The Family Afloat reveals itself as a record that is promising, enchanting, and imbued with a wry optimism that at times is tangible.

It's reminiscent at times to what pal and label stablemate Will Oldham did on Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music.

The punkier title track stands out, as does the ferocious No Surrender, both featuring in their breakdowns the standout riffs from the album. But too much of the rest is lost in a barrage of blast beats, bluster, and bludgeon.

Witty and blessed with deftness Citizens! may well be, but we're still a bit bilious from our musical diet during the noughties to thoroughly appreciate it.

Beautifully produced it may be, but Two Vines is essentially an over polished collection of songs with less spontaneity in their composition.

Decidedly mixed results--but also, a sense of light at the end of the tunnel.

It is the penultimate songs that show some signs of invention.

Your Future Our Clutter is a tight, coherent, rock-out album--and it's great to see some discipline back in The Fall after years of scrappy offerings.

As usual the lyrics feel like they were written when stoned, but the music still shows creative engagement.

There’s not much on here that comes close in quality to either of Grant’s solo albums--like a fine wine, he’s become better and better as he’s aged. Yet there are some hints of his early promise on this compilation.

Fine Fascination is a very listenable debut.

The landscape has changed a lot since Gomez first broke down the door, announcing their arrival. This shouldn't take away from the fact that Whatever's On Your Mind is decent enough, as albums go, but you feel it's been preceded by too many slight returns to make new ground this time around.

She’s certainly an artist following her own vision: one which may sometimes grate, but is never less than intriguing.

Ultimately, Mothers feels like a stepping stone to bigger and better things for Swim Deep.

It’s hard to believe that The Strypes can make such an old-fashioned style of music cool for a younger generation but they give it their best shot in this fully committed album.

This album just doesn’t provide the musical support that he deserves.

Flying Wig is a record that it’s probably easier to appreciate than it is to completely fall for. While this probably isn’t a record for a newcomer to Devendra Banhart, long-term fans will appreciate the change in direction.

Numan’s consistency is also his biggest downfall. There’s simply no reason to listen to Intruder if you’ve heard any of the albums he’s released in the past decade, because it’s virtually identical to his previous works.

There's the sense that Wild Palms are a band who desperately want to create their own world but Until Spring never quite manages to draw you fully into its bubble.

Unfortunately, without much to grasp onto in terms of tunes, hooks or discernible lyrics CFCF can slink away into the territory of background music, albeit prettily and inoffensively.

It may not be entirely successful, but it could well be looked back on as the acorn from which a bigger tree grew.

While it hasn't got them to their destination, this album is a definite step in the right direction.

Stronger With Each Tear, as with most R&B albums, attempts to cover all bases and as such feels a little all over the place. Thankfully, there's enough here to cover the cracks that appear when she's taken out of her comfort zone, which, as much as it shows diversity, seems an odd place to want to leave when the results are often so spectacular.

Elephants On Acid is far from perfect, and at points its short tracks sound like sketches that could have been fleshed out more. But it is a worthy addition to their discography, and shows development of their signature sound.

Full credit should be given for bringing an extra dimension to the Erasure legacy, but World Be Gone makes for far from easy listening.

Ultimately, Inter only solidifies Obsidian as an album with independent parts that are quite inspired on their own but only form a seemingly infinitely confused whole.

No matter how careful and careworn Bry's immaculate vocal takes are, the band chug along with their muted guitar chords and thudding drums as if it were a mere run-through.

Endlessly is like many successors to huge-selling albums: the attempts to break with the artist's trademark sound are tentative, and the result is a record that hedges its bets to only limited success.