For all its many laudable attributes, Tales from Terra Firma proves ultimately frustrating: a skilled, capable and talented band still unaware of how best to channel and control their creative energies.

Almost everything here is pretty good when you sit down and concentrate on it, but there little that jumps up and demands your attention.

This an attention-grabbing debut album from a unique and fascinating talent, who has more than demonstrated her validity and potential as a solo artist.

On this record it’s all too common for the songs to merely float by, neither enticing you to pursue nor burdening you into reflection, which is a shame as Ólöf is more than capable of writing stunning songs.

Pearl Mystic just happens to be one of those records that embodies perfection.

As rich and enchanting as the source material undeniably is, the winding songs of Child Ballads ultimately get locked into an unfortunate paradox: the magic of the narratives require a focussed and concentrated listen, but the sparse arrangements and repetitive melodies don’t invite the ear in nearly as closely as Mitchell’s recent LPs.

It's one of those hard to grasp music forms--listen to it on headphones and the acuity of it improves, listen to it on speakers and another side is revealed.

For the most part, though, debut album Between Places cuts and pastes a series of well meaning but unengaging pop vignettes.

Ultimately though, they don’t commit enough to the sonic range which they eventually bring to bear, focusing too much on middle-of-the-road indie-folk.

With some clear-minded editing, a workable pair of EPs could have been forged from New Moon. As it is, the cumulative effect of lumping so many competing ideas together is a mess. A frustratingly muddled mess.

By no means reinventing the wheel then, but not about to carelessly buckle it either.

Despite her numerous contemporaries, Torres stands out as a distinct and compelling performer.

Sometimes you are left wishing that the songs could be left to breathe a little more for themselves.

They may not live on as eternal alternative classics, but they feel emphatically, explosively alive. While preserving his natural nonchalant charm, Thurston sounds more vigorous, bellicose, twitchy and forceful than he has in years.

The result is Mogwai’s most vital release in years; a collection of fully realized pieces that could be the closest they’ll ever come to an unplugged greatest hits.

It’s a little overlong and occasionally flirts with being a vanity project, but What The Brothers Sang draws great strength from how much Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Dawn McCarthy clearly cherish these songs, and how much pleasure it gives them to share them with us.

So Palma Violets get a pass this time, their lack of focus and their naivety balanced by their charm. 180 is a record they're only allowed to make once--next time we're going to need some substance.

If Cathal Cully's aim was to leave the past behind then he's succeeded resoundingly, and created one of this year's most ungainly beautiful records in the process.

A lot of the magic of Kavinsky was the box freshness of his reimagining of the past, but across these 13 tracks the allure of Beverly’s Hills Cop high-tops and alien blasting game soundtracks begins to sound tired and worn out

Amok is, above all, a very pleasurable listen, basically just the sound of some talented middle aged dudes enjoying themselves. Let it wash over you, and you’ll enjoy it too.

For the most part it’s a successful approach, etching out real depth from twisting jaunts like the excellent ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Jamaica’. But as soon as they tread away from the angular indie pop paradigm, Theme Park begin to lose their edge.

As an observer however it’s tempting to shoo him away awhile into the redwood forests, just long enough that he might wrestle with something a little meatier, a work as gently heartbreaking as it is cerebrally seductive.

Anthems is a confident, solid and ultimately hugely likable debut; Carter and Carroll have succeeded in producing something that on occasion genuinely lives up to its ambitious title.

Although at times Thirst does a very good impression of perfect throwaway pop, it is just an impression.

Despite this run of two poor(ish) songs, the album is largely excellent--a record bridging the gap between country music and popular music’s less derided genres perfectly.

The result is a collection of workmanlike indie-rock songs that fall some way short of being a good album and a long, long way from being the work of a Godlike Genius.

These tracks might frequently sound like the frameworks of songs yet to be written, or the initial throbs of melodies yet to be crafted, but the earnestness and warmth of the thing succeeds in making the record almost as addictive and loveable to hear as it clearly was to perform.

Push the Sky Away, then, is not the Bad Seeds at their zenith, but pretty bloody spectacular for a fifteenth (or seventeenth, or twentieth) album.