Rather than offering a bold new step in Reznor's long, winding career, Not the Actual Events feels more like tentative first steps towards something bigger.

With a fine balance of clean singing between Scabbia and Ferro, atop the technicality of strings and beats, there's something for everyone.

The Glorious Dead is an achingly self-aware throwback record, focusing more on the strength of each song than the album's overall structure.

The record harnesses its emotional resources to grant the listener the sweet spectacle of watching self-awareness disintegrate as the artist wriggles free from postmodern detachment, and rediscovers that most undervalued asset: his vulnerability.

DIANA blend genres and provide a real sense of intimacy on Familiar Touch, a deeply personal and musically rich collection of songs.

Sonically and thematically, the 48-minute downtempo project is impeccably cohesive, executive producers Singawd and Yakob tying a black bow on a deep list of contributing producers with brooding, layered synths and space to think. Auto-Tune appears heavily, and the guest list is firmly in the now.

Nothing is overdone here. Washington's saxophone grounds the entire project. His fiercest fans will miss hearing him out front, but that's entirely beside the point. No one's at the head of the table here. Instead we get a group of friends with genuine history and the kind of outsized talent we can only marvel at. Savour this.

This isn't a Sigur Rós album, and that's just fine. Lack of reverb-soaked bowed guitars notwithstanding, this collaboration vividly reimagines a bastion of medieval Icelandic poetry. The only issue is how long it spent under wraps.

The interludes and instrumentals only serve to interrupt the flow of the record, and it becomes clear the album is a bit of a mixed bag.

While Yes, I'm A Witch Too makes Ono's work more accessible by sanding down the more experimental edges, in doing so, it somewhat detracts from what makes Ono's great.

King's Mouth is a light album, one that — in its best moments — ties the fantasy of its central conceit to a studied sense of reality

It makes for a frankly less fun and memorable album, but Baauer remains a master of the big party moment, and some of these are red hot.

Teeth Dreams arrives to colossal expectations, but weathers them fine and showcases a band returning to form.

Some variation in production style and sonic approach might lend the proceedings a bit more variety, but that's a relatively minor quibble to level at this confident album; these guys do what they do well, and know it.

The musicians' playing retains the band's typically muscular vigour, but has taken on extra nuance.

Overall it's the atmosphere that haunts the album that will stick with you, assuredly.

It's only when he applies his production tricks to his own voice on tracks like "Reflection" when things tend to go awry. But its this experimental bent that makes Rap Album One stand out, and deploying these skills judicially in the future will undoubtedly pay off on the evidence of this solid, eclectic debut.

Abundance Welcoming Ghosts is, in other words, not always an easy journey, but its desire to thoughtfully explore the nooks and crannies of the land and the heart do make it worth the effort.

Forever Endeavour is indeed a humble record, but as with its touchstones, the album's power lies in its simplicity.

Although "My Last Nerve" also falls victim to mid-tempo meandering, the remainder of the album serves as some of the best thrash from thrash's best band, who sound like they play their music with a shit-eating grin and a machete hidden behind their backs.

With Sun Leads Me On, Half Moon Run are attempting to shake the title of "that band with that song" and show off how far they have come, and for the most part, it works.

Black Breath don't quite stand out like they used to, so while this is still a very solid album, the band would have been wise to perhaps make a louder, more out-there statement in order to establish themselves as leaders of the genre.

Although the compilation only runs at a short 66 minutes, it's the pure quality of music involved, paired with the gorgeously laid-out extensive 44-page booklet included (filled with photos and obsessively researched liner notes), that makes Pop Makossa a must-have for fans of African music and disco purists.

Expertly recorded by Martin Bisi (famous for his work with Swans, Sonic Youth and White Zombie), the production is perfect and the songs are mostly more than compelling enough to make it work.

Four Pink Walls is positioned as a warm up to her debut full length, and there's enough substance here to match and maintain expectations.

Not everything here was worth saving--the eight-minute jam "Country Brazilian Jam" could have been pared down--but overall, The Other Side of the River is a worthy companion to a classic, unsung album that stands on its own.

The dark, synth-heavy Post Plague cements Odonis Odonis's reputation as skilled composers, and keeps listeners guessing what they may have up their sleeve next.

The quality of musicianship, lyrical content and melodies on What You See Is What You Get marks one of the top calibre country albums of the decade.