The result is an awkward balance of personal exploration which they refuse to commit to, and a relentless chirpiness which is becoming increasingly unnatural.

The scope might be limited, but at least one truth shines out: he writes songs of unembellished rawness, sharp as a knife and tight as the proletariat wallet.

The craft and impact of Opus Alter is something to marvel at, and it will no doubt raise their obsidian star even higher in the stoner firmament.

It’s the boorishness of their football hooligan fanbase, the bravado that they failed to deliver on in their later years and the all-consuming nature of the brothers’ public personas that you really need to put to one side when you listen to records like this one; if you can manage that, and overlook the cynical nature of this release, then you’re left with three discs that contain a generous selection of some of the finest rock songs that a British band ever produced.

65daysofstatic have captured the sound of space as one of excitement and exhilaration: whether you experience it in isolation or as part of the game it is certainly one worth listening to.

Such is the emotive power of ‘Sea of Blood’, it would be easy for the rest of the LP to be overshadowed by it, but it’s to the credit of Tall Ships and Impressions that this is never a factor.

If The Epic was a very large and rich meal then Harmony of Difference is a palate-cleansing sorbet or digestif. On the surface there is nothing unyielding or dense about it and everything flows together wonderfully, but once you start to scratch the surface you discover an EP that is full of hidden melodies and motifs and has enough to charm to make up for its brevity.

Outsiders contains all the summery charm that made The Magic Numbers so vital all those years ago, but by golly they've matured in their songwriting too. This is a full-blown adult contemporary pop record, in the best sense.

It is a refreshing, sublime, and exciting work of art.

An incredibly warm and organic sounding debut.

If you have even the teensiest taste for the guilty charms of Kylie, the ‘Babes or Girls Aloud, this album is a must.

Volume 3 is essential listening and another triumph.

Slight discrepancies aside, July Flame triumphs when the music is stripped and Veirs' reflective folk-pop and country-folk songwriting comes to the fore. As it transpires, July Flame is a treasure trove for the wistful daydreamer.

What isn't in any doubt is that these compositions, from Hadreas' distinctive, fragile vocal through to the orchestration behind the compositions themselves represents a significant progression from the bolt-from-the-blue that was Learning.

They all contribute to the consistency of atmosphere that makes the album in itself such a distinctively satisfying listen, and one in which anybody who makes the initial effort can immerse themselves entirely.

It's no contender for end-of-year honours, but so far as pop goes in 2006, this may well be the pinnacle.

Drums & Guns is likely to split opinion to a greater extent than any other piece of Low's extensive catalogue, but avid fans should not be put off as behind the challenging production and at the centre of all their controlled experimentation lies one of the band’s strongest releases to date.

This is a record of sweeping complexity, that captures the raw energy Deftones have always thrived upon without eschewing the benefits of an intelligent eye being cast over the production.

Through the Windowpane maximizes and intensifies every moment, every muttered word and every touch of emotion.

It is an almost endlessly intriguing record, full of mad ideas, strange microhooks and an air of rich elegy that just works.

It's a strong departure from the more sedate haunted seaside sounds of their last album, Butterfly House. It’s the sound of a band revitalised after a five-year-hiatus, ready to conquer the world once again.

There really isn’t anything wrong with this album. It’s just the most amazing sugar rush you’re going to have this year, and is what, at this point in time, sounds strongly like the best debut album by a British indie band since Tigermilk.

Not only does The Plot Against Common Sense reach and exceed those expectations, it only goes blows them out of the water. Into the sky. To the moon. And beyond... This is everything a Future of the Left album should be.

Stripping away the frills, at heart Major Arcana is a mournful treasure that asks to be celebrated.

It'll no doubt sell by the bucket load; it's one for the completists and dads at Christmas, but first timers looking for an introduction to The Clash should definitely look elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see where Protomartyr go from here and if they can sustain this incredible level of output, but if nothing else, Consolation gives hope that this band will continue to be the real deal (pun intended).

There are times on Let the Blind…, when the music around Cox veers subtly in the right direction, where you can hear the grub’s surprise as he wakes up with Great Admiral wings, ugly white noise turning psychedelic.

These are strong songs. This is a coherent, mature piece of work.

Played out in full, the record resembles a depressing rummage through early-Nineties record racks--listenable, yes, but without the nerve to tickle more ear-pleasing teats

What it really all boils down to is your tolerance for lengthy psyche records, which is what Embyonic undoubtedly is.

Richmond Fontaine hardly deserves any kind of apologetic treatment, if for no other reason than You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing To Go Back To is a lively statement at the (supposed) end of a 22-year-run.

This is an album that is full of glorious melodies, harsh noise and field recordings. Agora is the strongest, and most cohesive, album that Fennesz has released in over a decade, and that is no mean feat.

