This is a tremendously accomplished piece of work, but one lacking a little of the swagger of previous outings. Give it the time it deserves.

While there will undoubtedly be some who bemoan the same failing within Rock n Roll Consciousness, there’s no way Thurston Moore is going to stop for anyone.

The two together make magic: the songs don't feel like they've been crafted, rather that they just floated, fully-formed, into existence. Like the people Diamond Mine talks about, the songs aren't any one thing: they just are.

Sprinter manages to be defiant at its most minimal: she may not have made a fully realized masterpiece yet, but she’s staking-out the place between noise and silence where a masterpiece will be built.

After this confrontational opening ditty, Ill Manors becomes less overtly political but no less vivid, as the remaining tracks depict in gruesome detail the dismal lives of London's underclass.

Whatever happens with the technology and wherever the arguments over music, art and commerce drag themselves to next, it's these songs that are the triumph here.

There’s insecurity, certainly; self-reflection, yes; but more than that there’s resilience, romance, strength, sensuality and an album full of lurching, longing, lustrous pop songs.

The Family Sign is a strong continuation and addition to a powerful series of modern rap albums. It's bigger than past records and heavier, a nice combination that genuinely puts the listener into an emotional flux.

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

The music is returned front and centre for an album that's finer than the Biophilia source materials that spawned it.

There's nothing showy here, nothing flashy, just an understated, immaculately put together collection of happy and sad, yearning and sweet songs.

Amongst the nine tracks are some of Black's best work but although the album's ambience shifts - from the darkness in 'Black Suit' and 'Long Song' to the whimsy in 'Volcano!' and the breezy 'Break The Angels'--the consistency does not.

It’s a beautifully composed record, where songs gently bloom and the pace constantly ebbs and flows.

Mesmerising throughout, it's a beguiling and brilliant listen.

Short, but very, very bittersweet.

This really is a fantastic record, a heartfelt postcard from our old friends who formed a band.

Cut adrift with its own bewildering reference points, peppered with glimpses of cryptic brilliance and slabs of deceptive nonsense, Beat Pyramid is a flawed patchwork masterpiece.

Meet the Humans is the most concise and immediate record Mason has released in over a decade.

It's undeniable that for her self-titled third album, Marnie Stern has made some canny decisions. This time round, several of the tracks are built around huge, stomping riffs, with the speedier guitar lines mixed further back to create more space, without sacrificing that-which-is-Marnie.

It’s a visceral, pulsating entity, echoing with tinnitus.

While Aerial and Unbalance represented developments in Huismans' sound, Fever is more of a sidestep. If it is dubstep--which I'm not really sure it is--it is far more intriguing and individual than most releases I have heard in the last 12 months.

There is no slack, no flab and nothing that even comes close to pretension; the sharp sound and honesty come totally naturally.

Despite its hefty length, then, Atgclvlsscap works as a triumphant departure from the confines of the temporal.

It’s refreshing that the northerner is not shy about massive self-expression; besides, his lyrics are merely extravagant, not indulgent.

There are times on Let the Blind…, when the music around Cox veers subtly in the right direction, where you can hear the grub’s surprise as he wakes up with Great Admiral wings, ugly white noise turning psychedelic.

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.

Yes, there’s technically more instrumental breadth in most episodes of Sesame Street, but this is a deeply, troublingly emotional record.

Folk can be a notoriously intransigent genre, and Basia Bulat probably occupies the less user friendly end of the spectrum, but for those who like an album which grows and reveals its treasures slowly, A Heart of My Own is gold.