There are some spine-tingling moments here.

There’s a darkness that runs through this album, but it’s almost always offset by something positive.

There is a sense, though, that the nuances and detail of The Shakes need careful unpicking. It might be a return to dance music, but it’s far from disposable.

There’s little going on beneath the skin here and it’s an unfortunate if sadly inevitable fact that other significantly more talented musicians from Iceland will never attain Of Monsters And Men’s levels of popularity.

This might be blues, it might be doom, but the return of Goatsnake can be nothing other than a good thing.

The High Country shows many sides of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Most of those sides are easily palatable and enjoyable, with the odd mis-step here and there preventing it from being a must-buy.

A frustrating album whose unremitting melancholy frequently feels like an endurance test.

This album provides ample proof that Ash’s embers still fizzle away and look likely so to do for some time yet.

It’s been seven years in coming, but Nature has most definitely been worth the wait.

What 85% Proof is, above all, is comfortable, with all the pros and cons that entails.

It doesn’t always maintain the consistency that makes a truly great album, but it makes you feel good and puts a smile on your face. Just as the cover promised.

Whilst this is an album that will draw comparisons to the band that made her name, it is a fine, if long overdue, solo effort.

Girlpool’s debut may not be without fault, but that is ultimately what makes it such a charming little record.

On How Big How Blue How Beautiful, Welch refines a successful formula in a way that plays to her strengths without it being too familiar.

The music is consistently either thrilling, evocative or moving.

It may not be the most ambitious of albums and Snoop Dogg possibly spends more time singing than actually rapping, but the end result will ensure that he remains as relevant as ever.

Pledge is also somewhat uninspired, as MES sets his sights on crowdsourcing and the band scampers around aimlessly. These moments aside, Sub-Lingual Tablet is this incarnation of The Fall’s most impressive addition to the band’s canon.

Multi-Love is more than just a brilliantly designed sonic facade--its excoriation of modern psycho-sexual mores is impossible to resist, so too its musical detail and understanding.

Overall, this is arguably the most consistent album Flowers has ever been involved with.

Saturns Pattern may lack an apostrophe but there’s nothing missing from his musical grammar. He’s still in his prime as a musician.

It all adds up to an emotionally gruelling record that’s patently not intended for passive listening. But it’s an album that’s worth steeling oneself for.

This is very much an album that feels necessary right now--one that packs a political punch without being didactic or evangelical--and offers positive thinking, including a clarion call of co-operative and community responses to global issues.

Sol Invictus is not a bad return, but it’s not the greatest thing Faith No More has ever done.

In revealing some of their insecurities, Hot Chip have reminded both themselves and us of their importance and relevance, and have made a record of both sense and sensibility.

Entanglement is an album that needs to be considered alongside genre heavyweights like The Blue Notebooks by Max Richter or Englabörn by Jóhann Jóhannsson. It’s a timely reminder of how high modern classical music can reach.

Whilst it’s a brave attempt to explore new lands outside their comfort zone, it’s one that isn’t quite as rewarding and rich as Patrick Watson would have hoped.

Both qualities [her immense talent and charisma] are on ample display on Hairless Toys.

There are some fine moments here, but all too often Dumb Flesh seems like a diluted version of Fuck Buttons.

They’ve never really risen to heights that maybe they should have scaled but with so many infectious pop melodies lurking under the fuzz, it’s just as remarkable that they remain on the periphery of their genre.

You can’t help but feel that given better production this could well have been the album of the year that some over-enthusiastic sorts claim. One of the surprises of the year, however? Definitely.

It does sound very different from their previous two albums. Unfortunately, in doing so, they’ve produced the most crushingly average album of the year so far.

Judging by Rose Windows’ now final album, the shame is that differences, whatever they were, could not be overcome because a growing, developing collection of musicians was just beginning to dent the consciousness of a much larger audience. Instead of eagerly anticipating their next move, we are therefore left to cling to their last hurrah.

Part of the difficulty with this is, simply, that--taken as a body of work (album) rather than a collection of individual tracks--interest can start to wane. This isn’t helped, either, by the chiefly indistinguishable lyrics: that character-and light/shade-drenched vocal might be enormously listenable, but for most of the time we aren’t able to make out what it is articulating.

