It's fair to say Smoke Ring...'s reliance on gloom and loneliness rarely lets up. But he's trying to find beauty in it, which I guess is the point.

Constant Future is the sound of a band who, after nearly ten years together, are comfortable with their sound, who know exactly what they're good at and sound like they're having great fun doing it.

We could go on about how great this compilation really is until the cows come home, the Thurston Moore sampling 'Heaven's On Fire' possibly explaining why such documents as Passive Aggressive are essentially vital in rock and roll's present transitional phase.

Civilian has just enough personality to stop it being completely pedestrian.

It's no good for serious contemplation, but then I doubt that's what it's intended for – definitely one to keep handy for a sleepy August afternoon.

While the rest of the album does falter a little towards the end, as a piece of work overall it's one that they should rightfully be proud of.

Different Gear, Still Speeding is not a disaster: by and large it radiates the stolid competence of a band on autopilot, with a couple of flashes of likeable enthusiasm.

Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural basically embodies that: an album that might take a chomp at your fingers if you reached for the pause button. II is a bit like that, just not all the time.

Anyone looking for all of the above is not going to be disappointed by Something Dirty, which contains more than its fair share of mischief and mayhem. Crucially, it's in keeping with Faust tradition, but it always looks forward rather than back.

So, yeah, Tyvek (on this album anyway) are pretty trad-punk. Which is not all that bad. When one wants to listen to something that sounds like old punk rock but isn't actually old punk rock, one could do a lot worse than listen to these guys.

Wounded Rhymes is an album that has not escaped unscathed from its wounds.

Whilst Return to the Ugly Side undoubtedly sustains an affective mood of unease and intrigue, it ultimately falters in its structural underdevelopment.

Three albums in, they haven't yet – but I trust The Cave Singers – I think their next might be the one.

While all the productions presented on End It All show real depth and attention to detail – like most releases associated with Anti-Pop Consortium – the words leave a bitter taste and the faint suggestion that Beans is way better with APC than without.

Whether it's their best collection to date would be open to debate (and to these ears it isn't; Union still takes that accolade by a fair margin). In any case, it should serve them well both for the present and the future.

Even if, as a whole, The Deep Field isn't quite as rewarding as Wasser's first two records, it's an altogether different, diverse and challenging experience. Thankfully, that voice remains intact: vulnerable but somehow powerful.

You probably won't head to the record store for this one unless you've been obsessive-compulsively collecting all the previous releases, but if you do, you won't be disappointed by what you hear on the turntable. After all it's Sonic Youth.

The general malaise that characterises Outside manifests itself in many forms: 'Mighty Long's overwhelming dearth of meaning, the sluggish pacing of 'People You Know' or the shortlived kick-back against mediocrity that is 'Freak Out'.

Played out in full, the record resembles a depressing rummage through early-Nineties record racks--listenable, yes, but without the nerve to tickle more ear-pleasing teats

As part of a longer discography, Smart Flesh will probably stand as a good, solid point in The Low Anthem's career, a sign of the band developing their sound and their songwriting before delivering something truly special.

A top-heavy track-listing does the album's more abstract curios no favours, and some will find it too much to take in in one sitting. But for me, headphones donned and lights extinguished, each submersion is every bit as worthy as the last.

The overall effect is like a lighter, more self-conscious, throwaway, altogether 2011 take on David Bowie's Low, a collision of popstar and avant-production that is all the more interesting for not quite knowing where it is.

Asleep on the Floodplain is billed as a return to that pared-down sound, and it is as close as Chasney has come since to capturing the simple beauty of For Octavio Paz.

While Smith uses this album as an outlet to explore a variety of different styles, importantly he never loses sight of the source material. Even so, in paying tribute to a great artist, Jamie XX has laid significant claims to being deserving of that title himself.

Lerner has every inch of the stadium-indie minefield mapped out and slapped in plain view on his sturdy pop-machine's fulcrum.

En Form For Bla is a record where it's tempting and possible to zone out of and forget that you're even listening, let alone any specifics of sound.

The release of Broken Wave heralds the arrival of a genuine creative force in British folk music, and one of the scariest things about it is that you get the impression that Peel hasn't really even got going yet.

Palace is neither quite as original nor quite as good as the hype would have us believe. As an album, however, its strength lies in its depth of feeling being instantly recognisable to any listener who's ever had their heart broken, broken a heart, or generally had a romantic endeavour that's gone a bit shit.