The Tarnished Gold sees them return sounding fresh and revitalised, delivering an album that more than matches their earlier output.

Put simply, it's a deeply beautiful record.

There’s plenty to enjoy in Uptown Special, even if there are some tracks that end up sounding insubstantial and a bit unsatisfying. If you’re looking for a party album, there are songs on here that will sound fresh for the rest of the year and beyond.

This is never going to replace your favourite Kevin Morby album, and it’s unlikely that it will make him new fans, but it feels like the kind of private delight that great artists bestow on their fans for their loyalty from time to time. Sundowner is Morby’s Harvest Moon, his Nebraska, his Hejira – a statement of intent made in the quietest way possible.

The album flows well, with a funky instrumental interlude picking up the pace nicely around the middle and its relatively short run time making it a light and breezy experience.

A blindingly bright future beckons.

It's speaker-shakingly loud yet somehow far too chilled-out to be anything but background music.

The Whitefield Brothers have somehow succeeded in folding the world in on itself with Earthology. The sounds on this disc are mixed together in such a way as to be totally surprising, totally new, and yet completely cohesive.

While it's quite pleasant and occasionally curious at first, the novelty wears off.

There is some magic to Mann's music and it's often hard to define.

Lissie’s third album is perhaps a patchy affair, but when it hits its high points it works beautifully. Next time round, a bit less of the FM radio sheen could see her step forward with a truly great record.

Such a musical melting pot can easily turn into something inaccessible and lifeless, but that’s never the case here. Skill, knowledge and passion clearly inform what this band do, but what comes across most strongly is a sense of joy, and that makes it difficult to feel anything other than wholly engaged as a listener.

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.

A record to cling onto in the darkest of times, until the inevitable light starts to breach through again. Those TV montage soundtrackers may well have just found a new source of music.

For someone as forward-thinking and experimental, playful and funny as King Krule, Man Alive! is just too dull of a work to celebrate.

For the most part, it’s an album of solid indie pop songs that, thanks to Harkin’s habit of writing great guitar hooks and vocal melodies, manage easily to worm their way into your ears.

There’s nothing essentially wrong with Evolution, but it just sounds like it’s mostly been written on auto-pilot. It’s always nice to have a musician of Crow’s calibre still active, but Evolution feels more like an inessential addition to her canon, rather than the glorious comeback it was no doubt intended to be.

Deeper in the tracklist more variety emerges, featuring emotions and sounds that most listeners will have never heard from Dua.

It’s a record that you have to take in as one complete whole. You’ll enjoy individual slices, but won’t be truly fulfilled unless you take a deep dive straight in and luxuriate in all its sonic weirdness and insane brilliance.

Despite her self-confessed lack of confidence when it comes to crossing musical boundaries, Tunstall proves that in the guise of her Tiger Suit she can achieve anything she puts her mind to. For her at least, 2010 is the year of the Tiger.

For anyone yet to be acquainted with the music of the Jazz Age, this is the perfect introduction to the sound of the era. That Ferry's music can be so interpreted, and carried off so convincingly, suggests strength in depth to his canon of work.

Rateliff has managed to succeed in breathing life into the classic soul sound by opening himself up and remembering that it is possible to dance your blues away.

This is a glacially beautiful album that you’ll do well to spend a lot of time with.

Yet, at its simplest and most sedate, Bookish's new work is utterly beautiful.

While it might be criticised for not having some of the mystery characterising previous albums, Lost Channels is a blissful yet haunting record.

Overall, Paracosm is an impressive return from an artist who is still learning his trade.

Despite initial concerns, Moyet’s presence gains stature and confidence as the minutes progresses, with Sigsworth’s production and her vocal eventually working together ever so well.

A thoughtful debut on which art is sorrow, sorrow is art and Eastern influences are incorporated deftly. Most of the time.

While there are a couple of misfires (Broken Algorithms is as messy as its title would suggest), this is generally a fine return to form from one of the country’s most treasured bands.

What we’ve got now is a world full of millennials that have grown up to make art about these injustices. HMLTD have done just that, focusing their trials and tribulations through a magnifying glass to burn us mere ants. And oh, how I love a bit of self-immolation.

This is a fantastic record, and yet another reminder of how good this band are. Nothing seems out of place, not a single riff or beat is wasted. New styles are performed with vigour, and the band sound energised and refreshed. An essential release.

Those familiar with Modern Studies’ previous two albums won’t find much in the way of surprises here but overall, The Weight Of The Sun is the most developed and assured they’ve sounded to date, very much falling into the ‘rewards deep listening’ category.

