Black Noise was one of electronic music's recent highlights, and if XI Versions is by no means as essential to anyone's collection as Black Noise, but is a fine addition nonetheless.

So many names, so many influences: perhaps unsurprisingly 'Demon Days' is a dizzying, disorientating and sometimes directionless album.

After five albums, and after seven years of silence, it’s obvious now that Art Brut work best when they’re back to basics, reminding us what it might have been like to be fresh out of university in pre-recession times, and ensuring that we can dance along with them while they’re at it.

Although this is a fantastic looking package, it really doesn't strike me as a particularly essential addition to the Smashing Pumpkins canon.

Ultimately, More Life does a terrific job creating a mood with its dancehall-flecked, atmospheric production (handled most impressively by the likes of Nineteen85 and Frank Dukes), and it certainly points to a fascinating fork in the road moment for the world’s biggest rapper.

While that’s frustrating the good stuff here is very, very good, and the less impressive fare on offer shouldn’t dissuade curious ears.

It’s not essential in the way Illinois is essential, but fans would be mugging themselves to not at least give it a whirl.

Destination Tokyo is something of a departure from the group’s previous sound, insofar as it is pared back and produced with more of an eye for clarity.

The whole record possesses an industrial feel, be it in the synths or the drum machines or the moody-sounding atmospherics that are peppered throughout the record. Option Paralysis, may not win back fair-weather fans, but they've again proved why they're regarded as one of the best in their field.

There’s plenty of Near to the Wild Heart of Life that carries the essential appeal of the band in spades, namely, a dedication to giving it your all until you collapse with euphoria and exhaustion.

V A R I A N T’s greatest strength is its palpable character, and his remix struggles to properly distinguish itself on an EP that is filled to the brim with varied and often unexpected takes on Frost’s music.

Its restrained combination of new and old, tradition and innovation, sums up the strengths of OH (ohio), an album which isn't another Lambchop masterpiece, but rather a fine addition to an extraordinary body of work.

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.

Much like Fleet Foxes, the music contained within isn't particularly ground breaking, but what is done is done well.

While Lambs Anger is in no way easy, brimming with first-degree sonic battery, it is compulsively listenable, and is most likely his, and Ed Banger’s, best album to date.

Although not quite the timeless classic its creators had hoped for, Prisoner is a solid debut that bears all the hallmarks of a bright future for The Jezabels.

Shortwave Nights is a real enigma, and oddly addictive for it.

On Anthology: Movie Themes 1974-1998, Carpenter allows a panoramic view of the music he created to accompany his films that, of course, is hard to separate from the movies themselves.

The cover of the Isley Brothers, "Why When The Love Is Gone" after "Don't Make A Sound" seems like sloppily tagged on attempt to be shown that the group's influences are genuine. Otherwise, Release Me is a perfectly produced pop gem with all substance and a lot of style.

Pere Ubu are somewhere in-between that--impenetrable musique concrete sound collages mixed with upbeat, breezy pop. A strange, strange world to inhabit, but one that’s ultimately as rewarding as it is frustrating.

Setters of trends, they will not be, with this offering. Providers of mindless, chaotic R&R, they most certainly can be.

The Southern gothic touches strewn throughout the album help make this their best set of angry anthems to date.

The beats, hooks and overall feel of these tracks is of a welcome high standard, sitting somewhere between the tried and tested aesthetics of yore and slick reinterpretation.

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.

It is missing IT - that something that makes a good album into a great, standout album.

There’s no doubt that Few More Days To Go is an intriguing record by a very promising band--but it also feels like this is just a taste of their true power.

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.

All in all, a precious record, this.