She's made an album that only she could have made, and frankly it's refreshing to hear a female singer from a folk background whose most obvious and overwhelming reference point isn't Joni Mitchell via Laura Marling.

If it's pop thrills a go-go you’re after, you’ve got it.

'The Fog' provides the LP's coda; part of me is surprised by the last-gasp dive into Gruff Rhys-esque psychedelic pop, but the rest of me is too bowled over by its beauty to care. It's the last in a dazzling array of surprises that show exactly why his label were so keen to snap him up in the first place. On this evidence, Ghost Culture is in for a very good year.

If Transcendental Youth is the best thing Darnielle's ever done, it's only because it's about five per cent tighter and better-played.

It’s probably not the album in the band’s considerable catalogue that’s going to convert the unconvinced--it’s a bit too uneven to be considered for that position--but, for the first time in a while, Thee Oh Sees have their eyes fixed firmly on new ground.

Unfortunately, the plodding repetition soon rears its ugly head again, and stays for the duration.

Where the split-personality of Cryptograms hinted as much, a cohesive effort on Microcastle delivers the goods in its entirety.

With references to house, dub, and instrumental rock all stitched together into a looping, building tapestry that manages to be both visually and emotionally evocative, this is certainly an album that will keep your interest long into the next fad.

Crack-Up is perhaps Fleet Foxes' most epic and inventive record yet.

There are a lot of sweeping strings throughout ...and the Pioneer Saboteurs, but don't come along expecting a smooth ride. Although he might look and occasionally sound like Richard Hawley's younger, scruffier brother, Hinson shares little of the Brit's romance here.

The positivity is never over the top, nor does the pure sincerity exhibited throughout ever feel excessively earnest. It’s this which sets this band apart from their indie-pop contemporaries, and makes Try To Be Hopeful a record which should be revered as a truly important piece of work.

Produced differently, A Deeper Understanding could be really startling stuff; as it is, it feels like The War on Drugs have made an agreeable, fan-pleasing album to escape into and hide in, not to a record to take on the world--but perhaps that’s not such a bad thing in 2017.

The record isn't perfect either, though it's enjoyable in places.

While New View may be musically somewhat muted, sonically a touch predictable and backward-looking, Friedberger still crafts utterly charming songs with brilliantly observed moments and a real sense of life’s great adventure.

With Pastoral Bernholz, excavates beneath the superficial lush turf of England’s green and pleasant land to reveal an angry mix of ancient and contemporary pus-filled sores.

It is, all in all, a pretty solid front half of a Spiritualized album that sort of transmits intermittently in the middle and then totally falls on its arse for the last three tracks.

Whether or not it is as defining a release as OK Cowboy even feels somewhat incidental in the end, as Flashmob is easily the most enjoyable, addictive, air-keyboard-inducing electronic record that the year is likely to produce.

Villains isn’t a terrible record, but it’s not a fantastic record either, and that’s perhaps the least kind thing that could be said about new material from a band which we’ve come to expect a lot from.

The opening half of 'Penance...' alone blows every so-called rock act polluting our airwaves clean away, such is the savage malevolence that resonates within every single syllable that spouts from Joe Cardamone's mouthful of poison.

Perhaps Nightmare Ending would have been a more interesting record if Cooper had let himself off the leash rather more and explored ‘flawed’ ideas and sounds more purposefully.

Kveikur is as melodic and, in places, as fragile as anything the band have released before.

If there is one thing in this world that can elevate even the weakest of lyrics from the trough of personal diary hell, it’s a catchy melody. Thankfully this record overflows with them.

The Age of Adz is not an unqualified success; occasionally it does feel like a little too much, and until the dust has settled it is difficult to say where it will sit in his discography as a whole.

Lyrically, it's a broad, emotionally-led investigation into 'the state of things'. By no means, however, is it bogged down by the precise or the singular or the definitive. Within its lyrical muddlings, we might be able to tease of a forecast of things to come, or it might just be fooling us with a potent swirling of punchy psychedelic rock.

The album's brevity is its strength here: much longer, and you risk burning out or blunting the intensity of the riffage. Any shorter, and it risks leaving you unsated. As it is, The Blind Hole is just right.

Master is a record of real and rare magnificence.

From Scotland with Love stands testimony to the increasing genius of Anderson and his craft.

By playing it straight and singing it even straighter, he's created an intensely listenable and emotional album that's impossible not to relate to.

Oneohtrix Point Never has gone further than most, especially with Replica, in proving that our heritage doesn't always need to be "rehashed" to be replicated with real style.

All in all Explosions In the Sky still retain their vitality in strong melody and melodramatic disposition, it’s just at times you wish they were a little more daring.

If All I Was Was Black contains performances as powerful as any she has given.

Ty Segall and White Fence haven't reinvented themselves, nor have they revolutionised garage rock, but Hair stands as a welcome reminder of how enjoyable guitar and drum music can be both to play and to hear.

