It’s not perfect, but it does point towards promising a future.

The chants, pipes and Afrobeat guitars might be facades, just like the masks and robes, but it doesn’t matter because the music underneath has real heart and soul.

It may be lacking in genuine standout moments--the infectious choruses from tracks like Come Save Me, Man I Need and Uncertainty are noticeably absent--but as an overall listening experience, it is a fascinating journey.

She’s come a long way from those more quirky days, but Remember Us To Life is a good reminder that Spektor is still more than capable of conjuring up moments of magic.

There is nothing groundbreaking among these 12 new tracks and it never reaches the heights of American Idiot--which remains the trio’s high-water mark--but there is much to be admired in the simplicity of Green Day’s return.

Happily The Early Years’ renaissance has been well worth the wait, their second coming blossoming through music that frequently dazzles.

The more ‘ambient’ tracks (entitled Hent I-VIII) are scattered throughout the album and simply consist of Tiersen tinkling around on his piano over the sound of birds chirping away. ... Yet this can’t distract from the beauty of the main piano tracks on Eusa.

This latest Toy of theirs is a lot of fun, even if it could have been better still had Meier had been given a bigger part.

Like its predecessor, every single element on The Midnight Sun appears to have been carefully and painstakingly thought out, but serene closer Window is a perfect demonstration of just how effortless it all sounds.

Fires Within Fires once again proves Neurosis to be a strong and inventive creative force.

The whole of Atrocity Exhibition takes Brown’s craft to a new level, even if his delivery occasionally grates. It’s by far the best thing he’s released and confirms his arrival among the rap elite.

It’s not that it’s terrible--and credit should go to them for being so adventurous--but this might just be a makeover too far.

Whether there’s a concept behind it all or not, he again demonstrates a knack for writing in a variety of styles while sounding uniquely himself.

There’s no pure pop moments like Losing You and she may never generate the same amount of press inches as her elder sister does on a regular basis, but this third album is an endlessly compelling one.

Unfortunately, overall the record is unable to match the consistency of its predecessor. That the trio started work on Friends without a label is certainly telling, as the overriding impression is one of a band in transition.

It’s a vital record that’s a blast of clarity in a muddy, chaotic world.

A startlingly honest and sprawling debut entry from Blanco, one which challenges the listener at every turn.

it. At times, this is probably easier to admire than to actually sit down and enjoy, but it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless.

Head Carrier is a far more coherent album than Indie Cindy though (hardly surprising, as the latter was effectively a group of EPs welded together) and while it may not be a record to inspire the generations as their previous work did, there’s enough evidence that some of that old spark is still flickering.

When it hits, as on the wistful Fionn Regan sample on the closing 00000 Million or the breathtaking piano introduction to 33 “GOD” you know that this strange, beautiful, willfully obtuse album is one that you’ll want to live with for a very long time.

The end result is a record that frustrates more often than it thrills. In other words, it is essentially the same again.

A 1000 Times is an opening track as startling as it is oddly timeless, and if, when it debuted in July, it promised great things of this pairing, the resulting album certainly delivers.

Once again, this is the sound of Wrekmeister Harmonies reporting back from the edges of existence and experience where, on this evidence, it’s both terrifying and beautiful.

These are songs recorded tens, if not hundreds, of times before, and are by no means definitive versions, but in the attempt to capture something of the historical importance of the railroad, Shine A Light’s songs tell their own story; one which will prove excellent company on any similar expeditions, whether across the plains or the 08.16 to Euston.

Some people may find the intensity a bit too much, and it’s fair to say that this is an album that you can only listen to if you’re in a particular mood. Yet the beauty to be found in Henson’s bleakness is undeniable, and in Kindly Now he’s created what could well stand as one of the best albums of 2016.

The only problem is that, at 20 tracks, it’s far too long, and while there’s nothing particularly bad here, the weaker tracks seem a bit like filler.

