It’s the perfect break-up album as there’s no wallowing--rather, there’s a steely defiance running through these songs that make Tall Tall Shadow a surprisingly uplifting experience.

Olympia is a rich, soulful immersive album; and a terrific return to songwriting form.

A welcoming listen, it begs for repeated plays, each time opening itself up further.

While it lacks the initial rush of Hunting My Dress, The House That Jack Built throws in surprises and twists and turns that are evidence of a satisfying progression.

Although the writing credits on all but one of the album’s tracks is given to Pressnall and Fackler, thereby excluding Bohling, it is her mesmerizing vocals that form the basis of the album, and leads to its artistically collaborative success.

If this is the sound of the Apocalypse, it's the sound of a fiendishly inventive musician and his talented producer trying to squeeze in all the great ideas before armageddon hits.

In both being muscular and sparkly, they have made a brilliant album that makes being in a band sound like the most fun thing in the world.

Punchy, playful and exhilarating, with Euphoric Georgia has regained her artistic verve.

The Mess We Seem To Make is a remarkably confident, assured debut album – every inch of care and time that’s been lavished on it has obviously been well spent. Crawlers sound very much like a band on the cusp of some very big things.

Hell-On is a good demonstration of just how great she’s become.

Exile In The Outer Ring explores complex subjects without reducing them to empty soundbites and neat conclusions.

It’s probably not the sort of album to cosy up with – there’s so much emotion pouring out of Cummings’ vocals that it may all become a bit much for some listeners. Yet it’s astonishing that this is just her second album – there’s more poise and talent on display on Storm Queen than in artists with twice her career.

It’s certainly a very different sort of album from Native Speaker, with far more emphasis on glitchy beats and ambient electronica than on their previous record, but after a few listens you can’t help but be impressed by the evolution on display.

The success of the album lies partly in the production, which allows the teenagers close to the limits of acceptable disorder, but reins them in and lays on the quality when needed.

This is clearly and audibly the work of a musician, composer and performer keen to embrace evolution and the possibilities which that opens up - not only within individual tracks or across a release, but also in terms of his overall body of work.

Clark takes creating this soundtrack to monumental forms, letting the components get weathered and scarred through his manipulation to create a landscape of history, emotion and musical depth.

One of the standout albums of 2012 so far. Tremendous stuff.

It’s their strongest album to date, and while Speedy Ortiz are probably never going to make that giant leap into the mainstream--they’ll always be a bit too abrasive and lo-fi for mass acceptance--Twerp Verse is the sound of a band standing on the verge of great things.

It’s not a Maccabees revival, but rather a delicate, fragile document of a life-changing event – and one that will touch the heart of both parents and non-parents.

It is a unique and challenging experience, and whilst it’s not always pleasant, this is music that dismisses convention and crackles with invention.

A Bath Full Of Ecstasy might be a somewhat eccentric name, but it ultimately does sum the album up rather well (assuming it means the abstract emotion rather than literal pills stacked up in a bathtub): a lush, adventurous experience, immersive and refreshing.

Write Me Back won't totally please R Kelly fans who crave the silly pleasures of Trapped In The Closet, but it is without doubt an excellent record.

Jaws have created an album that should see them breaking away from B-Town, heading for sunnier climes and finding themselves.

An album that should find favour with listeners from across the broader musical spectrum.

While that development may take some by surprise, Melophobia finally sees Cage The Elephant realise their full potential.

The band have assembled a great selection of tunes that showcase a wide variety of styles, and Deleter is highly recommended for those on the intersection between electronica and rock.

It may not quite reach some of the highs (or lows) of its predecessor but it more than compensates in both its consistency and variety. It offers proof that stories of stagnation and decline in everyday life can still conversely inspire music of great value and beauty.

While Homecoming could hardly be described as a massively commercial record, it’s certainly Du Blonde’s most accessible album to date, and the short running time means that it never outstays its welcome.

Maraqopa is, at times, a sumptuous sigh of a record, the sound of a man exploring a territory he's earned the right to claim as his own.

At times it may seem like the most depressing easy listening record you've ever heard, but there's plenty of depth and deft touches here to make it well worth checking out.

The Magic Whip succeeds splendidly in coming across as a comeback album that hasn’t been overthought, flashing a nonchalant dare to any prospective Oasis reunion project.

While what Clean Bandit are doing is incredibly interesting, it’s probably premature to say that they’re harbingers of musical enlightenment. They may, however, be the heralds of super-duper/boogietacular parties across the summer.

The album is a triumph and a testament to the enduring creativity of Warren Ellis, Mick Turner, and Jim White. This is a truly wonderful album from masters of their craft. Enjoy it loud, and often.

