It’s an experiment in construction, its sandbox carefully sparse. Fitting then, that Explosions In The Sky find that elusive spark and thrive in such surroundings.

Their third album Infinite Arms glows with that familiar sound, a sound born with an American heart.

Yes, the style and the evocative mood that positively drips from this record are perhaps its most obvious elements but the spirit that underlies these sweltering ballads is massive.

If you do have another [James record], the chances are it’s stored away somewhere you don’t think about very often. The chances are, too, that The Girl at the End of the World, likeably well-intentioned as it may be, will end up in the same place.

Drake is far too talented to turn in an album of dregs, and a lot of the content featured of Views is of the same breed of quality we would expect, like the instantly contagious 'Grammys', featuring Future. But for him to be so often contented with merely satisfactory results is somehow much more disappointing than a total failure.

Mostly, A Pink Sunset… is truly beautiful background music, gently chiming and pulsing and ricocheting off of itself and into your subconscious.

The agony is there, but none of the nuance or substance that would make you empathise or relate with it.

Fans of Jesu will enjoy the boisterousness of some arrangements here, the incessant crushing of the listener’s resistance.

Here Belong have depersonalised an already stark landscape, making a record that's easy to admire but hard to love.

Understated, sloth-like and quick-witted all at once.

What War Room Stories makes clear is that the way forward is further exploration and boundary pushing. Unsurprisingly, given both their sound and their ethos, Breton are not at their best when static, but rather forging ahead--cramming the bare bones of their sound into new and unsuspecting genres and influences.

If Basement Jaxx want to hide their scars behind such easily enjoyable and well constructed pop music, then long may they continue.

Apes aren’t about to crack that ‘til now ignorant mainstream with this fourth offering, but established acolytes and curious newcomers will find much indeed to be super-stoked about.

There's plenty of interesting stuff going on throughout.

At his best Turner can be immensely charming and gloriously witty. Sadly, these facts only makes the dreary, alarmingly soulless retreads that populate most of Positive Songs for Negative People all the more depressing.

Tick the boxes, add a few strings, loud bit here, quiet bit there--it presents as the musical equivalent of a catering buffet that while attractive, initially satisfying and never truly souring of the palate, ends up quickly becoming a homogenised sprawl that fails to tempt you back for second helpings.

Although perhaps a bit overbearing at 11 songs, Bachelorette is a worthwhile collection of distinctive orchestrations that should propel Annabel Alpers even further into the limelight.

Lerner has every inch of the stadium-indie minefield mapped out and slapped in plain view on his sturdy pop-machine's fulcrum.

His dull lyrics get made more of a point of through repetition, they shine brighter than his well-crafted moments of introspection. There's only so many times listening to a man singing about someone waiting at a bus stop can be bearable.

A Chorus Of Storytellers fits in quite succinctly alongside its predecessors, and while perhaps not scaling the skyscraping heights of An Orchestrated Rise To Fall or In A Safe Place, doesn't rally represent a decline in standards either.

Longing for The Blood Brothers (or even, of course, Pretty Girls Make Graves) is as futile as rating a current girlfriend against an ex: while both may have inspired your love, all that truly matters is the here and now. And Jaguar Love are very much of today. There is no turning back.

Smilewound requires something of an adjustment of expectations.

In general, the songs that began life as full band, large productions numbers undergo Young’s intimate reimagining far better than the already bare-boned tunes.

News From Nowhere is an album which blossoms over the course of its running time.

Alec Ounsworth has responded to the challenge by writing a bright, pithy record stuffed with delicious tunes, not only in the vocals but both guitars and (particularly) the keyboards, and generally all at the same time.

Great in parts though it is, Magic Potion isn’t quite the album to attract a raft of newcomers to The Black Keys’ archaic rock.

Hall Music, continues this reticent foray, concealing its quaint charms until six or seven concentrated plays have been sucked up and digested.

While it would be hasty to suggest disregarding the main conceptual focus, the truth is that Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee's virtues lie in Ferree's considerable talents as a singer and songwriter, and not as a testament to a forgotten star or as a treatise on youth, fame and loneliness.