Their gentlest to date, 44 minutes of music arranged around a single, dreamy riff/motif. Listen to it on Bandcamp or Spotify without checking out the other stuff that comes with the music and it perhaps seems like a retreat from the sturm und drang of their previous work. But the accompanying words and art to Luciferian Towers posit it as the band’s most politicised set since Yanqui UXO.

Songs Cycled has everything you’d want from Van Dyke Parks and from an album. By being true to the Van Dyke Parks’ perception of what an album should contain, his music sounds as though it is from a different planet.

Everything sings here, no matter how dark the matter at hand.

Put simply, The Pains...are a pop band with songs about young love and teenage misadventure.

It really is one of the best things he’s ever put his name to.

Maximum Balloon really about a great producer/songwriter exhibiting his considerable talents free from the pressure and expectation of his day job.

As a rule the lackadaisical New Order and the greatest hits-centric set they tour with aren’t the stuff of live album legend, and matters aren’t really helped by the fact large chunks of the set have been lopped out in order to make it into a single CD, with the likes of ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Crystal’ receiving the heave.

Marriages know what they're about, and have crafted an album for all seasons that still possesses a distinctly autumnal sound--an accomplished record that will provide the ideal soundtrack once summer's over.

While the longstanding fan may indulge them the odd misstep, it’s a little bit jarring when they produce something which by their own high standards is, dare I say it, a bit underwhelming.

While (the album) tips far more convincingly on the successful end of the scales, there remains the sense of a band playing safer than needs be; a sextet pushing against their limits but never straining outright at them.

It's very odd, varies wildly in tone and has its fair share of clunky bits, but it's all done in the spirit of fun and is always endearingly sincere.

Deliciously downright dirty.

It's not a classic and it won't get him back in the NME, but it'll more than entertain those willing to listen.

No Grace is raw, quick and dirty, just as rock 'n roll was always intended. Glorious stuff.

No Mythologies to Follow is perhaps better taken as a really strong collection of singles (or potential singles) than a complete body of work, but that’s its only real weakness.

Something of a case of style, or schtick, over substance in places. However, the visceral power of Goat is inescapable.

A knotty, messy work: a series of interior monologues depicting some unsavoury but very human sentiments; a sprawl of devastating emotion wrought with a keen yet weary eye. But it’s undoubtedly a triumph--Kasher hasn’t sounded quite this sharp in years.

Circuital can't be marked down as a failure; it's just not as good as it could be, or as its best tracks suggest it might have been. A little run of the mill for a band that often hit such massive heights.

Quite simply, Alight Of Night is one of the most breathtaking records these ears have been partial to in a long while, and even if Crystal Stilts never make another record, their legacy is assured.

Although this is a far cry from the standard of their late Seventies heyday, the band have continued down their obscure path with little deviation, creating a sound which, although challenging and on occasion elitist, is there own.

Music for Drifters definitely represents a diversion from whatever constitutes Field Music’s ‘normal’ work, but it’s also an unquestionably lovely addition to their impeccable discography.

Chura proves that she exists in a different plane where music for its own sake lies at the zenith of what one can experience and achieve in life, and is detached from the excesses of wealth and power it can bring. Here’s hoping there’s much more to come from this magical songstress.

This is not a record for the fair-weather Frank fan, rather one in which he sticks to his story with the stubbornness of a mule.

Not so much a natural progression as a foray into new fields, Skyline is a wonderful album brought about by a sense of restlessness and curiosity.

On Sugaring Season she captures both the melancholy and the confidence that comes with growing older really rather well.

Gorgeous, exquisite... and no, definitely not a side-project.

These aren’t drastic alterations to the standard Sia formula, but what you do get is an album with a very specific identity.

Rather than thinking of Groove Denied as some form of outlier we should only be thinking of it for what it is: a delicious treat.