Apocalype then, is another Bill Callahan album, similar to those that came before it, with some particularly beautiful songs and some particularly considerate musical accompaniment from the band he has gathered around him. That it happens to be both heartbreaking and life affirming is just something we've come to expect.

While retaining this overactive production style, Angelakos manages to make Gossamer feel more effortlessly human, more like the self-realised artistic vision of an individual than Manners ever came close to being.

It’s another subtly heart-rending effort from a band that remains one of the very finest in the world. If you needed a reminder of why Low are an institution then this is it.

At just 39 minutes long, it’s spectacularly brief, especially for Dälek (2007’s Abandoned Language, for example, stretches to 63 minutes) but brevity here works in their favour, as there’s very little fat that needs trimming.

The Earth Is Blue is a potent lesson in deceptively simple but exquisitely emotive songwriting, and one that continues to reveal further charms many a listen later.

What we have here are twelve tracks of attitude, spice, intensity and verve, largely played at an uncompromising, breakneck tempo, but never compromising in terms of melodic accessibility or technical prowess.

It is not monotony but repetition, not sing-a-long surface but deeply-felt rhythms, shunning songwriting convention for more fertile ground.

<i>An End Has a Start</i> actually sounds like it was crafted as ten quite individual chapters of a long-running saga; surprisingly, though, it ultimately works better than its predecessor as a cohesive, flowing album.

It's to Mercer's credit that Port of Morrow, which could have so easily veered off into soulless corporatism or self-indulgence, manages to remain nothing less than both a universal and personal joy to listen to.

Despite their lyrical nods toward the future, this self-produced diamond ought really to be nestling in your collection now.

May embraces the darkness and finds slithers of light shattered within. And while it might be haunted by a black dog, in Broken Twin's company, it's one that you too will want to walk alongside.

So while it’s still tough to classify his sound, Silver Wilkinson is Bibio’s most streamlined recording to date.

To be frank, it’s pretty much business as usual for Dinosaur Jr on Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, but when the formula works this well, what’s the point in switching it up? Love live the fuzz.

Grey Tickles, Black Pressure is a rich, dense and rewarding album. Dig deep into it and watch it envelop you--decay and chaos has rarely sounded so seductive.

Dreijer has cemented her place within alternative music's dynasty, and it's refreshing to hear an outwardly queer and fiercely political artist convey a clear message without having the music, performance or reception fall over the potential weight of those themes. For as much as Plunge quite clearly contains these themes, it can and will be enjoyed as a universally creditable piece of brilliantly constructed art, and that is Dreijer's real success here.

For the most part, this is the heaviest record that they’ve recorded and the most far-out as well.

So anyhow--crossover album of the year, no contest.

Overall, this at-first-shy but eventually overpowering record will make yer cheeks sting with wine and late-night gales; and, as I've already said but feel sort of compelled to reiterate, it's so refreshing to hear.

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

The Neptunes' pitch-perfect production allied with Pusha-T and Malice's vicious, witty rhymes make Hell Hath No Fury one of the records of the year.

The genuine article, Sets and Lights brings coldwave a step closer to realising the vision of the sub-genre once proposed by Blank Dog's Mike Sniper; a new underground form of internal transmission Sniper christened 'Impossible Folk'.

The reason Tongues works so well is not because the song lengths are significantly shorter, but because both Hebden and Reid interact on the same wave length.

In Our Bedroom After The War feels like the conclusion of a journey towards the summit of mount indie pleasance.

There are songs here reinterpreted slightly to fit the format, then those that need full reinvention and finally, least interestingly, those that it seems are included only because they are written and usually performed in line with the bare-bones remit.

By consciously interrogating everything they do, they’ve created something that doesn’t need a condescending suffix to justify its existence. It’s a new high-water mark for the band, and one well worth the pain to reach.

It revels in a soulful, brassy buzz that sounds great from the offset and even better on further listening: Swift’s production fantastic and Burhenn’s vocals genuinely spellbinding.

What does make sense is songs that can be related to the world over, not just in Williamsburg, and the songs on Any Port In A Storm fall very much into this category. A brilliant record.

The beats seem genuinely fresh and the dextrously speedy rapping is original and scathing in equal measure while the singalong aspect is more than evident.