When all is said and done, Ask That God is the Empire Of The Sun album you would want to hear at this point. It is Nick Littlemore and Luke Steele finding their familiar chemistry, doing what they do best, and providing sun kissed pop that we can sing and dance to, pure escapism when we need it most.

These versions serve to highlight what we already knew, that Zola Jesus is a phenomenal talent. To have these songs reworked and in some cases made even more powerful than the original counterparts is testament to the skills and attention to detail of all those involved.

My Head Is An Animal deserves the attention it is getting, because it is a well-crafted, spirited debut album with soaring choruses and delicious harmonies.

What Disclosure have done really well here is kept with the style that has rightly made them huge, honing their songwriting skills further in conjunction with a group of very well chosen collaborators. Caracal, then, passes the test.

The songs on Once Upon a Little Time bloom as slowly as lotus blossom, their graceful colours and subtle variations revealing themselves gradually.

It would be a shame if S.C.U.M cannot escape from the oppressive prison that preconceptions have built, because Again Into Eyes is worthy than a better fate than that. Honestly. It's well worth a try.

Given its very nature, this is an album that is more suggestive than it is demonstrative, with attuned, nuanced performances creating a range of colours and sensations.

Like the best Black Keys songs, the band’s tracks hold up independent of their pristine production as examples of how to combine undeniable talent, a love for the past, and a personal story to create a sound that’s simultaneously throwback and unique.

Whether All Them Witches’ fans will approve in droves is unlikely, but instead of burying their heads in the sand maybe they should embrace the bands continuing evolution because at times it’s simply spellbinding.

The Lucky Ones is unlikely to garner any new fans for Mudhoney, which is a shame because this is one of the best albums of their career.

There was a lot of pressure on Matthew E White to deliver something as good the second time around. Yet the expectation appears to have hardly phased him, as Fresh Blood reaches similar heady heights.

Free of the patronising condescension that many Western musicians adopt when they embark on musical journeys like this, Victoria Bergsman has produced a marvellous, spell-binding album.

Collaborations may not work for everyone (hi Metallica, rest in peace Lou Reed), but this is one that certainly does.

This is the best Warmduscher album, and arguably the best album produced by anyone from the Fat Whites stable since 2017’s The Moonlandingz debut.

Anyone enthralled by the previous album may feel there is something missing here. Instead, what we have is the true expression of the artist finding salvation in musical release and forging new paths using established forms.

This is, truly, an album worthy of obsession.

Letter To You provides both a moving thematic adjunct to Springsteen On Broadway and a timely and welcome burst of the sheer euphoria that only the E Street Band can inject. It also, importantly, demonstrates the band’s unacknowledged flexibility.

While her debut On A Mission was a bold hashing-together of genres, equal parts R&B-feels and electro bombast, Little Red rides a comparatively low tidal ebb. But there’s more than enough here to suggest Katy B will be bringing the tunes a while yet.

At 10 tracks, Endless Flowers gets in, does what it does best and gets out again, leaving a stunning corpse with beautiful cheek bones.

This album is a fine addition to his collection of socially conscious afrobeat. It’s a sound and approach that pays debt to his father, but is forged in Femi Kuti’s own singular identity.

The result is an eclectic mix of psychedelia, electronica, dance beats and space jazz as well as rock which moves along the scale from The Beatles towards erstwhile collaborators The Chemical Brothers. The tempo is upped, while Gallagher’s vocals are in a higher register than usual and the guitars are much further back in a musical mix that is highly textured.

Even the moments when Harcourt just falls short are infinitely more interesting than most people's failures.

An album full of perfect pop songs, which borrow and rework musical themes and motifs from across 40 years of McCartney's career.

It could so easily have been an ill-fitting coat worn loose on the shoulders of the original’s stark beauty. But these slabs of noise, where Cale picks at the wires like a scab, scarring and slashing old canvases to remake the old, add to rather than re-hash his legacy.

The End Of Silence is a tasteful look at the butterfly effect that is smart not to get caught up in the consequences of a moment, instead exploring that moment to the fullest and leaving you to wonder.

Sure it's self-indulgent, but sometimes indulgence is no bad thing, and that is certainly the case here.

Where Barking was all about the kinetic energy of the feet and arms, Barbara… joins the soul and the head, its rhythms enhancing rather than driving the experience.

The music throughout MONTERO suggests that Nas X has a very bright future ahead of him.

Sahel Folk is refreshing, especially when set against the fact that many bands can spend months or years tinkering in studio settings for what they deem to be the perfect sound.

The Bride Screamed Murder is a slight feint away from the two albums that preceded it, but it is, nevertheless, distinctly Melvins.

It’s very far from cosy easy listening, and it’s certainly a record you have to be in the right mood to fully appreciate. Yet as an entry point into the bewitching, disquieting world of Keeley Forsyth, The Hollow is pretty special.

Who Am I is an engaging and emotionally intense debut, which works well as a showcase for this multi-talented young artist.

