Fleet Foxes doesn't leave the stereo. Three, four, five times through-–these songs resonate over and over until they stick for good. A sign of a great record: words fail but a feeling remains.

Space Ducks is a must have for fans, and a superb introduction for those unfamiliar with his work.

The production is progressive, but not difficult; the mixture of sampled melodies and live instrumentation gives the whole record a submarine clarity and (as with many Anticon releases) the more listens the listener gives, the more content the album returns.

While the concept of a double album can be off–putting for some, these records shift and weave so seamlessly that one barely notices the combined one hr 30 runtime. That said, it is a record that rewards repeat listens, as its length and depth are well worth letting wash over you.

It shows an artist no longer caught in his own artistic web, but someone watching his past selves struggle from a higher vantage point.

Drums & Guns is likely to split opinion to a greater extent than any other piece of Low's extensive catalogue, but avid fans should not be put off as behind the challenging production and at the centre of all their controlled experimentation lies one of the band’s strongest releases to date.

Blackstar sees him and his band nail a haunting mood.

The amalgam of Clark's one-of-a-kind vocal and Toydrum's inventive soundscaping would, under normal circumstances have Evangelist marked out as a modern classic.

The Hamilton, Canada-based songstress has creamed together her best set yet. In Asking For Flowers, Edwards is uncompromising, but sombre.

Clever, joyous and never patronising, O is a half hour bite of summer that’s perfect for fending off the darkening nights.

The risks that Damien Jurado and producer Richard Swift take on Maraqopa are small and subtle adjustments to those already made on Saint Bartlett, but they are small steps which reap exquisite rewards for the listener.

In many ways, Outer South feels almost like a coming of age for Oberst. His voice is way stronger than it has been in the past.

Although it falls a few steps shy of wowing unreservedly, The Knot remains a poised and compelling second album.

Not everything is as memorable as everything else and there are a few tracks which perhaps have a tendency to meander a bit too long, but these do not take away from the overall feel of the album, more just drift off into space as is the predominant feeling of the two records.

It’s not a pretty record; while of course, being at times a very pretty record.

The best British debut since Oasis? Definitely... maybe. But one of the albums of the year? Without doubt.

Lotta Sea Lice won’t totally slake the thirst of the pair’s individual fanbases for new solo work, but what it does do is see them bring out the best in each other. It’s a powerful testament to the possibilities offered up by a genuine creative friendship.

Future Politics is political, danceable, dark, shimmering and hopeful. Not a combination easily achievable, but Austra have never been a normal band. Utopia might be fiction, but Future Politics is real, beautiful, necessary.

Koloss, however, is a real triumph of its genre: inventive, surprising, pleasingly punchy, unashamedly aggressive with just enough shade, tone and melody to balance the raucous but impressive production.

Frost has ditched much of the subtlety and minimalism that echoed within his previous work and birthed a surging, hard charging, straight to the rim, go-hard-in-the-paint beast of an album.

The overall effect is intoxicating -- some sort of triangulated point in the middle of REM, New Order and Statistics.

Whatever the case, Adore Life still feels like a step forward, not because it’s different, but because it’s more so.

Despite being the unmistakable sound of Beirut, this is not the "Orkestar" extension so widely expected. Rather than congesting the listener with frantic Eastern European folk shanties, a poignant nobility and romantic notion of contemporary France permeates its way into your conscience with unbridled zeal.

Ultimately, there is a familiarity to In Mind which for some may seem a little too much of the same from this now 'veteran' band, but as with every Real Estate record, their collective ears for little surprising turns and touches in amongst their overall pleasing sound, is still impressive, eight years on.

Although Stage Whisper comprises very much atypical pieces of music from Gainsbourg, it's still equally as lovable and interesting as her other works.

Here Panda retreats to inscrutable, heavenly distance, and while force of emotion might not suit an album whose foundations are laid on force of sound, I still find myself wishing he'd fully explore his more human side someday.

Travis may have reached the kind heights where each new release is instantly dismissed by many as more disposable, daytime-radio fodder, but '12 Memories' is easily the best post-'Rush Of Blood…' soft-rock record there is.

Indeed with such a raging fire burning through their bellies, this stands up alongside 60 Second Wipe Out as possibly Atari Teenage Riot's most potent collection of songs to date, and what's more, in a climate besieged with apathy and despondence, their relevance today cannot be underestimated.