‘You Are The Quarry’ sees Morrissey back in the ring, lean, limber and fighting fit.

Bright Like Neon Love feels like the record The Human League could have made if they’d remade Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in 1985. It’s like the soundtrack to the best party you’ve never been too, but always wish you had.

Similar to Ben Folds and Aimee Mann, Merritt revives the lost art of inventing captivating fictions entwined with personal reflection.

Lavished with luscious keys and gently chiming guitars throughout, ‘The Trial Of The Century’ tickles and teases the listener, offering subtle hooks that take time to appreciate.

The opening half of 'Penance...' alone blows every so-called rock act polluting our airwaves clean away, such is the savage malevolence that resonates within every single syllable that spouts from Joe Cardamone's mouthful of poison.

Banhart is a complete antidote to all the consumer focus groups or hit-writers, too scared to tamper with the formula. He has stumbled upon a personal Eureka that says there're no laws governing what can be written about in song except self-imposed ones and he's taken that to his heart, and in Technicolor.

A tender, smouldering album of drifting, rudderless beauty.

Frustrating... We know that the Beta Band have one jaw-dropping album in them. 'Hot Shots' was nearly it, but certainly this is not.

Her voice sounds so goddamn fresh, spontaneous, uncompromised. There's an intensely visceral quality to these performances that is so utterly compelling.

As a whole, it’s a 3 [out of 5], but the first two tracks are worth the extra point.

Defeatist it may be, but such genius is very rarely recognised in a band’s lifetime. So be it – because there genuinely is no verbal persuasion that could exceed a single listen to America’s most underrated.

'Almost Killed Me' is a rock album that is – above all – listenable and fucking energetic but never calculated and never sneering.

If you like your heart soaked in red wine, and your records to sigh and sway, come hither.

Whether or not the album really captures the bands reputable live show is utterly debatable, but it’s certainly one to inspire the imagination.

The LP as a whole is a remarkable collection of ideas, which manages to be overwhelmingly creative, but intrinsically listenable.

Throughout ‘The Orchestra, Sadly, Has Refused’ runs the coherent theme of creeping, haunting lullabies, and that furrow which sees The Silent League ultimately master their own unique beauty.

A truly elemental opus.

It’s one of those growers. The lyrics are clever. The running-order is immaculately conceived - it's practically a concept album.

He's effectively run aground in the middle of the alt-rap landscape.

The material ranges from the sublime to the good to the galling.

But then after a couple more artistic false starts and nearly-getting-it-together moments, the clouds part and Stay Where You Are' shines through with its grainy 12-string splendour and thrownback halo backing vocals and they finally seem to wake up to what they are: a good pop group.

Ultimately, ‘Winning Days’ is an highly frustrating listen.

This is hip-hop for post-rock fans and vice versa.

Stevens has a beautiful voice and a rare melodic instinct but it is the passion with which he performs these songs that causes them to communicate so much, so well.

The overall effect is intoxicating -- some sort of triangulated point in the middle of REM, New Order and Statistics.

Hands down, ‘Pawn Shoppe Heart’ is the record to blow their contemporaries out of the water.

TVOTR splurge slabs of strange sound into almost freeform structures that draw on jazz sensibilities, alt-rock peculiarities and the whole NYC infatuation with cool.

Piece everything together and this is where your mouth might, quite rightly, start to drool a little.