This is a modern masterpiece, it's as simple as that.

It’s the work of a confident, mature songwriter with a clear and distinct voice.

While getting the most out of this work takes a couple listens with at least one (simultaneous) read through with all your concentration, it’s worth every second and every bit of energy.

Even with that super high-gloss finish, it's hard to dispute the depth of songwriting talent throughout American Slang, and as a summer rock album, it's (quite literally) nigh on faultless.

The OOZ creates a brutalist and beautiful terrain, one that we can wander vicariously through King Krule; it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

Setting out its tracklisting in almost chronological order of release makes Another Splash Of Colour an even more engaging listen.

The result is 7, a record that gets closer to the band's self-imposed boundaries than they ever have before without really threatening to break them down.

He trusts in the strength of his lived-in arrangements and, on another album of beautifully detailed folk songs, he’s absolutely right to do so.

Dye It Blonde has unexpectedly crept into contention for being my favourite record of 2011 so far.

Bursting with new inspiration and direction, After the Party is the triumphant sound of a songwriting duo reaping the rewards of those sacrifices, a group of friends on an unstoppable streak of home runs.

It's feverish, unbalanced, disturbing, and for the most part captivating.

Royal Albert Hall is bursting at the seams with superb reinterpretations of some real classics.

This is a tremendously accomplished piece of work, but one lacking a little of the swagger of previous outings. Give it the time it deserves.

It's not a completely successful experiment, but Le Noise is certainly an important moment in Neil Young's ongoing story.

As with many dance LPs, Swisher is slightly on the long side--65 minutes is more than enough time to get your groove on. But the album never ends up sounding repetitive, the emotions behind the beats don’t allow it to.

It’s unpredictable, ridiculously clever, catchy as hell and as perfect a pop album as you’re ever likely to hear.

Whatever angle you examine it from, Lucky Shiner is an impressive statement, especially for a debut, and when Gold Panda lets the house beat sink into the background and experiments a little more with space and structure the results are gorgeous.

The guitars and brass survive, but everything else is fresh.

It's the sound of a band completely at ease with themselves despite hostile surroundings, where music becomes both a document of life and a means to ease away from its greatest challenges for a little while.

Ultimately the Swede’s absorption into his own mind gives him the throat of a man who sounds in control. This control is one of the things that make Kortedala Lekman’s most assured, comfortable record yet.

A pleasantly surprising album then that will hopefully earn its creator his fair share of deserved recognition.

Though far from flawless, removed from any brouhaha Street Horrrsing sees Fuck Buttons carve their own niche and not only produce a debut record that will claw at any prejudices over its 40-minute span but show up their drone brethren as too often resiliently stuck in the mud.

Believers isn't a rousing album. Its allure is slow-burning, almost unnoticeable.

An album that wouldn't be out of place if it had come out 30 years ago.

Pitched somewhere between physical pleasure and mental torture, is Oshin, dream-weaving, benevolent, sadistic puppet masters Diiv playing havoc with your sense of contentedness.

It’s a five-tracker with bite, with venom; it’s a reminder that while de la Rocha might age like the rest of us, the fires in his belly haven’t come close to being doused by mundane revivals of his most famous group’s mosh-happy hits.

It's idea after idea after idea, and though TVOTR comparisons are as inevitable as they are fair, billing BLK JKS as the Brooklynite's more giddy cousins is perhaps a little off the mark: better to say both bands tap into the same ultra-distinct vein of murky sonic magic.