Finishing with the title track, The Small Hours finally becomes as strange and otherworldly as perhaps the entire album should have been. The whole work is not a disaster by any means, but it’s when Berry’s focus seems to wane and things seem more spontaneous that his music becomes more alive.

The second half of the album is less special than the first with just Drinking Song and the excellent two-note undulations of I Warned You perhaps worthy of a higher placing amongst the band’s fully loaded cannon.

With every album she releases, Angel Olsen seems to step up a gear. As My Woman will comfortably be seen as one of the best albums of the year come December, it’s a head-spinningly exciting prospect to think where she’s going to go next time around.

All things considered, Unseen feels like a missed opportunity for The Handsome Family. It’s by no means a bad album and one established fans will undoubtedly enjoy, but essentially the band are on auto-pilot when it would have been great to hear them go up a gear.

In lesser hands, the sheer number of collaborations on I Remember could have spelled trouble, but AlunaGeorge are no ordinary band. They are so much better than that.

As from an unspeakable event a remarkable record has come. One that sits amongst Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ best. Skeleton Tree is full of grief, but full of heart too.

The nature of the album seems to suggest added advantages in possibly listening to it at the extremes of the day, whether early in the morning or late at night, being infused with a palpable sense of recoiling and retreat.

Furfour is not an album that will change the world. Tracks come and go leaving only occasional ear worming melodies and are largely bereft of sing along moments. It is, however, quite possibly the most interesting listen you’re likely to get all year as each play will reveal something you didn’t catch before and for that reason alone, it’s one that needs to be heard over and over.

Femejism does stand up as an album, with Deap Vally’s strident attitude holding the songs together, but the quality of the material is a little patchy.

It feels like a Sheff solo album in all but name, yet the change in approach has breathed new life into his work and helped him deliver an album that is both impressively bold in scope and magically intimate.

It’s smoothly produced by veteran producer Tony Hoffer, and each track has a radio-friendly sheen to it and a catchy chorus. Which is all very nice, but it’s disappointing news for those of us who prefer Tunstall at her more experimental.

Anderson has wrapped all these songs up in a beautifully warm, enveloping sound.

It is a well constructed, fulfilling work in its own right but what remains most impressive is how, despite never quite crossing over to major popularity, Teenage Fanclub are still able to exist in these challenging times.

For all its merits AIM is a muddled record, and her divisiveness is sometimes counterproductive.

Ultimately, Bastille’s second LP is a more than worthy follow-up, one that throws up a few interesting surprises along the way.

GLA is by no means perfect and there are a few tracks that don’t quite reach the heights of the album’s brightest moments, with Missing Link and closer Mothertongue both struggling to hold their own. Yet it is hard not to be impressed by Twin Atlantic’s conviction throughout as they show what they can do with the shackles off.

While there may be a few wrong turns on Clinging To A Dream, Simeon is still creating vibrant, challenging and exciting music.

Phase Zero might not be as rough around the edges as its predecessor, but it’s still a strange and unusual beast. It is debt to its influences at times, but also idiosyncratic and mysterious enough to stand on its own two feet.

It sufficiently moves their sound on from Zaba, while also successfully capturing the multifaceted nature of man.

Foreverland is a blissful, heartfelt and often very funny paean to love and companionship. Some will no doubt dismiss it as too twee and theatrical for today’s musical landscape, but that is to misunderstand The Divine Comedy.

Trick may well be his masterpiece, combining all the elements that have made him such an enduring and much-loved musician over the years to create a genre-bending classic.

Like Britney herself, Glory is a fascinating if flawed listen--while she remains very much a singles artist, this is her most successful record in a while, and still contains glimpses of why she remains so compelling, 18 years into her career.

It’s just about impossible to live up to the hype that an album like this has been subjected to, but Ocean comes pretty close. Blonde is often a bit of a sprawling mess, but with some patience it becomes one of the most rewarding albums you’ll hear all year.

And The Anonymous Nobody is a more than worthy edition to their legacy, proving how relevant this treasure of a band is.