It's an accomplished release which, while throwing the occasional nod to other artists of the same genre (M83, Saint Etienne), nonetheless maintains a sense of uniqueness and identity that remains prevalent throughout its duration.

It's a superb comeback, and one of the best albums of the year.

Cunningham is skilled in sustaining uncomfortable moments right up to a breaking point but he's also brilliant at making this self-contained, insular music sound sleek, modern and somehow appetising.

It’s lacking an Espresso, so to speak – but as it is, this debut album is quite the introduction to an impressively talented young woman.

The Manics may no longer be generation terrorists (if you can indeed be such a thing in your mid-50s) but Critical Thinking shows that, when they fancy it, they can still deliver a witheringly bracing state of the nation address.

Rarely Do I Dream is another beautiful album from Powers, which seems to be a constant, no matter what name he chooses to record his music under. It manages to sound both nostalgic and contemporary, full of songs that evoke the warm glow of childhood, but with a creeping menace never too far away.

Few other modern musicians are as adept at taking such a tried and tested genre and making it utterly their own.

Silence Is Wild is heart wrenching, brutally honest and, at times, difficult to listen to. It is also forceful, confident and mature.

Lanois and Snares are an unorthodox pairing, and the former’s fans may have mixed reactions to the latter’s noisy beats, but they complement each other well, and what could have been just a niche curiosity is instead a real treat.

On first listen it feels like the musical equivalent of doodling a massive cock-and-balls on a Rembrandt, but eventually this reveals itself as the first moment of compositional brilliance on an album packed full of them.

When you get him on his own he's up for a big night out. Just don't expect him home til dawn.

The majority of Heartstrings is the stirring return to form that much of us had hoped for each time Howling Bells released a new record.

In Without Your Love he shows that he’s evolved from sinister experimentalist to a creator of powerful and highly original songs.

This is an album of varied pleasures: it doesn't grab you by the scruff of the neck but it pulls insistently at your arm until you have to take notice.

This, a musical Indian summer, pushes them forward again.

This may all sound exhausting, but luckily The Hives have the songs to back up their energy.

Culled from various single B sides, radio edits and with two unreleased tracks bolted onto the rear, the band’s musical cauldron appears to be simmering over with malevolent goodness.

Idles offer so much more than mere spit and bile. The nuance of what’s on offer on this record contributes to the rich contemporary loosely threaded punk scene that has produced bands like Protomartyr, Priests and Algiers.

Going by the quality of Tourist In This Town, there’ll be an awful lot more people loving Allison Crutchfield pretty soon.

This is an urgent, enormously enjoyable LP.

Zig-zagging cross-country has afforded the band a subtle grasp: while West Coast sunshine glows from their every chord, they are not bound to Pacific pop principles, and their dexterous handling renders Modern Rituals a beguiling proposition and Chief a band to keep a very close eye on.

In a world where Ed Sheeran and Drake are pretty much sharing the entire Top 20 singles chart, an album as wildly experimental and as much damn fun as this one is should be required listening.

This is music at something like its most natural, made by a collaboration who might not even have met but who have struck up a clear understanding despite the distance between them. More, please.

It’s introspective and understated while never failing to get its message across. He may not receive the accolades and acclaim that the likes of Stormzy or Dave garner, but Hugo is more proof that Loyle Carner is one of the foremost names in UK rap and hip-hop.

Scout Niblett is an acquired taste, but so many of the best things - olives, anchovies, nipple clamping - are. And if you have ever been tempted to acquire a taste for Niblett, The Calcination..., along with This Fool..., would be a good place to start.

Their loud, rough and tumble early efforts on Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday have combined nicely here with a sense of southern rock and pop rock from the past few albums to produce another gem for an amazingly consistent band with plenty of room left to grow.

There are enough little twists, turns and embellishments on their trademark sound to ensure they’re still sounding fresh. Continue As A Guest is another reliable chapter in one of Canada’s most consistent bands.

Almost certainly his best effort since 2001's "Labour Days," None Shall Pass finds Aesop Rock at the top of his game with a consistent piece of work rather than simply a passable album.

A truly excellent rock record.

Words And Music isn't just a celebration of popular music, but a hymnal ode to a loss of innocence, an end to the passions of our childhood.

Mixing hardcore punk with pop rock is a tricky proposition, and it’s definitely a dog who’s had his day, but Militarie Gun play with such sincerity and passion that it becomes infectious.

Lopatin dispenses with radio’s interchangeable verse chorus verse format, instead replicating the labyrinthine ways the internet once promised formerly unreachable music might become graspable before being commoditised.

Fifth album The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs doesn’t have the dramatic sense of change of its predecessor, but it is a fascinating album that may even ultimately prove to have more to offer. It’s one of those albums that grows with each listen.