This is an intellectual jaunt that reveals the beauty of pop music, both musically and lyrically.

As its title suggests All Nerve is never a passive listen, it shifts you, touches a nerve, and leaves a timely mark.

Wells’s piano is still the most dominant instrument on display, and Moffat is still crafting haunting tales of ageing regret and frustration. There is, however, something bizarrely hopeful about The Most Important Place in the World at times.

Total Strife Forever is that scarcest of things; a masterly record which walks a unpredictable line musically yet remains entirely consistent in quality.

With one less guitarist, bass lines lie exposed more often than before; the riffs that should sheath them are scorched, ripped, patched. Even without reading into the lyrics, songs like 'Running All Over the Wicket' stab with enough Melvins-ish menace to draw blood. And where other albums offered some reprieve from the violence (like 'City of Exploded Children' or 'French Lessons'), there’s no rest in sight here.

Occasionally shrouded in sadness but with happiness always beating from its core, My Maudlin Career lays bare the sweet melancholy of love.

Paramore feels far more human and honest than anything the band have committed to tape to date, and even at its most intense, the record feels intimate (or at least like a gig happening in the back corner of your mind).

At times hypnotic and otherworldly, it's a soothing, unsettling and challenging listen.

Both a likely contender for the finest indie rock record of the year, then, and a breathtakingly chaotic venture far beyond that genre's remit.

A record that will endure beyond this year, this decade and the rest.

While Erickson provided the 'text', Sheff had to present it with the right level of reverence, being careful to highlight, and not undermine, this record of struggle and redemption.

There is an energy to Cry, Cry, Cry that simply got lost in the storm Apologies created. After some time away to re-group, it seems, Wolf Parade have re-found that spark.

This is music that challenges and provokes.

This collection of his most ambient and interesting soundtracks is presented here in a contemporary art crescendo; and features the good, the better and the synthesized from his artsy endeavours.

With the current renaissance of the one-man band genre, it's pleasing to see that we now have a modern-day figurehead worthy of rock’s glorious past.

In There is Love in You we see one of the last decade’s most early pioneers reminding us all that he’s still just as important as ever.

The focus is there, the execution is there. It’s a record that delivers, satisfies, challenges and is occasionally sublime.

Two Dancers, then, doesn't so much follow up their debut as announce Wild Beasts as one of our genuinely special bands, one that can compete--in terms of both musical and lyrical ingenuity as well as sheer pop nous--with any US act you've seen talked up in the music press this year.

Furman has not lost his terrific way with a tune, a rhythm and a lyric, this time often paired up with odd sound effects or quirky instrumentation that just make it all the more compelling and moreish. Although the subject matter can be heavy (and all the better for it), it is presented in fabulous slowly-building pop tune wrapping.

‘Probot’ is the full length dream of a teenage metalhead.

If... you’re already a fan, this is definitely worth a listen, not only for the interest value, but for the multiple songs which are simply brilliant Bad Seeds moments.

With its mix of Tamil pop, Baltimore beats and, yes, funk carioca Kala succeeds best in pulling genres together to make something both unique and identifiable --a 'hip-hop' record that explores what it means to sing about "hip-hop things."

It’s just brilliant.

The cumulative effect--somewhere around being lifted into the heavens by sunrays--is at odds with the continuous black clouds that come before. Yet it’s a necessary chink of light to conclude a journey so oppressive you may just forget to breathe through its duration.

Mutual Horse is a feast for the senses, demonstrating Miranda’s potential. She is truly an underrated artist with exceptional talent and imagination.

The work of three individuals arriving at the peak of their powers, it’s likely to be the band’s OK Computer, their Music For The Jilted Generation, their Dark Side Of The Moon – the record that everything they produce subsequently is immediately unfairly rated against, ‘til time’s own sands sit still.

The achievement of The Seldom Seen Kid is that Elbow manage to be both incredibly consistent and perpetually improving.

This is a terrifying, wise album.