The Veils may be a little late to the party but Total Depravity is good enough to sit pretty at the top of their far from mediocre catalogue. It will draw you in with repeated plays, track after track gradually vying for a place as your favourite.

It’s a testament to Broderick’s talent that even on an endlessly intriguing and clever record like this, he can still play straight to the heart.

The second half of the album slows the pace somewhat and perhaps suffers after the thundering EDM and lyrical onslaught of the first few songs. ... Yet, for the most part, Innocence Reaches is a triumph of adversity and experimentation.

The soundtrack brings together the two phases of Walker, so to speak: the rich, sweeping orchestral one heard from The Walker Brothers and through the solo Scotts 1-4, before morphing into the avant-garde, claustrophobic, doom-laden one from 1995’s Tilt onwards.

Whilst there are still examples of the kind of dexterous acoustic guitar playing now closely associated with Walker’s music, there is also a greater sense of space and time here, enabling Walker to place greater emphasis on his lyrics.

While occasionally you miss the humanising influence of an analogue drum, or Void’s bowed guitar or even a voice which sounds more flesh and blood than silicon, the sheer force of will that drives 25 25 batters you into submission.

There are some tracks that don’t impress as much as others, but overall there isn’t a weak link in the engrossing narrative Harcourt has created here; it’s an utterly absorbing record, burning brightly as his boldest statement to date.

Brief moments of respite and apparent simplicity allow the more aggressive and expansive moments to really resonate.

Slow Club have always reinvented themselves with each album, and this is another example of the talent of one of this country’s best kept musical secrets.

After the crossroads moment that was Present Tense, Boy King is undoubtedly a powerful statement of intent from a talented, ambitious group of musicians clearly keen to explore new and bold territory. Yet by making this call, they have also sacrificed some of the crucial nuances that made Wild Beasts stand out from their peers in the first place.

The tension that gave those early albums their fizzing energy may no longer be there, but in its place is a band operating at a far higher level. Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not is almost certainly the best album the reformed Dinosaur Jr have made so far.

Overall though, Stith’s second album retains the frustrations of his debut. The songs feel fragmented, with lots of memorable moments--a gorgeous chord change here, an inspired juxtaposition of sonic ingredients there--but very rarely are they memorable as complete compositions.

Ultimately, it is a decent return from a band who continue to show promise.

Admittedly, sometimes the album’s ambition does threaten to trip itself up--there’s a few too many half-sketched ideas crammed in, as opposed to fully formed songs; a bit of ruthless editing might have whittled down the running time to a more manageable 50 minutes or so. However, there’s certainly more highlight than filler contained in Freetown Sound and it is, ultimately, an album that deserves to be heard.

A varied and largely successful meeting of minds, this is peer-review done right, and the prospect of it influencing future solo outings from Case, lang and Veirs is golden.

For everyone who felt that eight year break was an eternity, Take Her Up To Monto will be manna from heaven. It’s yet another gloriously odd missive from Ms Murphy.

As an album that is both outward an inward looking the balance of the two is well measured.

The sound might be ’80s, but this is undeniably now, and Shura a new star in 2016’s increasingly bible-black night.

The instrumental Summer Jam also seems a bit throwaway, and being the closing track also ensures that the album ends on a bit of a damp squib rather than a flourish. Overall though, there is more than enough on Summer 08 to reconfirm Metronomy’s position as one of this country’s wittiest, most original and purely enjoyable pop acts.

A very accomplished second album, and you can almost see the band outgrowing their DIY roots in the most subtle of ways.

Some may write it off as one-paced (and they’d have a point), but there are moments of heartache and beauty here that will be hard to touch in 2016.

Though it’s hardly a full-blown reinvention, The Getaway shows that even after more than 30 years in the business Red Hot Chili Peppers still have something new to offer.

Love You To Death is an album full of intelligent, sensitive pop songs, and at a time when the watermark for such music is pretty high anyway, it really does stand out from the crowd.

