While Ashin is clearly a major talent, he just needs to dial it down from time to time if he’s to deliver a wholly satisfying record.

Tangk is sadly, and far too often, a rather boring album by a band who can and should be doing much better.

It’s as good a debut as you could hope to hear, a fresh injection of pure brilliance and beauty to a genre that is creaking under the weight of mediocrity and a lack of adventurous inventiveness.

It’s not quite her Blood On The Tracks, but it’s a record that’s similarly compelling to listen to.

Its genesis was borne of urgency, and that’s a feeling that permeates every aspect of an album that positively twitches with energy.

The band have fully reasserted themselves, taking equal parts past and future to make a record that fits the present day like a glove. Twenty years in and the fires are still burning brightly.

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.

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

His dedication certainly pays off, Friends & Family grabs ears almost immediately--but as his tropes wear down, it can't help but feel a little hollow.

At times, it’s the lyrics in Old Fears that firmly stand out over the music itself.

You know it's special from the first bars.

The only problem is, that like other Charly Bliss records, it sounds better in little chunks, rather than as a fully-fledged album. There are 12 tracks on Forever, and it’s undeniable that after a while, the songs begin to sound rather the same.

The follow-up does just what Human Ceremony did, but more so. And better.

Grails have been many things over the last 15 years, but with Chalice Hymnal, they seem to have found an identity that fits them perfectly.

Though it stands up well enough on its own The Stand Ins does feel like a follow-up, rather than something completely new and fresh and forward looking, and it is not as instantly gripping as The Stage Names, it takes longer to wind your way into your mind.

Collaborations may not work for everyone (hi Metallica, rest in peace Lou Reed), but this is one that certainly does.

Emerging at the end, the listener has a real sense of having been immersed in something coherent and whole over the course of the 10 tracks; even if at the same time--dreamlike--there may well be no such clear sense of what it all might have meant.

While the album's opening single, Sentimental Dishes, is far from the endgame--its jauntiness an awkward fit for the album's wider angst--there's a recognition in its pace, and the broadening ambition of the sound, that PS I Love You may be ready for more.

It's a joyful, undeniably positive album but more significantly Electric Cables has the potential to grow into one of those cult records that may not make a sizeable impact on the musical landscape but becomes cherished by a devoted group of listeners.

Pig Lib Part Two? Maybe so, but there are enough subtle evolutions here to keep any SM follower listening intently until the cows come home.

Absolutely essential listening.

The vast majority of I'm New Here sees Scott-Heron looking back on his life. The result is remarkably honest; as he puts it at one stage, "If you have to pay for what you've done wrong, then I've got a big bill coming".

Against all odds, the completed Mezmerize/Hypnotize project is actually greater than the sum of its parts - in fact it quickly becomes impossible to think of it as anything else than one epic piece of work.

The album's not for everyone, but if her sound is to your taste, then it will prove a rewarding, delectable, necessary thing: one of this year's most consistently interesting albums.

An invigorating album, then, and one that says a great deal despite being instrumental the whole way through.

The final results are of such subtle beauty they take the breath clean away.

It's an uplifting end to one of the best albums of 2011, one that marks Ghostpoet as a name to keep a very close eye on.