Office Politics is, as with most Divine Comedy releases, a record with its finger firmly on the pulse of this zeitgeist.

As the album progresses the grooves get more pronounced, as though the night’s movement is getting into gear.

72 Seasons is monstrously long – 77 minutes to be precise – but the bloated run time actually does it some favours, particularly as the band turn in some of their most creative work to date.

This was undoubtably an excellent night out if you were lucky enough to be in the audience, but as an album it’s a mild diversion at best, which will probably end up directing you back to the Dylan original.

If there’s a fault to We Are Love, it’s probably that the immediate hooks that define The Charlatans’ best moments are missing. It’s an album more built on atmosphere and feel, and you do sometimes miss that exhilarating rush that tracks like One To Another, Love Is The Key or Weirdo had in spades.

Hey Venus!, then, is not the type of progressing heavyweight that has marked the output of later day Super Furries. As a shorter, lighter effort, though, it is every bit as tantalising, thickly coated in SFA-brand special sauce and still worth its weight in goal.

Those who choose to embrace and eulogise anything the great man releases will no doubt laud Fallen Angels as another triumph, but the harsh reality is this is Bob on auto-pilot.

Send A Prayer My Way is an album that confidently plays to its strengths and one that’s very much built on the undeniable chemistry between the two leads. Hopefully, it’s a collaboration that will be revisited in the not too distant future.

It may well wander all over the place and sound in need of a firm guiding hand at times, but it also contains some genuinely inventive and thrilling pop music.

Being a live album, some tracks are stretched out beyond their natural lifespan (the average length of the songs here is about six and a half minutes), but even then it's a joy to listen to the interaction between Thompson and his band.

Unlike anything else on the album, Clear Spirits stands out, with its submerged melodies, insistent basslines, and cascading guitars. If nothing else it proves that Les Savy Fav can still be vital and are still writing challenging, inventive material.

At The Down-Turned Jagged Rim Of The Sky is a startling album full of nuance, menace and wonder.

It arrives with sharp impact, melding abstraction and direct sound to impressive effect.

Emotional Mugger is a wild-eyed beast of a record; unafraid to stamp through the effects pedals with a delirious glee.

It's really rather good.

Galaxy Garden is a compelling exploration of Matt Culter's experiences of dance culture over two decades and its nods to the past, coupled with Lone's infinitely fresh and modern twist, make this one of the premier dance records of 2012 so far.

The Savage Heart is often just that,uncompromisingly breaking new, often bleakly fertile, ground for the band, showing they can still evolve emotionally.

The overwhelming feeling at the end of Black Rat is that this is a band with a lot more up their sleeve.

Carousel One exists as an album on which “meticulous” is the watchword; on which Sexsmith’s mastery of his craft is more readily apparent than ever; and on which a decades-long career has taken a turn for the cheerful.

While the album’s more maximalist aesthetic may bring challenges for the casual listener, for those who commit it succeeds in being a cohesive and impactful listen.

The DJing skills are still there and the grooves hold together throughout, though there is rarely much of interest on top of them. ... There are also precisely eight bars in The Cards’ mid-section where the drums hit just right, before they’re replaced with yet more poorly-mixed elements. These moments are so few and far between, however, that it’s hard to justify the album’s raison d’être.

Messy has been given time to come to fruition, and that shows through every note. It’s a fine demonstration of Olivia Dean’s talent, and sounds every inch a marker of a long and successful career.

If Young’s Archives were tiered by quality (with Homegrown and Way Down in the Rust Bucket at the top), then Oceanside Countryside is at least a B+. It’s a very enjoyable, consistent and relaxing listen that doesn’t come with any of the baggage of many of Young’s heavier releases. Just splendid.

It is a glorious statement of intent from one of pop's most misunderstood characters.

Dirty Projectors may be a breakup record, and one with its fair share of petty sniping (Keep Your Name’s pointed “What I want from art is truth, what you want is fame” is fairly hard to swallow without the suggestions elsewhere that Longstreth is playing characters) but, cathartic and redemptive, it’s one worth getting to know.

The folk elements lend Sylvan Esso a calm, and a daytime splendour, but Sanborn’s dance-oriented production, especially on the more electronic tracks, are set to be perfect 2am jams. This LP is the complete package.

Liberty, her seventh album, feels like the record she’s been desperate to make for some time.