.

The Money Store thrills like no other set heard this year.

They might borrow from forefathers to lay solid foundations, but Late Of The Pier have proven, with Fantasy Black Channel, that they’re a band with ability well beyond the simple sum of influential parts.

Set Yourself On Fire could become your favourite record, and Stars should justifiably be many people's favourite band.

The instrumental and compositional mastery on show is staggering. Whether it will make a dent in the consciousness of those who don't spend their time watching at the edges of the prog-rock firmament is another question entirely.

Damaged... rises to the same dizzying heights achieved by their last few long-players.

A gorgeous, gripping study of English and north American folk music that covers as many of the genre's quirks as it can, without crawling from cliché to catastrophe.

While some tracks don't exude the same kind of enticing mysticism Ward excels at, Post-War remains a warm, enjoyable listen.

Carry On the Grudge manoeuvres around post-adolescence with expertise. The void might exist, but at least now Jamie T is back there's someone to share the pain with.

Once, this band were making music to stare skywards to, to contemplate the vastness of the universe we’re such a tiny part of; now they’ve discovered a hidden reserve of human spirit, sucked it in and produced a record that will reconnect their wealth of talents to listeners fearing they’d forgotten how they’d ever reached such a lofty pedestal. It’s great to have them back.

It sees Mono edge closer still to the classical spectrum, incorporating strings to great effect.

Not only is there too much going on in each song to think of them as simple pop numbers, but Why Make Sense? touches upon a huge range of styles.

He has followed up the exceptional Sleep with yet another dazzling work that is “full of echoes, of memories, of associations” that celebrate and reflect this towering writer.

Overall, the album is thought-provoking and relevant. It’s an enjoyable listen and one which morphs and draws deeper messages with each listen. The moderate changes in sound only serve to highlight the poignance of the words through unassuming backing.

Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing.

One thing that is immediately striking from the first tentative piano notes and discomfiting cello hum is just how accomplished it all sounds.

Its one-noted nature will make it difficult for anyone outside of genre fans to want to reach out over and encourage a crossover appeal in the way that, say, Touche Amore have managed. It certainly is an impressive genre album with enough little touches to keep it distinct and interesting.

Fantastic confections of noise and thunder.

At the purest of all levels, this is a presentation of sound in detail, which, to listen to carefully reveals surprise after surprise.

A surefire contender for metal album of the year and certainly worthy of some crossover recognition, Sentenced To Life deserves some adulation purely for reminding us that metal doesn't need bells and whistles to be thrilling, even in 2012.

Underworld have forsworn the well-trodden path of replication and opted instead for another path. Gone are the tub-thumpers of yore in favour of understated, yet nevertheless, euphoric electronica bursting with hope.

An Introduction to Elliott Smith constitutes a worthy glimpse and gateway into a discography that has enchanted so many over the years. There are 14 songs here; 14 finer you'll seldom hear.

For all the darkness of Actor's concerns, however, it remains an exceptionally pleasurable album to listen to.

Hereditary is well worth a listen for a Colin Stetson fan who isn’t really into horror films though as it showcases something that his solo releases lack: overdubbing.

All together, lullaby and...The Ceaseless Roar seems like the sound of someone musically satisfied, but not in a safe, comfortable way.

Snaith... continues his legacy of making constantly challenging, changing music that never gets beyond itself, that always remains immensely human.