The most frustrating part of the brilliance is that it has been all too fleeting. Please Anni, give us more.

It's at the safest of removes; emote by rote, numbness by numbers.

Ultimately, it’s all just too lazy. Yes, I know that’s the point, but this really is slacking overkill.

While Part II is broadly a success, it is a qualified one. Lines often come across as clunky and trite.

Along with fellow Birmingham rabble rousers Table Scraps, Sunshine Frisbee Laserbeam have made a record that proves the spirit of DIY is alive, well and living somewhere off the M42/A34 axis.

The songwriting is definitely more consistent than before.

Twilight Of The Innocents is surprisingly, frustratingly, bafflingly good.

Slaves of Fear isn’t perfect, but then I’m not sure it’s trying to be. It’s all over the place, but is also strangely connected. It’s good, just leave me alone now--I need a lie down.

Even if they wrap themselves in prettier packaging, they’re as sharp as ever.

The front-heavy momentum of Pigeons is enough to ensure that that the dreamy beauty of Here We Go Magic's debut has been fiercely preserved.

It hardly makes for the most exciting record of the year.... But it is clearly a very accomplished album.

this album is never less than interesting. It’s just that with but a touch of discipline, they could create something truly magical.

Ester doesn't quite have a narrow enough scope for us to be able to say that Trailer Trash Tracys have a sound that's all their own, but they're close to finding their voice, and with a little more refinement it will come out, not loudly, but clearly.

A generally rambunctious mid-fi indie electropop sitting at an odd remove from the band’s devotional cause.

The joy and longevity emanating throughout is at once jubilant and effortless: a luminescent pop-not-quite-masterpiece as much an indication one waits a little further down the road, Nights Out is eminently worthy of your time and investment.

It is nothing more, and nothing less than a decent Morrissey album, and for some that is all the recommendation needed.

Although Liima’s first offering is somewhat of a mixed affair, it is worth sticking with, for both them and us.

The first two singles released of the album, ‘J-Boy’ and ‘Ti Amo’, are enjoyable enough, setting the scene with shimmery ripples as you’re engulfed by the clubby rhythm, disco-balls swirling through every riff. But they also reveal the main flaws in the album: both build promisingly into grand reveals only to stall and go nowhere, like revving a car in neutral.

Whether Ogilala will count as one of them remains to be seen. Like its author it too is both fascinating, brilliant and unlikeable by turns. An interesting curio in an always-compelling career.

Throughout, Sitek’s production dusts the stark techno basslines and percussion with ambient touches, and renders them human again, embellishing with swathes of guitars and treated synths, and allowing the vocals to come to the surface; untreated and clear as glass.

While ‘Hustle And Cuss’ and ‘I Can’t Hear You’ rely too much on the practically prehistoric blues template White has employed throughout his career, the slinky stomp and lusty roar of ‘Gasoline’ and the crashing, panting, hair rawk solo-infused ‘Jawbreaker’ show that The Dead Weather have found the balls to break free of such constraints.

‘Burned Mind’ isn’t music; it’s a vision of a decimated future.

As an album King Animal remains a somewhat numbing listen, its components, as excellent as they individually often are, making for a rather wearing collective, undeniably muscular but curiously unmemorable.

They’ve pushed themselves on this album, striving to achieve something honestly different to what was released before it. Occasionally they’ve fallen short of perfection, but for the most part this album is a certifiable success.

Unfortunately, though, almost a third of the album is devoted to namby-pamby ballads which, stripped of the band’s trademark sugary hooks, sound truly wispy by proportion.

Something For All Of Us isn't going to change anything for any of us--Canning will go back to doing whatever it is he does in Broken Social Scene, Drew will remain its fire eye'd leader, and the Presents... series is profoundly unlikely to shift a single unit to anyone not already a BSS fan. But in his own quiet way Canning has both proved and defined himself.

While there are tracks of beauty and wonder, there are duller moments too, where the history that First Aid Kit derive their music from overwhelms their songs, reminding us always of what came before.

Compared to Ferndorf, and its staggering highpoint Freibad, it's far more introspective and thoughtful, and requires far more effort to become fully absorbed within. Which, surely, is no bad thing, but you occasionally long for a little whimsy back.