The Staves have added all sorts of bells and whistles to their sound. They all work.

A collection of songs as captivating, poignant and finally, ultimately, redemptive as any that Stevens has produced.

It’s a visceral, pulsating entity, echoing with tinnitus.

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.

Kintsugi is a finely-made tearjerker of a record that evokes similar levels of sadness as those examples, featuring some crisp and well-structured songwriting that launches torrents of emotive air strikes to summon an appropriate degree of solemnity.

Modest Mouse have written 15 good tracks that don’t amount to a great album.

Chambers is a beast. A glorious black hole of modern romanticism.

This sounds like Steve Wold, not Seasick Steve, and the result is an untidy, tedious affair.

It's intrinsically a strange album though, trapped somewhere between The Knife, Nineties acid house, Kraftwerk, New Order’s Technique album, and literally anything Eno did in the Eighties, but the warped pop sensibilities and gloriously plastic production make it a hidden gem.

The Cribs have managed to interpret the notion of 'pop music' into an often-spectacular record.

Dessner has captured performances that have a depth, a soul, a reality to them. Even if you hate country, this is downright good music.

This is Marling at her finest, but as she’s proved five times in a row, the best is always yet to come.

At its core, Bad News Boys is a joyous celebration of all things rock'n'roll by two guys who seem to have it running in their blood.

Ultimately Spaces Everywhere is a record that sparkles with little hints of wit, unconventional beauty and musical verve, but they shine so brightly because of the mediocrity that surrounds them.

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.

Mysteries is by no means terrible, but Tigercats are a long way from earning their stripes.

Maze of Woods is a superb record and one that should give confidence in the continued potential of the band.

While unrelenting fury is a major feature in the songs here, what really brings From Safer Place to life are the curveballs it occasionally lobs out.

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.

There are few traces of the musician Cooke has presented himself as previously, but if this is how he wants to strike out on his own, the comparisons to his other bands should be incredibly short lived.

It never really lets itself go enough to really explode and take things to the next level but it’s in its reserve, precision and craft that its charm really lies.

This is a confident, electrifying, weirdo-pop stormer of an album that deserves your attention.

This self-titled album isn’t bad, and certainly far from unlistenable. But in refusing to risk being something other than middle of the road, they have become arguably worse. It’s boring.

This is a solid attempt by a band in thrall to electronic music to redefine themselves, but it’s their love of this music rather than their ability to explore its limits that is communicated by Dilate.

While Rebel Heart is greatly superior to her last set, MDNA, it suffers from the same malaise of of overabundance.

This is another brilliantly executed four tracks and, if it is anything to go by, Cheatahs needn’t worry about The Difficult Second Album.

The record is alive. It has punch, guts, heart, all the things you would hope for really, whilst at the same time maintaining the central potency of what made Ghostpoet so great in the first place: that voice, delivering paeans to lost love and the reality of life like really no-one else can.

Come album three, they’re not tied down to something tired or fumbling around experimenting with ill-suited sounds, but instead are simultaneously concentrated and expansive, defined by an addictive and inclusive sense of purpose.