Danger In The Club exudes an appealing spontaneity but frustratingly the songwriting still seems a bit haphazard, with the lyrics in particular remaining underwhelming.

Heyoon is an often confusing collection that depicts a mad mind, but one that at times offers enough intrigue to warrant attention.

It gets on with the job in hand, never short changing the listener, and in the process providing a valuable insight into one of pop music’s great creative minds in the process.

Peter Broderick has clearly been in some dark places since we last heard from him, but here he is back on track--and for that we are abundantly grateful.

With Other Lives, there’s always something interesting and exciting going on in their songs.

As Born Under Saturn reaches its final third, the level of consistency remains high, with tracks such as the expansive High Moon and the almost nonchalant Beginning To Fade both worth a mention.

MCIII might fail to live up to its billing as concept album, but it absolutely doesn’t fail to provide a steady stream of big-hearted guitar-pop songs.

2011’s Circuital was up there with their best work and now Jim James and company are back again with The Waterfall, which maintains their high standards.

The gestation has meant that the album really captures her individual voice as a writer and singer whilst the variety in the instrumentation and sound presents her as an open-minded seeker of new ideas.

Whilst there are a few darker moments (particularly towards the midsection) there’s are also a number of delicate and beautiful moments too.

It’s a strong and pressing example of how musical elements from different geographical sources can be integrated successfully and portrayed in cohesive, striking style.

+ – might be a tad more restrained and less obviously ambitious than its two predecessors, but it’s still a meticulously crafted, consistently melodic and frequently beautiful work from an excellent band.

This is basically a gang of extremely accomplished musicians in their 60s getting together, who have no need to break any new barriers. As such, it’s another worthy entry in the canon for this particular gang of heroes.

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.

Indifferent, but an essential listen, even if just for the brilliant finale.

Much of Edge Of The Sun is as comfortable as an old pair of slippers.

Foil Deer isn’t an easy listen but it is a compelling one.

As Passion Pit albums go, it may not sound drastically different to what has gone before, but, nevertheless, it feels like a fresh start.

Jekyll Island is probably not going to be their breakthrough album to a wider public, but their forthcoming debut European tour is bound to bring them some new fans.

There are genuine surprises on The Fine Art Of Hanging On for long-term fans.

Its strength is the number of differing styles it turns to largely satisfying effect, reasserting Mugwump’s status as a producer who knows how to entertain and charm in equal measure. This satisfying, toe-twitching debut-of-sorts will only enhance those claims.

Portico have certainly succeeded in reinventing themselves, and they sound like a completely different band to Portico Quartet. The flipside of this is less positive: with their synth textures and post-dubstep influences, they don’t sound all that different from much of the pop music being made at the moment.

It’s a surprising, hugely satisfying trip from a transformed band.

Yet even with his occasional indulgences, No Sad Songs is an impressive comeback.

In many ways it offers lessons in collaborative best practice, with individual sonic identities preserved, yet with a willingness to divert from usual methods on both sides proves it’s much more than just a stop-gap in between their respective next albums.

Bonxie doesn’t contain too many surprises, and it doesn’t really have many answers to the bigger questions, but it does have a number of brilliantly written songs.

If New Glow is anything to go by, the creative well seems to be starting to run dry.

Whether or not it’s enough to push Stables into a more prominent place, however, remains to be seen, but surely a wider acknowledgement of her prowess can’t be far away.

Ripe is yet another strong offering from the UK’s most collaborative and consistent regional music scenes.

An album that finds Wire once again proving that they’re still one of the most inventive and exciting bands around.

An album that’s more mature and focussed than Stealing Sheep’s debut, harnessing all of their interesting quirks within a showcase of excellent songwriting.

The reality is that Glitterbug just doesn’t excite or leave any lasting impression.

Lyrically it is rich pickings for those that savour the words so often masked by either sheer noise or mumbled vocals, as O’Brien proves how he has developed into a rather impressive poet.

