It's the sort of album that makes you want to lay down between the speakers and close your eyes; it's an album in which to get swept up.

While it doesn't quite account for the storied legend of the band behind it (these guys wrote Sonic Reducer, Ain't It Fun, and Final Solution, after all), Barfly is an album that sounds immediately important.

Despite its gloomy subject matter, it's really quite a fun listen.

If you relax into it, and not expect the same experience as seeing Steve live, it's pretty good.

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.

It feels like a work in progress, skeletally over-precise and over-long.

The album is at its best when it explores glam influences: the campness and flamboyance nicely mirror the theatrical nature of The Decemberists’ established repertoire. But they would do well to learn that sticking some synthesiser parts behind a guitar band doesn’t automatically make them New Order.

It is a debut album of real class.

To describe it as the best Strokes-related work since 2003’s Room On Fire might be damning it with faint praise: better to say simply that this is one of the year’s most easily-overlooked gems.

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

Long term fans might find Worship not as visceral as previous outings, whilst those intrigued by occasional flashes of melody might find themselves beaten into submission by the album's oppressive nature.

There is a lot at play here, both sonically and lyrically, and the album rewards repeated listens. Most importantly, Little Broken Hearts is an album that just works.

Dananananaykroyd are, on this album's evidence, a fine band.

This is an illuminating and captivating insight into the world of Zero 7. Far from being coffee table fodder, it provides a near perfect chill out soundtrack - easy to relax to, but always rewarding closer inspection, especially deep in the small hours.

Hunx And His Punx are happily basic, and that has resulted in a half-hour of impeccable golden-age pop, but there's certainly no great cosmic significance here. Yet it's still easy to get excited about a half-hour of impeccable golden-age pop, and in that mindset it's well worth a few spins.

There are flourishes throughout, but there are also too many pretensions and, ultimately, the album is undone by an unwelcome abundance of unresolved ideas.

For a debut effort, Amanda Mair's record offers both startling clarity and cohesiveness, a cherry picked smattering of so many inter-related pop elements, here weaved together into a lustrous tapestry of accomplishment.

These slight niggles [Failure never fully reveals itself and feels a little like an idea that never really developed. Similarly, K Street is short, sweet, and fun, but doesn’t really anywhere] aside, Volume X finds Trans Am in rude health and still delivering fresh exciting music. As an introduction to the band this is a good starter for 10.

This is more than just a collection of blackened tectonic riffs however; Doyle’s deft songwriting ensures that there’s considerable subtlety and hidden depths to these songs.

It’s tough to spot much progress on Foxhole when compared to Wooden Head. In fact, it’s more devolution than evolution but the simple sparseness works well in moderation for some well penned songs.

It Won’t Always Be Like This has its moments that suggest something promising is within their reach.

Obviously nobody's expecting them to record anything revolutionary at this stage of their career, but it's fair to say that this album will probably only get Cure enthusiasts excited.

So it isn’t better than Swift’s album, as that would be a pretty hard album to improve on. What Adams has done though is to look at it through another prism, and created a pure break-up album.

For aficionados of his gnomic genius, and there are many, this new collection provides further reasons to invest time and money in his eclectic works.

Like the recent offerings from the aforementioned pair, Rapprocher is properly cinematic.

It’s pleasant enough, but there are not enough killer tunes to make this a standout.

The album has been patiently developed and refined over the last few years and it shows.

Where Campbell and Lanegan's first album of dusty duets was an unexpected treat, this is less of a surprise but builds on that record's success, exploring the musical chemistry between the two still further.