There's a completely unique blend of textures and a desire for musical experimentation running through the bloodstream of The Golden Age of Apocalypse, and it would be a great shame to see that overlooked.

This persistent juxtaposition of dynamics makes for a particularly striking, if challenging, listen.

One or two missteps aside, this is exactly what 9Bach do with Tincian--creating an ambiguous mood piece from fragments of traditional Welsh music and contemporary tension.

Primitive and Deadly is the latest in a recent suite of triumphs- by this point Earth are masters of their game, making music that’s bigger and more powerful than anything mere mortals should be able to create.

Still is Thompson through and through.

All Tense Now Lax, then, is brilliant precisely because of the way it flits disconcertingly between the two extremes presented in its title, between the constant and unrestrained tension of technological progress and the contrasting looseness of our day to day existence alongside it.

Little Fictions, their seventh, is, reliably, a very good Elbow album.

This attempt to marry together two equally confrontational (in their own distinct ways) musical forms reaps real rewards, and undoubtedly makes Wake in Fright a more consistently provocative record than the duo’s debut.

This record is a testament to its creators’ endurance. It has also resulted in an absolute creative peak.

Future Ruins progresses at a pleasing rate, though it never really pushes beyond its genre confines. Every track here is solid-to-good-to-occasionally-great with a friendly, familiar vibe of a bygone nature without ever really presenting anything new or challenging.

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.

While Dylan fans surely miss his original tunes, this honest, affecting tribute to a bygone era of music is a treat in itself.

So yes, these are intimate lyrics and stories told first person for the first time--and not just intimate, but vulnerable, self knowing, open and loving. And definitely not embarrassing.

Don't like it? Well Cee-Lo has two words for you.

Despite perhaps being a little too tasteful to truly excite, Big Black Coat is an accomplished, soulful effort that will reward casual listeners and audiophiles alike.

Nothing Is Wrong would have been a better record had that time been spent eking the emotion out of their own lives, rather than their record collections.

Take the receipt and lose it--you won’t be returning this record anytime soon.

Despite its abrasiveness, You’re Nothing is resolutely conservative in its insular aim of pleasing the only audience that matters: Iceage themselves.

There is a really great album rattling around in here and Howard's invention and ambition should be celebrated as such, it's just not quite at the level it could be.

Music doesn't always need to be about preaching, grand-slam bombastic leanings or pushing the envelope forward – that's a fallacy. Sometimes it can just be sonically gorgeous, layered and pleasing to your hearing and thought - just as Marissa Nadler ends up being.

Spoon are equally as enjoyable, and perhaps that bit more intriguing, when they are a little bit harder to fathom. Plus, to put it simply, there ain't a duff track to be found here.

Despite his vocal inflexions bearing more than a passing resemblance to those of the great man, he is a formidable artist in his own right with an ever-expanding canon of powerful and affecting songs. Not everything works quite as well.

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

Bruner/Thundercat has tamed (to some extent at least) his scope and ambition through his various influences and thoughts to make his third full-length album a joyful, crazy, substance-fuelled epic in an area where most of his contemporaries would take themselves endlessly seriously. Here, Bruner has harnessed all that into maybe his best record yet.

The Snake for the first time is a journey riddled with surprise--that almost nothing can be nailed down or predicted even after the seven-minutes-thirty of closer of 'My Heart' is pure 'lucky dip' stuff. Each time you dip in, you seem to come out with an even bigger handful of sweetness.

Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, can simultaneously be one of the most delicate, affecting albums of the year, and, yet, at the same time have such a strange, menacing name.

While the quality and beauty of The Golden Age can stand confidently beside those two classics ["Everclear & "Mercury"], it stands alone as another distinct chapter in the life of this band, precious to those who know them.

It’s a piece of masterful craftsmanship tucked snugly into the singer-songwriter tradition, filled with country-soul ballads and grungy laments driven by jangly guitars, family band harmonies, rumbling pianos and cinematic string passages that should appeal broadly to fans of the genre without alienating his own die-hards.