Danse Macabre becomes a career retrospective of sorts, earning credit by not going down the obvious ‘best of’ route. However, to work it needs the different elements to complement each other, and on that score its success is extremely limited.

The third Self Esteem album that takes the best parts of Prioritise Pleasure and her debut Compliments Please, and turns it all up to 10.

While this may be something of a stopgap release while Maclean tries out a new venture or two, Everybody Get Close has plenty of dancefloor noise, and is switched on to the rhythm throughout.

It has been a long wait for a British album like this, the kind that transcends age group appeal and inspires cool kids to form bands and geeky kids to lose themselves in music's history.

There may not quite be enough highlights to keep you clicking repeat indefinitely but, for a first glimpse of a new band that’s certainly got plenty of tongues wagging, Until The Tide Creeps In isn’t a bad outing at all.

For Miike Snow make weirdly wonderful music, not without its strange lyrical dark side, but with an overall vibe that raises you to your feet and makes you gaze at the blue sky. In a phrase, life-enriching.

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

Flume is stuck between innovation and the urge to party like it’s 2014, and though Palaces has real highlights, it is weakened by this indecision.

Overall, Phrazes For The Young is a successful departure from The Strokes' straightforward brawn, but it's not as different as it's been billed.

So while a cautious welcome is given to this near-flawless interpretation of soul music, it is done with the observation that another record of such polish will be ultimately empty, and more than a little disappointing.

As the mainstream of club music continues to seek out bigger and more energetic sounds, Logic1000’s relatively mellow approach is intriguing, and Mother certainly shows potential – it just needs some fine-tuning to become the full package.

Cursing The Sea is an enjoyable listen from start to finish; whilst not possessing anything in the way of a number one single, the rawness and lo-fi feel will appeal to many.

At some points, you listen and think 'my God, this is actually better than The Strokes'.

Heligoland doesn't touch the perfection of Blue Lines, but few albums do. It is though a return to form from one of the real pioneering bands of our age.

While the album does weigh heavily on its dark themes--possibly too much so at times--The Avett Brothers have never sounded better than they do on The Carpenter.

Not all their ventures are successful, but with a final play on words it’s more Power to Editors’ elbows, for once EBM takes a firm grip on its listener it does not let them go.

There are still a few forgettable plodders on All Quiet – the likes of Baron’s Claw and Be Young seem to be a bit phoned in. Yet while the fire of 20 years ago is inevitably never going to be reignited, this new version of The Libertines seems to be settling quite nicely into a once unimaginable middle age.

The Like take hooks to the next level by repeating choruses as many times as possible, but the sections are so catchy it's very difficult to get annoyed by the repetitions.

The real highlights are the two tracks with lyrics, Roll Back with Lil Silva and the suitably nocturnal Half-Light (Night Version) with Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl. These songs play to Fitzgerald’s strengths. By contrast, the rest of the album feels like watching a stage with no performers on it. A well-lit stage, as Fitzgerald can create a mood well, but still fundamentally a hollow experience.

Marshall may appear more stylish, her striking face and poker straight hair gracing many more magazine covers than it used to, but the music making is clearly totally safe in her hands, and anyone predicting a creative nosedive any time soon should be in for a very long wait.

Jose Gonzalez may not be doing anything any differently, but he's also not doing very much wrong.

Too many of these tracks sound like empty afterthoughts, or half-baked studio incarnations, needing more embellishment or maybe just a general reimagining.

The problem with Colors is that where once he innovated, Beck now seems to be imitating the slew of fizzing faceless pop clogging the airwaves buried under a mesh of corporate production.

This Is Eggland takes no prisoners in its sonic bombast, and does not suffer fools gladly. Taking elements from krautrock in the oscillations of Silver Apples together with the slash and fury of riot grrlers Bikini Kill, the resulting dish is mashed up in a throwaway aesthetic.

As pretty much anyone will tell you, this sound hits more than it misses.

Temples’ piercing synths certainly perplex and distract but probably not in the way they intended. Any emotional or meaningful messages that may be in these songs are completely lost. Some lovely moments do manage to fight their way through.

Television Personalities fans will be overjoyed with this collection of new songs. Newcomers will wonder how music like this ever got recorded, but bored of Mike Skinner, might rejoice in its working-class accented good humour and honesty.

The Sword still know how to write killer riffs. That said, they've changed tack a little this time around mainly thanks to the polished production of Matt Bayles (previous clients include Isis and Mastodon).