The whole album is a new frontier for Necro Deathmort, and it’s one worth exploring with them.

Basses Loaded is something of a mixed bag. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t and some of it is just a little bit too silly for its own good. As usual though, the good far out-weighs the bad, and the Pinkus and McDonald and Warren contributions make it worth a look.

As an album it is of questionable value, but its ambitions are much bigger than the album form.

Laura Mvula has proved emphatically that her debut was no one-off and this highly accomplished return establishes her further as a unique, captivating talent.

The Triad edges ever closer to the purely experimental, with another tentative step rather than a bold foray into the electronica wilds, but for now it’s a worthy diversion from the well-trodden paths of other techno producers.

What we have is a confusing, confused and self-indulgent record that frequently sags under its own ambition, with the fleeting moments of beauty offering a chastening reminder that sometimes it’s better to simply stick to what you’re good at..99

It seems a blinkered record, which can be admired for its defiantly non-commercial stance. It won’t win Fearless any new fans, and may distance Death In Vegas into more of a cult concern. All well and good if that’s the intent; otherwise, perhaps it’s time to draw the curtains, get some vitamin D and thumb through that ‘guest vocalist’ address book.

Tired Of Tomorrow presents with a clearer, crisper sound than its predecessor. To call it clean would be neatening it up too much, but for better or worse it does feel sleeker.

There’s no doubting Middleton’s way with a skewed tune and a wry look at the world, but Summer Of ’13 is buried beneath the sheen of production that sits uneasily on his shoulders.

There are several false starts during The Kills’ fifth effort and the execution does not always quite match the intention, but for the most part it’s a successful return for the duo.

The Monkees have made an album which stands readily among the best of their career and of the year so far.

Ultimately, Wild Things is her most consistent and coherent effort to date, surpassing even her debut. It may have taken four years, but the end result has more than justified the wait.

The flipside to this slightly dark streak that permeates the album with its huge drum pulses and malfunctioning circuitry, is the gentle subtlety at work.

Those who choose to embrace and eulogise anything the great man releases will no doubt laud Fallen Angels as another triumph, but the harsh reality is this is Bob on auto-pilot.

Exceeding an hour in length, though, some may find it a little too lacking in variety and be soundly asleep before the end--which would be a shame, as it’s one of the better psychedelic albums to reach our ears this year.

Even when his quality control slips slightly, the music remains utterly beautiful, like glittering light on a river, or gossamer threads floating through the air on a summer’s day.

Enticing, if inconsistent, this seems to be an album that de Graaf had dreamed of making, building on the pretty, prosaic folk-pop of her self-titled EP in 2013.

These People is a mixture of epic ballads harking back to the sound of the Verve and attempts to move forward with rather half-hearted electronic pop. Despite some beautiful moments, Ashcroft seems to have fallen into the gap between the two.

It may be true that Oh No doesn’t quite match the mystery or depth of her debut--it’s all very transparent and above the surface in comparison--but it offers enough proof that the overt, more soulful qualities demonstrated on this album should serve her well for some time yet.

For an album that started out from just a very simple phrase, it is remarkable just how complete it is.

While the impressive Himalayan featured six tracks over four minutes long, By Default sees this length exceeded just once, concentrating more on short, sharp power punches.

Like so much of this vibrant, engrossing album, [Flesh And Blood is] full of the childlike joy and wonder that Orton has spoken about; a delightful return.

Skepta and UK grime’s resurrection has been one of the most exciting musical sounds of the past few years, and rather than being the climax, you get the feeling that Konnichiwa is just the start of something special.

Fresh, exhilarating and mesmerizingly addictive, Means is neither a limousine nor a Mini--it’s a triumph from start to finish.

There’s not a bad track on British Road Movies, and those who have been pining for years to hear Jackson’s voice again will be more than satisfied. It may not be the return of the Long Blondes, but this could evolve into something even better.