This collection of his most ambient and interesting soundtracks is presented here in a contemporary art crescendo; and features the good, the better and the synthesized from his artsy endeavours.

To The Happy Few is precise and calculated. It lacks the irrationality and selfishness that gives a record its soul.

As a relative paradigm shift of an album, The King is Dead is a success, with The Decemberists managing to make their transition smoothly, creating a work that is well-structured, hook-driven and coherent.

Invite the Light should be regarded as a triumph, a neo-funk gem which stays true to Dâm-Funk’s vision, without alienating those who’re arriving fresh to the party.

It may not be the old Mountain Goats kick, but whatever it is, it'll keep me returning to All Eternals Deck for a long, long time.

Weller seems enthusiastic, upbeat and genuinely inventive across the whole LP, with only a couple of minor missteps throughout.

Everybody Down is powerful and gritty and it tackles subjects such as sex work and drug deals with wit and subtlety beyond measure. It’s just not as good as it perhaps should have been from such a prolific talent.

The album bubbles and whispers along. You can listen to every word and every inflection or you can let it carry you--Foster's casual vocal style holds true for the lyrics, so each phrase is a shape as much as it's a fully formed, structured section.

If there’s a problem with the album it’s possibly in the even-ness of the tone throughout. The vocals are soft, tuneful and pretty, the tunes are melodic and often hooky but it’s not until the second last track--‘Snaps’--arrives with a bit more attitude and grit that you realise that this is what has been missing up until this point. That said, almost every track here would work as a single, or heard by itself on the radio – they’re all decidedly easy on the ear.

Humanz is good, because Gorillaz are good, and it distinguishes itself by probably being the band’s most party-orientated record, which is great. But ultimately it feel like Gorillaz are now more curators than provocateurs, locked into a classy, comfortable groove.

Plumb is a good bet for the end of year polls already.

The nature of this very premise could so easily have made for a messy and confused effort, but Africane 808 somehow manage to make a cohesive piece of work out of so many conflicting elements.

Unfortunately, the remix format really extracts and commodifies the sounds of the original albums rather than do anything wildly different or interesting to it. The mix might sound alright on the dancefloor, but so would the original effectively mixed into a good DJ set.

Whether this is a better record than previous Mogwai releases is hard to say categorically, but it is certainly bolder and braver than what came before it. Yet equally, it is the same trademark moves and subtleties that will make and just as rewarding of repeated listens as its predecessors. Mogwai have released another jumper, but not quite like we know it.

Songs is an accomplished second album, that sees Woodhouse building on the foundations of electronica-tinged outputs that you'll quite easily appreciate and enjoy.

The result is Mogwai’s most vital release in years; a collection of fully realized pieces that could be the closest they’ll ever come to an unplugged greatest hits.

At times much like a soundtrack to life’s sombre and reflective moments, Roots And Crowns’ clutter-free design is a nice reminder that good music needs no window dressing.

Dr. Dog are a band you know you're going to appreciate as soon as you reach the first chorus. You'll want to go back and explore their back catalogue, and force them on unappreciative friends.

The musicality on Pylon remains suitably elastic.

Apart from the new wave prom dance of 'Candles', The Far Field plays out like a treadmill--same tempos, same whining siren wails from the synths, same bass undulation.

Although their lyrical palette is limited to shades of grey or black, musically they allow themselves variegated freedom that allows glimmers of light in the dark night. For all its bleakness Endangered Philosophies is also strangely beautiful.

Death Lust is the sound of a band who has had enough being put down, pushed around and generally told to conform to a society they never really wanted. It’s the sound of disaffected youth demanding to be listened to.

Full of tasty licks and rocking out it may be, but The More I Sleep the Less I Dream is also genuinely reflective and melancholic as the band continue to mature. Let’s just hope they still get those jetpacks they were promised, even if equally feral and refined albums like this mean they might not need them to soar anymore.

It fits and works together perfectly despite the fact that the songs showcase the development of a thirteen-year career.

There’s a master at work, no doubt about it, but he’s already living in the future writing complex symphonies, letting the rest of us know that everything’s going to be ok.

When it's good, Rhine Gold has got everything you want. There's ambition, surprise and innovation. It's just that it feels like COYB go on autopilot at certain times, which detracts from the album as a whole.

This is not the best Marissa Nadler record, but it kind of feels like her most perfect, potentially the resolution of a subtle identity crisis that’s run through her music over the years.

She’s gone from making an album that felt in constant peril of collapsing under its own weight to one that carries her predilection for drama with genuine confidence--for now, at least, that’s redemption enough.