It’s a Big World Out There (And I Am Scared) has taken Kurt Vile to new heights, proving that his offcuts and extended versions are infinitely better than most bands' singles.

Out Of Touch In The Wild feels like an album album, with the tracks naturally feeling their way to one another, but with enough stand out moments to show how far Dutch Uncles have progressed since they recorded that debut in Germany.

When SSVIIB play to their strengths--most of the time--the songs are so smooth that you lower your expectations for any strong hooks, as you would when listening to ambient, only to discover that you’re caught up in a glorious anthem,making this a kind of secret dance-music you didn’t know you were swaying to.

Williams has managed to get out from under the pressure of having to be the perma-grinning frontwoman, and the emotional uncertainty that’s exposed is fascinating. Musically, meanwhile, this is as free as they’ve ever sounded. Again: Paramore have always been a pop band. They’ve just never been this proud of it.

Even if the album loses its way with its final two tracks, you are left so exhausted by this stage that it almost comes with a sense of relief. By reinventing what they do best, Doves have fearlessly strutted back onto everyone's radar.

Although a quiet album, it’s not one that ever seems to tire, always remaining interesting.

Swapping the winding soundscapes of ‘Rock It To The Moon’ for punchier, vocal-led pieces, Electrelane have struck creative gold.

The result is a brilliant, imperfect record that affects you in ways Enter Shikari never have before and subverts what the entire band is all about. Anything from them would be ridiculous.

If 2003 debut ‘Keep On Your Mean Side’ was a barren sounding album, their new LP is positively spartan.

It’s an experiment in construction, its sandbox carefully sparse. Fitting then, that Explosions In The Sky find that elusive spark and thrive in such surroundings.

Justice know when to curtail the industrial strike and dazzle you with some star-skipping pop-chime, or a warble of gloopy future funk, before tossing you back into the unlit mire.

Hera Ma Nono still possesses an often awkward transition between the jarring Kenyan and North American influences, but this also essentially provides Extra Golden with their character.

Earrings Off! is undoubtedly a brave, intriguing release, and should cement Adult Jazz as a band you really can’t afford to ignore.

Nothing unduly groundbreaking here, yet at the same time always brutally refreshing.

Cosmogramma is dense and devotional, Ellison piloting his craft into the fading slipstream of his aunt Alice Coltrane's cosmic strain of jazz. Not that it's jazz, exactly. Well, no more than it is techno, dubstep, chiptune, P-funk, IDM and, by no means least, hip-hop.

It is a record to indulge in, one melting synth note at a time.

To those who care about the small differences, it's another tremendously strong album from a career already littered with them.

Overall No. 4 is serene, still, and deep. It doesn’t allow you to become transfixed by predictable patterns by rather relaxes you into accepting the next step, whether you are being visited by a herd of headless horsemen, flying away on a magic carpet or sinking slowly, irresistibly, into torpor.

What they have created is a consistent work which showcases the band’s diversity as well as their skill and passion in making music which treads the ground between weird and wonderful.

The record is certainly the best distillation to date of a band whose careening fun places equal value on Radiohead at their most brow-furrowed and novelty chart hits without any trace of preening post-irony.

The Raveonettes take you to the dark side and articulate every sharp pang of aching heartbreak and rejection you ever felt but they make it sound so goddamn lovely.

If you need something to invigorate your soul and send you on a journey then look no further.

There's a delicacy, a deftness of touch throughout Total Loss that's wondrous.

The entire record sounds like a calmly-executed upswing, both personally and professionally.

If you’re already a Lanegan obsessive, Has God Seen My Shadow? might not be for you, although the lavish presentation of the physical release sounds like it might be tempting. For those that have always been intrigued by this shadowy sideman and want to learn more, or for anyone with a love of dark, poetic songwriting, this anthology is easily the best overview of his solo work around.

Bitte Orca isn't a record that'll reduce many to tears, except perhaps of awe. But when something's so astonishing in every other respect, we can allow for that.

Although it still occasionally feels like there is something distant about Ekstasis, something yet to thaw (chalk this up to its chilly aesthetic and Holter's wilfully eclectic approach to her art), it is a genuinely enthralling listen.

In these 28 minutes, Badwan underlines his determination to expand beyond traditional patterns, creating an album that's absorbing and rewarding.