Flawed as it may be at times, Froot emerges as Diamandis’ strongest album to date, mainly because it’s the first one that strongly stamps her own personality on proceedings.

Occasionally the wish remains Lord Huron would vary their delivery a bit more.

Makes A King takes it up a notch: the same ingredients and patterns are there, but The Very Best now sound much more like a fully operational band, rather than a fortuitous hodgepodge of singing and sampling.

Fast Food is a well-defined and powerful musical statement from an artist enjoying her time in the limelight.

The message might be shorter this time around, but it is just as pointed and effective.

A hugely impressive return from Drenge, who have once again produced a collection of songs that will leave you feeling dirty but, more importantly, completely satisfied.

What it may lack in cohesion, it more than makes up for in adventure and it is certainly one hell of a captivating ride.

Cerulean Salt was a tough album to top but, with this bleak yet beautiful follow-up, Crutchfield might have done just that.

Ultimately, there is no getting away from the fact that WMABMT is a remarkable album. In fact, it is hard to think of anything else quite like it.

Carousel One exists as an album on which “meticulous” is the watchword; on which Sexsmith’s mastery of his craft is more readily apparent than ever; and on which a decades-long career has taken a turn for the cheerful.

He’s shown that he can write great songs, albeit not quite as consistently as one would like. Despite that, What For? still contains over twenty minutes of some of the year’s most decadently enjoyable music. A treat.

Despite the album’s central concept and expansive nature, it is in fact a tight and cohesive work. There’s rarely any self-indulgence, making these songs in total Ufomammut’s most direct and accessible work to date.

The first disc (Niggas On The Moon) is not the finest thing Death Grips have ever put their name to.... However, the second half, Jenny Death, is better. A lot better.

Campbell’s ideals are distilled into a tight nine-track album in which influences are evoked, grafted onto fresh numbers and cut loose to scratch insistently at the listener’s ear.

It’s a record that follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, offering up melodic psyche-pop numbers in which walls of sound are daubed with deceptively dark lyrics.

If you fancy a slightly off centre alternative to the mass appeal of more prominent electronic bands, despite a few wobbly bits here and there, then you won’t go far wrong with giving this latest collection a chance.

Escape From Evil feels like a case of one step forward, two steps back.

The Prodigy are doing a lot of shoving, but little in the way of solving the problem they’ve identified. If they want to be considered as important as The Sex Pistols, they’ll have to do rather better than this.

Föllakzoid carry forward both traditions in their own uncompromising way, and with III they deliver their most polished album to date, and their most coherent statement of how they relate to their forebears.

Chilly is on to something here, with a collection of small-scale musical postcards ready to charm anyone lucky enough to receive them.

This music emphasises an unhurried, thoughtful approach to life that is beautifully at odds with the noise of a bustling metropolis in a General Election year.

He has bravely laid his songwriting gifts bare in their purest form.

It is an album that both looks back and innovates.

Ultimately, Chaos And The Calm is a solid, if unspectacular, first effort from Bay.

A satisfyingly down and dirty album that works up a sweat reeking of the Big Apple.

Primrose Green may not be the most original of statements, but it definitely amounts to more than the sum of its parts and there is the lingering impression that Walker is only just getting started.

There is more to Short Movie’s context than odd details, avant garde references and the philosophy of hippy shamans. Marling has long been able to trace a musical lineage back to heavyweights like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, and this is cemented here.

Those expecting freedom and discordance may come away disappointed, but this is, none the less, a driven and impressive album from a band in fine, but different, form.

Complete Strangers is one of those collections where over the course of several listens each song enjoys time as being considered the highpoint of the album only for another track to supplant it soon after. Whisper it, but Vetiver may have just made one of the albums of the year.

It all means that Sometimes I Sit… is a likeable, enjoyable album rather than a great one. Barnett has written half a masterpiece: let’s hope that, next time round, she can complete the job.

Lease Of Life succeeds in being every bit as bold and accomplished as its much touted predecessor.

At times feels too regimented, leaving you wishing that he would just relax a little and drop the self-consciousness that gets carried along through the tracks.