All said and done, it's the kind of enchanting, quietly literate indie rock record you could build an intricately compelling life story from, while retaining a fascinating jumble of half-told, quarter-understood anecdotes, stolen glances and sad, gleaming characters for leftovers. Lovely stuff.

Mixing his ear for hits, like single ‘Hero’, with the political eloquence that marks the record out, this ought to be the album that promotes Nas back up into the super leagues that 1994’s "Illmatic" originally shot him into.

Sure, there are imperfections along the way, but this is an immeasurably intriguing and constantly developing journey that's best experienced alone.

While the ground The Coathangers find themselves treading is well-worn, it's their approach and general unpretentious demeanour that makes them and Larceny & Old Lace a delightfully engaging collection, even if the underlying message bears a hallmark of sadness and loss.

VanGaalen draws from familiar territory. What makes these songs truly surreal (and ergo, sublime) are his wacky scenes, both monstrous and endearingly human all at once.

If you like your pop music intelligent, layered and tinged with drama, this is an album you can’t afford to ignore.

Dissociation may not be the dream record for those who want Dillinger to return to the pure intensity of Calculating Infinity or Miss Machine, but it does make a suitably multi-faceted and powerful closing statement from one of heavy music’s most brilliantly insane bands.

Listening to Beings though makes one thing abundantly clear: Lanterns on the Lake are one of Britain's most crucial bands of the present moment.

The music itself is epic, and not in that wanky overblown stadium rock way--epic in the way of glockenspiels and falsettos and cello bow scraping against guitar strings and pounding drums and explosions of piano chords.

While there are inevitable parallels what with one album following the last so soon, this fourteenth LP from the fluctuating-of-membership Bad Seeds is a bolder creation that its predecessor.

North not only blurs the lines of genre, but it does so both effortlessly and convincingly. Darkstar took a risk in straying from a template that had already served them well, but nobody ever made a great record by playing it safe.

Casey Dienel and partner Shawn Creeden have created something that has a sense of the familiar yet also a simultaneous feeling of fresh investigation, a record with frequent moments of measured and finely balanced beauty but also a restive application of shifting textures to create a nuanced patchwork of sounds that keep their piquant flavour with repetitive listening.

Just as Shuman himself demands attention within the crowded QOTSA line-up, Mini Mansions should shine in their own right regardless of their imposing origins. All they require are your ears. It would be rude to turn down such a delectable request.

Chris is an album delivered for a wider audience, but still with a subversive and unique texture and emotion that loses nothing of the vacillating energy of the subculture whilst making a confident play for the biggest stages.

It's careful yet effortless, passionate yet distant but above-all, wholly unique.

The overall sound of The Foley Room is unquestionably Tobin's, even though it sounds like a step forward rather than a re-tread.

Although, Gough has always said that he finds music instantaneous and the lyrics the hardest part to write, It's What I'm Thinking showcases Gough at his most insightful to the human condition and himself.

It's an album almost too personal, too suffocating, to match the transcendence of Portner's best work with Animal Collective; still, his vision of sad swampland, and its beautifully intricate and melancholy soundtrack, is haunting - the sound of someone confronting their demons and coming away stronger.

Of course there will always be some who are sceptical and ultimately dismissive of mainly instrumentally-based, experimental rock albums such as this, and on hearing White Fields And Open Devices I'd say the five members of Vessels are almost certainly among them. Which is exactly why they should be commended on making one of the most forward-thinking, non-generic records you're likely to hear this year.

There's an intricate balance struck between analogue and digital, between raw confession and meticulously engineered sonic detail.

While it’s very much business as usual--groove-led-Stooges-acid-pop with added screaming--it sounds so gloriously Mudhoney it offers a thrill akin to Popping Candy fizzing in My Little Pony blood.

Overall, Stars Are Our Home is a delightfully mixed bag that does rare justice to the term 'supergroup'.

This EP is a welcome reminder of James’s ability to utilise decidedly avant-garde ideas in a manner that, although acutely alien to our idea of musical normality, is nevertheless engaging and inspiring.

There's an inner beauty--no, honesty--to this debut.

Though no longer flavour of the month in 'cool' circles, as far as The Warlocks are concerned it's business as usual, and The Mirror Explodes is up there with their finest works to date.

Each listener should find their own things to contemplate, relate to and enjoy in these thoughtful, ornamental and fantastic songs, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

Whilst a complete reinvention of rock this may not be, a beautiful soaring record for messy nights and hungover Sundays, it most certainly is.

Actually listen to Tough Love and you’ll realise that Ware has made a record that is totally ready for chart success, should her label promote it accordingly, but also deeper and more thoughtfully-considered than any British pop album that lingers in recent memory; the fact that it seems so reserved is nothing more than an indicator of Ware’s confidence in the potency of its sensuality.