On The Optimist, Anathema really do cement their title as one of the UK’s most revered rock bands, prog or otherwise: it’s a big jumble of ambitious ideas, executed near-perfectly--a mess, but a big, sprawling, dense, euphoric, beautiful one.

Keepers of the Light is a rarity for a double album: its indulgence (seriously, 144 minutes?) rarely grates, and its individuality doesn't cramp its funkiness.

In the midst of the beautiful descending piano chords of the Twin Peaks referencing ‘Leo Needs a New Pair of Shoes’ a blade of static erupts without warning, coming to life with an extremely high-frequency version of a distress flare’s hiss. Once this has faded the track’s coda becomes the most beautiful section of the album, clean descending string-playing blending with a more frenetic bowing and echoing wolf cries.

While 4:44 may not be his greatest album, it is a much valued deviation from the norm, a surprising feat considering his kaleidoscopic catalog

By the time of Smote Reverser's finale 'Beat Quest', it's plain difficult to not be impressed by this insanely talented band yet again--may their reign long continue.

Haters are gonna hate given the artists in question – but to be disappointed with Watch the Throne is to be disappointed with the rap game in 2011.

Ditherer also displays sneak-up-on-you tendencies, initially bewildering, tough to get a handle on, eventually beguiling and beautiful in a manner magnified by casual boundary obliteration.

This isn’t a revivalist vanity project, oh no, it’s full of contemporary production and composition, as you’d expect given Cook’s crucial CV.

With the pop landscape becoming increasingly homogeneous, more artists need to experiment, and the variety displayed across Froot's 12 tracks is impressive.

For all its reference points, it's a remarkable and original record.

If you have even the teensiest taste for the guilty charms of Kylie, the ‘Babes or Girls Aloud, this album is a must.

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the excellence of this record is sealed by Timony’s bullish approach to sonic economy; there are no flourishes, no accentuations on Rips, only precisely what needs to be there; noodling guitar parts and an unyielding punk aesthetic.

Julia Holter’s is a talent best shown stretched, pulled-out and free-flowing in live performance. This recording environment suits her just right.

As a document of the (musical) times, a beautiful, sundry package and admirable unification of today’s very finest towards a common goal, Dark Was The Night is unbeatable.

If any criticism is to be levelled here, it would be that the album could so easily have been a double-disc effort, but this is a minor gripe on an otherwise flawless live document of a band striving for--and arguably achieving--greatness.

Axe To Fall makes good with an appetite for reinvention.

In execution, 13&God is a surprisingly sombre album that'll appeal to fans of forward-thinking hip-hop and beyond.

As you’d expect from a band as clockwork tight and renowned for perfectionism as Kraftwerk, the quality of sound and precision of delivery is so spot-on as to be worthy of a studio recording.

This one takes a few listens, but in aiming for less, Girls Names have easily achieved as much as they have in previous albums, if not more. Time should be kind to the invention on display underneath all the layers.

It’s an intriguing and refreshing listen.

With prog moodiness and pastoral folkiness both hanging heavily over The Amazing, it's the more psychedelic edges that twirl around the songs, dragging them into tangled and weird territory, that makes Gentle Stream occasionally exceptional.

An escapist Jamaica-pop lark with a traditional bent and a big heart, in the realms of good-times bass you could do a lot worse than the classy and charming Watch Me Dance.

The first thing to say is that the remastering is pretty good: it's in no way a record that needed remastering, but it's definitely one that suits being remastered.

There’s only two real weak points to the album.... That’s it. The rest of this is good to great.

Feelin Kinda Free could be the best apocalypse soundtrack you’ll ever hear.

At 14 tracks Dancer Equired is at a glance their second shortest record, with the added bonus that the cleaner production job makes subtler variances more discernible and the record as a whole a more varied experience.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1 is not just an inevitable player in album of the year discussions for those with more avant garde tastes; it's yet more proof of Earth's symptomatic tendency to continuously re-evaluate their own legacy and drag themselves forward simultaneously.

Whilst the exposure of O’Sullivan and Tucker’s pop heart has been more than welcome, one senses that there are many more sides to this complex, stubbornly esoteric collaboration that are yet to be revealed, and that’s an exciting thought indeed.