At times full of nervous vigour, at others letting itself fall blindly backwards into honeyed daydream, A Different Ship has a life and character all of its own.

Imbued with a defiant refusal to succumb to external pressure or fall into the well-worn paths of similar artists who have trodden this road in the past, Sigrid has created a truly unique and recognisable debut record which I’m sure is a sign of spectacular things to come.

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.

DJ-Kicks is essentially a peak-time mix of house and techno that would be devastating if played at any club, standing still and not cracking a smile would be basically impossible. The mix is mostly made up of tracks and not songs and as such really works best on a speaker system than headphones.

So yeah, maaaaybe Odd Blood isn’t quite the hive of unfathomably exotic treats that a few of the tracks might have initially suggested. Having given us time to prepare for the fact they’re quite the different band from All Hour Cymbals, Yeasayer Mk II have also given us time to realise that Odd Blood probably isn’t likely to go down as their defining statement.

'Stellastarr*' is a rare beast; one that takes from its peers and gives back something fresh, imaginative and breathlessly great.

Trouble In Dreams is full of amazing poetic adventures which could never flourish in the harsh light of the public eye.

Though The Night is Young may start in relatively familiar territory, it soon branches out and is possibly the most diverse record he’s produced as yet.

The band sound relaxed about who they are, what they do, and how they work best alongside other people.

Four albums in thirteen months may have led to a case of familiarity breeding contempt, but it still feels like the first half of this album is treading water from a songwriting point of view. The second half is a fine musical journey, and if this were a vinyl record (it soon will be) then maybe you'd just put side two on repeatedly.

An ultimately frustrating listen, not because of the quality of Ring per se, but because of the undoubted class of record it could have been if only it were a little more thought through. Still, there's certainly enough potential to justify Glasser's rising reputation as a worthy heir to a certain Icelandic lady's throne.

You’ve [Lana Del Rey] found your own style and run with it. It’s amazing to see someone so free and in control.

In fairness, We Were Dead... excites almost as much as it frustrates; the problem lying not so much in its commercial aspirations per se as an occasional inability to integrate them into a satisfying whole. That, and there’s too much shouting. And it’s way too long.

In fact, if anything time has only the strengthened the chemistry of the band, distilling its essence in to something much purer than its base product. In a year of excellent records, American Football have quite possibly made the best.

If you were there and want an audio-postcard of the night when noise and flashing lights broke your brain then add four to the given mark. Otherwise this is like pretty much every live album: pointless and skippable.

His talents seemingly know no bounds, and A Healthy Distrust is as close as he’s come to fully realising such a dominating on-stage character on a recorded format.

Jaumet might have Carl Craig hovering over him but he’s not entirely in his shadow, and Night Music is his own diamond-encrusted carriage, which he rides through the small hours with no risk of ever becoming a pumpkin.

While there are some tracks that feel like the duo have worn themselves out, points at which the album can support neither its stubbornly fusion-pop soul nor its lyrical depth, for the most part it shines.

Whilst good still, with Bloom comes the first seeds of doubt that maybe there isn't actually much below the surface--albeit it for many that's probably the source of their allure.

It's certainly the most arresting record that she's made.

Possible Dust Clouds finds Kristin Hersh as artistically curious and inventive as ever. Committed to avoiding easy choices musically and lyrically, she remains intent on exploring the murky complexities of the mind and continuing to make the best work of her career. She is an artist that’s always evolving, and yet again the results are often dazzling and always fantastically bewildering.

Possibly a little early to be wheeling out 'album of the year'-type assertions, but with The English Riviera Mount has set the bar nice and high.

You could accuse Cymbals Eat Guitars of being derivative, but the idea is that all of these influences are broken down to component parts and then reassembled into something different. Some of the pieces are still recognisable, others disguised or twisted.

And yet for all this effort the album itself is at times curiously empty, both overblown and underwhelming, with loads of smoke but not much atmosphere.

Beautifully brutal weirdo punk.

This record is a welcome addition to the long-haired monosyllabic troubadour's more than impressive back catalogue.

Seeds is a credit to their bassist’s memory: staying true to the TOTR ethos of writing music that yo-yos between genres, its 12 expansive tracks make for a compelling and frankly splendid record that you should seriously consider adding to your collection.

Compared to the way more dynamic Quarter Over a Living Line, some of the tracks on this album have a maddening potential to them (the sequence Glassed/Cold Cain is my personal stress peak), which comes from such an extended use of repetition. At the same time, tracks like ‘Front Running’ and ‘Stummer', manage to sound uplifting, almost motivational in their stubborn pursuit of monotony.