The new record by Vampire Weekend is the best alternative pop album you will hear this year. Unselfconscious, technically brilliant in a way that crucially you will never actually notice, shimmering with beautiful, strange melodies and just a small smidge of actual bonkers.

Historian feels like a universe that exists before time, somewhere to reach up to when you need to express something greater than yourself. And Dacus shows us the way, with grace and patience and the quiet confidence of writers twice her age.

Laurel Halo’s most ecstatically esoteric effort to date, which, in the case of this artist at least, is another way of saying that is both her best and her most joyously listenable.

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

It is, in a word, magnificent.

As for the deluxe aspects of this release, the record sounds about as good as it always did.

Occasionally, rarely, a record comes along that restores our faith. If this is the future of pop-music, then sign me up.

Out of all the stellar releases in 2014, this collaboration is the one which is most likely to stay with us all, and the one from which the most new conclusions will be made as years in the future, we’re still dissecting and seeking to understand the stories and emotions captured therein.

Gang Gang Dance, however, have found their voice in a world of retro revivalists and fly-by-night trendhoppers. It's whatever they want it to be, and it's awesome.

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.

A wonderful surprise.

The 19 songs form a 39-minute-long cohesive whole which looses its meaning once shuffled or reorganised. What could come across as a mash-up of jam sessions slowly reveals its internal coherence.

A most wonderful storm of a record indeed.

The band has pulled off the difficult trick of sculpting a record concerned with weighty, complex themes and made it sound like the breeziest, most effortless thing in the world: a collection of fleet, shimmering pop songs; a master-class in sonic splendour; a bold, beautiful and brilliant reinvention that should surprise as many as it will enthrall.

Primary Colours is a reminder that young British bands can actually progress to brilliant new heights, and perhaps, just perhaps, the occasional surprise in these media saturated times isn’t as endangered a beast as previously thought.

The list of reasons to be angry have grown exponentially in the brief intervening period, so it only makes sense that Mirror is the way it is. Staring into the abyss is rarely this stupefying and spectacular.

This is the sound of a gang who've never been tighter, and a postcard of their journey that couldn't have captured them at a higher peak.

Picking out highlights from a treasure chest overflowing with golden nuggets is a tough call, but Inspiral Carpets' 'Theme From Cow' off their unsurpassed and impossible to find Plane Crash EP, *8Kitchens Of Distinction's shoegaze prototype 'Prize', Thrilled Skinny's introduction to fraggle 'So Happy To Be Alive' and Mancunian oddballs King Of The Slums**' 'The Pennine Spitter' are just four of many reasons why this compilation should be high on every music completist's shopping list.

Intelligent indie-rockers, look nor listen no further for your possible album of the year.

Where Andrew Bird succeeds so fervently with Noble Beast is in endowing it a vital, quixotic sense of humanity.

Diehard fans needn’t worry that Autechre have diluted themselves in that respect, for Oversteps is still a challenging listen, and one which reveals endless layers of new detail with each spin. But it’s also their most instantly rewarding – and arguably best--album to date.

It’s a record without a weak link, that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and excites you about the possibility of seeing it all played live.

'Capture/Release' may not be the jolliest record in the world, but perversely, it’s damn good fun and a heck of a lot more.

As the title suggests, it's a record which marks a transition for The Roots but which, like the America it addresses, is still aware of the burden of the recent past.

She writes beats and creates streetwise slithery DogPop with b-lines and brawn and occasionally shows us that wide-open vulnerability is as vital and visceral as virulent heartsteppin’ sin-sharing.

Hurrah for all those who delight in confounding expectations, especially when the results are this unexpectedly, paradoxically delightful.

The coherence of Tempest is the hypnotic key to its charm.

It’s the often perfect synthesis between lyrical content and production on OB4CLII that makes the album simply sublime.