"American Gangster" was the last time we saw the real Jay-Z--soulful, lyrically adept, his narrative streak reborn with a newfound alter ego--but here he is back to treading water.

It’s also not a record where you’re instantly gripped round the neck, it’s more a gradual clamping before nails start to dig deep into the skin.

When it's at its best, After Roberts harbours a brave sense of adventurism, a fearless experimentalism. And yes, it can sound like a million other things. But more often that not, it's just the glorious sound of nothing else.

That’s what this is, a record with definition and character, a pointed move away from the nerve-frying, oft random lurches of HEALTH.

It’s the often perfect synthesis between lyrical content and production on OB4CLII that makes the album simply sublime.

While the album concept may be flawed in execution this daring approach to composing and recording has resulted in an record which, regardless of its indulgences, is at least an intriguing listen and one which rewards patience with some moments of sublime ear candy.

The only thing is presence and the present. The modest conclusion to a modest and warm album, is that Eden might be closer than you think.

As an album, Poetry Of The Deed is a listenable, more than competent collection. The difficulty lies in it's lack of character.

Year in the Kingdom may not be a feast of eclecticism, but it is a lesson in the construction of compelling, stripped-down folk.

Treat Where Were You When It Happened? as the, in a very real sense, dry run for their shows. Their fun house is as much Pat Sharp as it is the Stooges, but it’s not without its merits.

If all that sounds like heavy going, a slightly bitter pill to swallow, fair warning, it is. But if you appreciate the effort that goes into crafting a record like this by giving it the repeated plays it needs, you're going to find a piece of work you'll come back to again and again.

In the hands of a different producer maybe the material assembled for When The Devil's Loose could step forward into something more Technicolor, as its faults are minor, but they are the faults which separate merely pleasant albums from great ones. As it is, When The Devil’s Loose is the former.

The Snake for the first time is a journey riddled with surprise--that almost nothing can be nailed down or predicted even after the seven-minutes-thirty of closer of 'My Heart' is pure 'lucky dip' stuff. Each time you dip in, you seem to come out with an even bigger handful of sweetness.

Humbug is a pretty good album that’s pleasingly incongruous amongst the pre-fab boredom of much modern Brit indie. It’s eminently not astounding but it is inventive, and likeably so.

Like Muse, Mew fly in the face of the zeitgeist, cultivating a devoted following all the while. It’s one that should be sated (and in an ideal world, expanded) no end by No More Stories.

It may only weigh in at seven tracks--one of which has already been released elsewhere, the remainder previously offered only as merch table CDRs--and a little over a quarter of an hour long, but Portland-spawned Blitzen Trapper’s Black River Killer is easily substantial enough to be mildly confusing at times.

The result is an awkward balance of personal exploration which they refuse to commit to, and a relentless chirpiness which is becoming increasingly unnatural.

With a greater use of the minor key, he's added flecks of sentiment to what is, predominantly, a very solid pop record. Just don't get bogged down in genre compartmentalisation.

With lyrics so accomplished, entertaining and labyrinthine as these to be matched with well-measured, anti-bravado beats and textural sensitivity it’s difficult not to see a bright future for Speech Debelle.

The production values on Watch Me Fall are hardly epic, but the guitars and keys slide out bright and clear, melodies unfettered by anything beyond crystal-pure hooks.

The milquetoast, wholegrain rock of My Old, Familiar Friend never really rises out of the mire to become anything other than a pleasant and forgettable toe-tapper.

It's just there was the expectation of more, and this has left me a bit cold.

Hospice is an album of white walls, long desolate passages, and sudden blitzkriegs of high emotional drama – it’s not always comforting, but the players are hyper-attentive to the nuances of each note and lyric.

There’s the same pent up aggression and wall of sound production, but Pissed Jeans have taken that blueprint and given it grunt and bite, via Korvette’s insurance-salesman-by day-everymanism and Bradley Fry’s knack for turning guitar sludge into genuine riffs.

At times hypnotic and otherworldly, it's a soothing, unsettling and challenging listen.

This is a terrifying, wise album.

Intuit is, unfortunately, probably not a high profile enough release to be mentioned in the end-of-year lists nearly as frequently as any of the aforementioned albums. But it’s easily the equal of any of those releases, in terms of its breadth of vision and depth of emotion, and it really establishing Knopf as a supremely talented and truly heartfelt songwriter.