Angel tells a story but it's nothing you haven't heard before.

They've constructed their most diverse and arguably finest collection to date in fourth long player Into Forever.

As a work of pure, confessional artistry it just doesn’t have the frazzled punch of the ‘great’ break-up albums, but if it did, it probably wouldn’t be Coldplay, and that would be a shame.

Every track has something distinct to capture the imagination, but it is the vocal range that is particularly interesting.

That sunrise-smile that hits before the first half-minute mark isn't blighted by the slightest smudge of cloud right up to minute 45, this is one of our best writers and the soul and centre of why he's always mattered so much. Heartily recommended.

Long time fans are going to lap this up while newcomers will likely be wondering where this band has been all their lives.

The imagery threaded throughout is at once arresting and functions on multiple levels, but perhaps its greatest achievements arrive in the form of songs like ‘Double Life’ and, pertinently, ‘You Are Your Mother’s Child’.

Galore is an odd proposition for a debut album. It feels more transitional than a definitive statement of who Thumpers are, and that’s a hugely exciting thing.

Under Color Of Official Right packs a dynamic punch from starting to finish, never outstaying its welcome at any point.

Shortwave Nights is a real enigma, and oddly addictive for it.

Hearing one of these songs by chance would be perfectly inoffensive, but listening to an entire album of them just feels like a chore.

In Music for Insomniacs Berry has created a synth fantasia of dreamy soundscapes for the wakeful, but with a greater dynamism and more grandiose scale and momentum than most ambient music.

Overall, Process is a ferocious if at times delicately poised introduction to the incendiary world of Yvette, sonic adventurists extraordinaire.

If you were hankering for a return to their garage-rock roots, then Turn Blue is going to disappoint; however, if you’ve liked where the band have gone since Dangermouse came on board, you’ll find plenty to appreciate here.

Featuring the ever-glorious Solange on vocals, it’s a moment of gracefulness that showcases Chromeo’s evident knowledge of when and how to take things down a notch. As a result, it largely accounts for the mostly-pleasant ride that the duo take us on with White Women.

The sledgehammer approach makes sense, in a way, but only if the satire is sharp and coherent. Too often on Sheezus, it’s not.

Although some of the themes and content of the music may be a little heavy, Dare uses the most basic of tools available to him and us as humans to express himself--words.

A two-hour odyssey of similar proportions to The Seer, this is an album that emphasises rather than establishes Swans' reconfirmed position at the top of the experimental rock tree, but that doesn’t make it any less of a thrill.

It’s another excellent Gruff Rhys album then, tied around an unusual concept but not bogged down by it.

As it stands though, data Panik etcetera is still a hell of a ride, and though new ideas aren’t exactly widespread across its 12 tracks, it gets its kicks from perfecting bubblegum-stomp electro party post-pop, and does so rather thrillingly.

Sometimes the sheer sumptuousness of the sounds, of Merchant’s cold, clear voice negotiating lush jungles of brass and cathedral-like groves of cello, is enough in itself. Sometimes, you can’t help but wish for more.

With such an unbending focus on intellectual ideals, Asiatisch is as erudite and wildly impenetrable as its maker.

At its best, it’s the purest yet expression of Garbus’ exploration of the corporeal: an album with sounds you can see, a voice you can feel, and music you can all but touch.

Luminous marks another fitting addition to The Horrors' increasingly untouchable catalogue.

Steeped in the postpunk aesthetic, a well-established rock style that nonetheless remains richer and deeper than any other in formal possibilities, this is a deceptively complex record that conflates doubt and optimism while at surface remaining aggressively articulate.

The Birds of Satan is a fun record--it doesn’t aim to top the charts, be name-checked by politicians, or indeed supersede anything that the Foos have ever done.

All in all it’s a competently executed album that keeps your feet tapping and head nodding for as long as it lasts, but one that takes too few risks and bares too little soul to linger in the listener’s thoughts and emotions once it’s over.

I Never Learn is by no means a failure--the highs are grand when they come--but it has a tendency towards bombast and shallow self indulgence that sees it edge dangerously close to the fringes of mediocrity.