The songs are generally short, befitting a short release, and sometimes the structural choices feel a little eccentric because of it, for example the abrupt end of Chills Me To The Bone. At times like this there’s a feeling that more could be done with the songs to make them feel complete, but as it stands Fall To Pieces is an intriguing sampler for Tricky’s present-day sound.

Sleepy Sun treat blues the way Fleet Foxes handle traditional folk, and that can mean only one thing - an absolutely absorbing listening experience.

It may be her most mainstream album to date, but as ever with Bulat there’s a subversive and inventive edge lurking under the surface.

The evolution and maturation of The Shins might continue at its steady pace with this record, but it’s all the better for the sense of nostalgia that pervades it, seeping from both its music and its lyrics.

TFCF might well be an Angus Andrew solo album under the Liars banner, but what he’s achieved here fits within the his band’s remit for consistently morphing and confounding expectation. More importantly, it’s heartening to see an album as intriguing as this emerge from such a traumatic time.

All We Grow is not an album for instant gratification, nor is it an album to relegate to background music. Rather, this is a record to study and indulge yourself in--it deserves every bit of your attention.

The Violet Flame is a decent, solid album that will satisfy the faithful, while reminding the rest of the public that they’re still a going concern.

One of the finest French songsmiths around has done it again.

What really makes The Invisible Invasion excellent, better even than that oft-feted debut, is what they achieve when they go a little bit crazy.

Static isn’t a perfect album, but it contains enough promising signs of evolution to predict a long career for Cults.

Fun, fresh and (mainly) utterly listenable, The Information is the most diverse and, at times, thrilling album you'll hear all year.

They may not turn out to be a Lee & Nancy for the 21st century, but Gentlewoman, Ruby Man is a massively enjoyable listen and is hopefully only the prelude to more work between the pair.

This is a more coherent collection of songs than their debut.

If you love the bands The Ladybug Transistor love it's worth a listen, but this won't be the album to propel them forwards.

Overall, June Gloom is an accomplished return from Big Deal, one that shows they are more than worthy of their name.

In what has already proved to be a strong year for breakthrough artists the duo have gone and raised the bar once again, and in doing so, created one of the most essential albums of the year.

The point really, as it is with all of You Can Have What You Want, is that regardless of what era Papercuts are paying (unintentional) homage to, they always sound relevant and never out of step.

With instantly infectious attitude and a seemingly unending supply of irresistible hooks, Brand New Eyes comes close to perfecting the emo-rock art.

Harmonium could quite easily have been a sterile exercise in musical pastiche. What The Soundcarriers have turned the album into is a living, breathing entity that restores the listener's faith in music.

With a little less mess, and a little more hook, the band might find some truly zealous followers.

Welcome Oblivion might have worked with some edits, but ultimately fails as an LP.

Shulamith can still be considered a worthy addition to the band’s back catalogue, even it just doesn’t quite reach the heights of their excellent debut.

Bluefinger is, then, a simple, accessible and enjoyable album of rock and blues by a formidable artist rediscovering his scream while maintaining his cultured songwriting abilities.

For all the development in their sound, this new Peggy Sue is less lovable than before, the whimsy and the wit, the colour and the life a little buried, and whatever their final lyrics say, a touch too troubled now.

While Mvula has a great voice and is a skilled musician, she plays it far too safe on her debut LP.

What we all need is a great new rock band that draws on a forgotten corner of the music of yore, and The Orielles definitely could be that band – but there’s nothing here that will make you put away your old records just yet.

While there may be nothing to touch Goddard’s finest solo moment (that would be the sky-scraping collaboration with Valentina, Gabriel) or most of Hot Chip’s immense back catalogue, Harmonics is still a distinctive, often exhilarating, record from Goddard and his host of friends.

The result is both classic Decemberists--all folk pop whimsy wrapped up in darker lyrics than their surface suggests--and a new direction, using the '60s/early '70s folk foundations to follow their logical path into that odd corner of the English genre that somehow crossed over with Heavy Metal.

Render Another Ugly Method is an album which demands careful listening, almost as it pushes away the listener, inviting interpretation as it rejects it. Often thrilling, it is rarely less than compelling.

Less predictable was her now clear desire to take risks and step off the all-too-well-forged path of safe, agreeable background music. Instead, on The Fall Norah Jones chooses to defy categorization.

Some people may see Songs In The Dark as a curio, simply recorded for in order to keep the legacy of the McGarrigle canon alive and well. Yet it’s the black humour and obvious love for the material that lifts this into another sphere.

While there’s nothing that tugs at the heartstrings as much as Metarie did all those years ago, Dear Life is a reminder that Brendan Benson remains a terrific songwriter. He’s still too much of a quirky proposition to make it big, but Dear Life is a great big burst of sunshine in an all too dark world.