It’s a clever and often highly entertaining album with inbuilt limitations, but if you buy one record this year whose title is possibly a reference to Bumblebee Man from The Simpsons, it should probably be this one.

Brutal, violent and disturbing though it may be, its surreal hybrid of human and simulation has some strange beauty to it.

The best way to approach this band is to stop comparing them to the usual reference points--instead, it's far more rewarding to accept Offend Maggie as a land of its own making, something to be indulged, explored and, finally, cherished.

At its best Sound & Color is very strong indeed.... Elsewhere it can be a little business-as-usual.

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

The music operates less as an end in itself and more as a counterpoint to the keening, whispering, screeching, gasping voice-as-expression-of-humanity: within the silicon maze, she suggests, there’s a ghost trying to get out.

The Unthanks have never been gentle background music as some might expect, as they’re always drawn to the darker stories that they can dig up. On Mount The Air, those stories are matched by some sumptuous, confident music, and they sound all the better for it.

This is by far The White Stripes’ most peculiar record.

On The Crying Light, Antony acts as a conduit between popular music and the avant-garde, and if that’s not a mark of greatness, what is?

The result is what separates indie music from the contemporary mainstream: an actual album, a 40-minute body of work with a sense of cohesiveness that isn’t designed to be broken down into Spotify playlists or end-of-year 'best of 2014' mixtapes.

The Argument's cataclysmic clashes and multitudinous puzzle pieces that never quite fit together are the stuff of a deeply flawed classic.

So swings and roundabouts, then, but for all Bloodsports’ faults, it’s still pretty good.

The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs is a symphony in freedom, and a potent testament to Wye Oak’s ambition moving forwards, the possibilities for this band are limitless.

Three albums in, and the four folks who identify as Terry continue to defy simple categories, even when their zigzag pop songs take you for a leisurely cruise.

Notice the way whole songs skulk past without you ever noticing; how half the material here is ornate but unmemorable muzak, with all the emotional force of a feather. [combined review of both discs]

We have instead been blessed with an embraceable record from a contemporary dance music auteur and a partner who proves a skilful wingwoman.

This is a fruitful and distinctive addition to Malkmus' oeuvre, not least thanks to Beck who also produced Thurston Moore's latest outing with a similarly sensitive finesse.

Scott Litt's crisp, clean production always had a plangent directness that suited Out of Time perfectly, and any remastering tweaks are pretty imperceptible. Disc two here is entirely comprised of demos, many of them instrumental, and certainly not something to repeatedly listen to in a single sitting.

A work of formidable and pristine beauty.

Beautiful, if rather impenetrable at times, Sonnet succeeds when holding back - teasing soft, sometimes brittle melodies through reverbed layers of atmospherics, giving just enough away to engage and envelop.

So while there are a few moments of blandness, a few moments where tradition sits a little too comfortably for a little too long and where some of us may be a little lost lyrically, there is never any question of the inherent power of Staples’ voice.

Reportedly taking as much time to arrange harmonies as write the music, Gorilla Manor is a definite labour of love, and you know what they say; you get out what you put in. Though it may not be revolutionary, for me, this album is a little gem.

Dougall’s voice, which is always sounds faintly sad (all the best voices do) laying a melancholic consistency across the whole thing. Star-shaped indeed.

The Kenny Dennis LP is an intriguing piece of character led alt-hip hop. It will baffle some, but if you stick with it the reward for your patience is Serengeti’s keenly observed portrayal of an enigmatic, idiosyncratic and ultimately charming character.

Kokoro is a small but significant treasure that is full of compassion, and the so-called ‘selfie’ generation would do well to pay heed to it.

At times hypnotic in their understatement, every so often they gently erupt with vivid melodies that bring the underlying air of tension to its peak.

Fin as an album appears to be the requisite cross-over hit of the year, following in the footsteps of Caribou's Swim and Pantha Du Prince's Black Noise.

This is a proud record that is best played loud, and often.

All told, Keep Moving is pretty much everything a second album should be. It takes the strengths of the first record and builds on them, it explores new ideas, and crucially it’s a much more cohesive musical affair than Slow Down.

Troyka have the tools make his dream a reality. Well, they would do, if they'd just stop with that dastardly noodling.

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.

The record is bookended by the heaviest tracks, and 'Uncle Frank Says Turn It Down' picks up where the opener left off. ... The middle section of the album is more explorative with the metallic, bending and flexes of ‘Europa’ creating an unnerving interlude after the ruckus before it.

Although this doesn't quite scale the heights of their two previous LPs, "Death Is This Communion" and "Blessed Black Wings," it shouldn't be thought of as a point of no return. As ambassadors for metal, they remain near-peerless.

A bottle of red wine and a full listen of the album is when you’re really going to uncover the caveats and subtleties of the record. Anything else and you’re just wasting a wonderfully dark and seething record.