It’s unassumingly loud, and intensely physical, wrestling with the listener in a swarm of noisy sax blasts, gnarly riffs, and often surprisingly catchy math themes. Nonetheless, it feels unfinished.

If you like Mew, you’ll like this. If you don’t like Mew, this is as good a place as any to begin, or to rekindle, your love affair with a wonderful band.

Even with these small blips, Peggy Sue have made the transition to a darker and bolder sound with ease.

They're not concerned with clunky subgenres or fitting into anyone's neat little boxes. With Instrumental Tourist, it is what it is.

That said, it's not all killer; a song or two in the final third fails to match up to the calibre of the rest, and at times the lyrics can descend into mild cliche, but overall it's evidence of a young man with a great understanding and love for a particular period giving it his best shot.

There's the occasional dud, and occasional dull moment, but Pale Green Ghosts mostly succeeds in expanding Grant's musical palette, and his wry, knowing observations and lyricism remain as sharp as ever.

Sound Kapitol is a successful, if slightly creatively stifling refinement of a fruitful and unique musical partnership.

Route One or Die is a heavy, sometimes dizzyingly diverse listen. Despite this, the band's emphasis on melody means these songs hook you in from the very first listen, while still having more wonders to reveal to you on repeated listens.

The best moments on the album are the ones that grab you just as things start feeling too samey.

Ultimately, an interesting album within its constraints rather than a hands-down triumph, but there were a lot of constraints.

It defies the listener not to nod their head and tap a foot, layering foreboding piano, languid acoustic guitar and a swampy riff under semi-rapped verses and a chorus about being found at the bottom of a river, and demonstrates Mason embracing his albatross with the ease of a man only too pleased to have one.

A few clunkers aside, the songwriting is sensational throughout. And Jones’ voice is more cat purringly perfect than ever.

As side projects go, this is one of those that will happily turn left rather than right when climbing onboard that transatlantic flight to you.

Berlin: Live At St Anne's Warehouse is basically one of the most creepily eloquent records of Lou Reed's career, tarted up in the sort of bombastic style that ironically may see it received better in the classic rockin' days of 1973.

Musically, she leaves things deliberately underwritten, rooted in bass or scratchy guitar as opposed to the shiny-shiny production of her earlier work. It lets the songs speak for themselves, though it does occasionally expose their flaws as well.

Tracker is seamless in both embracing technology and adapting it; recreating the intimacy of personal experiences within the confines of an uncluttered, contemporary folk backdrop.

This release strikes the perfect balance between pummelling the listener over the head with riffs and rewarding their shredded eardrums with hooks and honesty.

Boca Negra isn’t an album that’s easy to get acquainted with — this is music designed to induce a fundamental paradigm shift in our expectations of what a band can be and how they should operate, with two accomplished players bringing agitation and affection together at an uneasy meeting point.

Blake’s musical pallet is a fair bit brighter of late and you can expect a deeper, stronger and more solid vocal tone on much of the album.

In Cascade the loop is repeated fairly cleanly, although the piano is drenched in a magical, woozy and slightly unsettling echo; while it is certainly quite relaxing and takes you on a wonderful eleven minute journey there is something oddly otherworldly and plaintive about the whole thing.

Perhaps there's not enough variation on the album as a whole, with only the odd anomaly which then sounds rather out of place, but even the anomalies are very distinctly John Maus and at times that may be a grim, cold, dark, slightly pretentious thing, but it is no bad thing.

It’s the sound of someone getting the kinks out of the system rather than incorporating old influences seamlessly into a new sound. Still, the final verdict? Very decent.

It’s not that Rave Tapes is disappointing, it’s just underwhelming--but it’s beautiful enough that maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe.

On Face Tat, the chaos never stops: it's akin to a musical interpretation of all the theme park rides in the world, taken one after the other.

The most frustrating part of the brilliance is that it has been all too fleeting. Please Anni, give us more.

This is a seamless, and often glorious, album, one that showcases a profound peace and melancholia through a focus on ambient washes. Its lack of flourishes should, therefore, not be condemned but celebrated. Recommended.

These are strong songs. This is a coherent, mature piece of work.

While not all of King’s attempts to focus her talent into ‘proper songs’ come off, when she nails it, we can’t help but agree with Dave Grohl that she’s one of the greatest guitarists in the world.