In general there is less percussion than previous Austra albums, which heighten the intimacy in songs like How Did You Know. The exception is the clattering set of drum fills towards the end of It’s Amazing, which disappears in a swirl of harp-like ripples. Yet HiRURiN, as with previous Austra albums, is all about the voice.

The album’s relative drop in quality towards the second half is a minor quibble though. Obits have long since made their point.

The fact that they've managed to record an album so strong, consistent and downright impressive is proof positive that, after much promise, The Subways have come of age.

This album will prove to be as addictive listening come the end of the year as it is right now.

If he can place more focus on songcraft, his tunes will soar majestically; but at the moment there's not a lot under the surface to make him anything other than intriguing.

It is not quite playful enough or quite inventive enough to truly excel, but it is a largely fine effort from a man who anyone with an interest in UK electronic music would surely find to be well worth investigating.

An often spectacular document of pain, no doubt, but it remains a record to admire rather than invest in, turning you away with its bleakness when it promises comfort

The record doesn’t just match the standard of their first, it surpasses it.

While it seems silly to complain about the lack of a singer on an instrumental album, she did lend many of the songs an emotional weight which, while not lacking here, doesn’t quite have the same impact.

Divorced from the context of the North Korea shows the purpose of these songs seems a little unclear, even factoring in the wordplay of “How do you solve a problem like Korea”, so the final few tracks are crucial to the album.

This album shows that Times New Viking seem more likely to be comfortable in front of a crowd rather than a mixing desk; it is worth an enquiry but with a little more application it could have been much better.

The steady pace of mid-tempo tracks might deter some listeners; although there are tinges of mischief, a sudden shift in pace would certainty elevate the listen.

This is a superlative third album, which builds on its predecessors while looking to the future.

High Road appears to have bridged the gap between then and now with flair. Although we heart Kesha the party girl, we love the heart and soul she always pours into her music. A nonchalant and welcome return.

Though [A Bigger Bang] doesn't dare to place itself in the same hallowed halls as that Jimmy Miller-produced quartet of records between 1968 and 1972, it jostles justly and fairly with the best since.

The main problem with Gallagher-Squire is that it all sounds a bit lazy and predictable. You get the impression that they know this too.

More beautiful, uplifting, sweet music than you could ever require.

At times it can become something of an amorphous blob, with songs blending into one another, but the highlights of Home and Flight ensure that there's something tangible to hang on to.

A short, sweet ride, and one worth taking again and again.

The 10 tracks on her debut are all lovingly crafted, but the languid atmosphere means that they sometimes drift into each other.

This certainly isn't an essential album by any means, and perhaps a retrospective of Tillman's previous five albums and EPs might have been a better introduction.

Overall, there's nothing much here for even Wainwright obsessives to get excited about. Buy it as a companion for the far superior DVD, or if you're desperate for a souvenir of the Release The Stars tour. Otherwise, this is strictly for completists only.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is exactly what you expect, and selfishly want, The Brian Jonestown Massacre to sound like.

It’s not a perfect album – you get the impression that Packs as a band are still figuring out their sound, and they’re at that stage where plenty of ideas are going to be thrown around.

A very satisfying addition to an already impressive Efterklang discography, then--and it would be interesting to see if the band writes faster music on their next album.

It's these hints of darkness, together with an ability to take on several differing styles of music in the course of one album, that make Black Mountain such a compelling listen. They remain a captivating proposition, with an arsenal of powerful riffs now at their disposal.

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

Eloquent, glamorous, spirited and now more sonically innovative than ever, the quintet have affirmed their place as one of Britain's most exciting bands with this release.

The State Between Us has some brilliant moments, but those moments are too stretched out: many of the tracks could have been half their length and been equally effective, and some could have been cut altogether for not holding together as pieces of music. However, even at its lowest ebbs it retains some intrigue from its novelty, and the sheer ambition of the album is not to be faulted.

The lack of drums on large chunks of An Object initially gives the feeling that the album is lacking an anchor, but when the band explore the shimmering noise cosmos of closing track Commerce, Comment, Commence they sound expansive and exquisite, something that their more forthright punk approach can’t hope to achieve.

Compared to the admittedly prodigious vocals of Duffy and Adele, this feels like the real deal.

The extroverted, joyful melodies of Photon or the sustained brilliance of Spectral Split seem like brilliant recontextualisations of Weber’s artistic virtues.

Colour Of The Trap may not spring any surprises but it's easy to get caught up in Kane's beguiling web of '60s sound.

Overall, this is an album full of promise, poise and brio.