Life Will See You Now doesn’t quite hit the heights of 2007-era Lekman, but in his mid-thirties, Gothenburg’s favourite son remains a vital artist. May it not be another five years before he returns.

The way it continues to go to the extreme within more conventional confines seems to have extracted both more emotional engagement as well as energy from The Mars Volta.

As a body of work, Golden Worry is a fine representation of Thank You mk. II that allays any fears their fanbase may have had about the band seeking more commercial pastures with their new drummer.

Although Heavy Rocks is a palpably different album to its release-day sibling, it also covers a fair amount of ground, and there are moments which would have made perfect sense on Attention Please (and vice versa).

It’s a mixed bag then: sometimes they hit bull’s-eye, other times they miss the board altogether, but the erratic results reveal a band dragging themselves out of their comfort zone.

Their least bowel-emptying tremor to date, it does make one anticipate Sunn O)))’s next move with both excitement and anxiety.

The Kills are back - still covered in dirt, sleaze and reverb, but with a cleaner, softer centre.

It's just as loveably imperfect as its predecessor. The only shame is that it isn't more so.

With Hot Dreams Timber Timbre have continued to perfect their sound and aesthetic: no matter what influences or styles they are drawing upon, they are still at their most powerful when they're sending mixed messages.

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.

At its best Home Economics tries to find some kind of ascension from this harshness of life. At other moments what is being said, what is got at is lost, and easily passed by unnoticed.

There is the air of HEALTH now being at a cross roads. Their rampaging style of yore feels a little constrained and tamed by the booming production and ‘nice’ singing, but at the same time they are beginning to write some pretty stupendous ‘proper’ songs.

With Beautiful Trauma then, Moore proves that she’s both still relevant, and a vital, confident female voice on the pop circuit who has impressively never really succumbed to the pressures of the overly-sexualised pop machine.

Celebration Castle does rather suffer from a midsection slump.

In the end, Electronic Earth comes off more as a greatest hits collection than an album proper but that's no bad thing.

Unlike its predecessor, this isn’t quite a thrilling record; its energy and invention, though, points to big things for Parquet Courts, especially if they can continue to adhere to such a ferocious work ethic.

Concrete Desert may--for some listeners--be missing an excavation of the dark musical hearts of each of these two fine musicians, but what it offers instead is something tangibly unique in the catalogues of two legendary figures.

This brooding, almost gothic feel is the key to this album’s success, and proves that Purity Ring are far more complex than their surface lacquer of innocence may have led us believe.

Era represents a pleasant contradiction in that it is an unhurried, languid collection of music, but not one which is at all difficult or daunting to get into. Nor does it ever feel laboured or drag at any point.

Certainly on this album class is more straightforward.

The result is a warm, fuzzy embrace of an album; a release that will delight fans of James’s work as a solo artist and bandleader of My Morning Jacket, and likely anyone else who happens upon it.

In your [Tricky's] other albums, the landscape would scuttle and drift, and you’d blink in and out as you willed; here the room remains a room, and yet you remain... well, I still don’t know what you are now. But that’s for the good. I like you better when I can’t define you.

Whether the songs zip like ‘Ringfinger’ or sprawl like ‘Rainy Summer’, they all feel very much of one piece, giving them a cumulative strength beyond their individual merits.

Glasvegas maybe won't change lives but with its rich indie wall-of-sound nostalgia trip, it should get a few kids delving through their influences and forming space-rock bands.

It is not his finest album, or the one that will win him the most new fans--unlike Colours of the Night--but for anyone with a love of modern classical and a taste for the expressive flavours of the piano it is a very worthwhile listen.

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.

Despite its occasional charms, Easy Tiger feels like an uneven piece of work.

World Eater contains some of Power’s most serene work to date.