The result is a staggeringly impressive and confident third album from an artist who has reached the very peak of his powers.

Recommended Record may flit between styles but it’s a cohesive and polished third effort from the band.

They're heading back to form in time to conquer a festival or two - but the nature of that song does leave you wondering if Franks will just be happy to be back at all.

Don’t Weigh Down The Light certainly rewards repeated listening.

If you need a soundtrack to your 90 in 90, this is it. The pitfalls, the purity, the piousness of recovery. Just promise you’ll listen to it at least three times. It’s worth it.

The creative synthesis between her and producer Dre Skull means there isn’t a dull moment on the record. I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions is a gem, an energetic and hook-filled album that leaves the listener wanting more.

Occasionally sections of Ten Fold feel too effortless, such as the off-beat delivery of carl thomas sliding down the wall, but generally the affect works as a stream-of-consciousness-style insight into Bey’s attitude and thoughts.

Yet another indication that Ty is going from strength to strength.

An album that quietly seeps into your consciousness, a collection of charming chamber pop confections that is impossible to resist.

His music is inventive and intriguing and has that special quality where you’re never quite certain what will happen next. Shelley’s On Zenn-La only adds to his increasingly impressive reputation.

It's a self-assured and very cohesive piece of work. Lisa Hannigan's journey as a solo artist continues to trundle along without any bumps in the road.

A cracking album that holds its own for almost the entire duration.

The Nightwatchman is a Molotov cocktail as volatile as any he’s thrown at the barricade of injustice in the past 15 years.

This lack of ego lends a refreshing air to an album which is self-assured, charismatic and quite simply brilliant.

You can’t help but feel that given better production this could well have been the album of the year that some over-enthusiastic sorts claim. One of the surprises of the year, however? Definitely.

Ultimately, Wild Things is her most consistent and coherent effort to date, surpassing even her debut. It may have taken four years, but the end result has more than justified the wait.

For them, you feel, everything else is incidental--by-products of an already winning formula. For at the heart of each of the songs here is a touch of resonance--the kind that all the best pop records have.

Having done so with great assurance, he has made an album of lasting appeal which responds well to repeated listening.

Transparency is the sound of a band restlessly searching for a new direction and pulling it off very well.

Whilst Star Treatment might funnel a lot of influences into its carefully woven songs, it is still a fiercely idiosyncratic work.

From a songwriter of this calibre, a maven of the lyrical barb, it might seem odd that an almost wholly instrumental album should stand among his most compelling, entertaining solo work, but British Nuclear Bunkers is exactly that.

Not once does a song sound ripped off or unoriginal. What Hot Chip have done is to create a new landscape of electronica.

It’s the sort of album that can provide a soothing balm to a bruised soul – by the time the theatrical, fuzz-drenched melodies of Werewolf Ending bring Life Slime to a close, you may well be converted to the healing properties of goo and gunge yourself.

Whether he has been re-invigorated by love, his new band or just from old-fashioned growing up, Mark Everett and Eels re-define themselves here with exhilarating success, putting all associations with misery out of mind with a compelling finality.

Exotic Creatures of the Deep is a substantial, if inconsistent treat. Even when they're treading water Sparks still cut it better than most bands half their age.

A stunningly gorgeous-sounding album which should see the three talented sisters move up to a whole new level.

The album's overriding impression is that it is an album cut from the same cloth as The Strokes' This Is It - bright, clean melodies with just a touch of gain, song structures you're hard pressed to forget - and an effort that marks Darwin Deez as one of the foremost exhibitors of compelling lo-fi.

This is an album that confirms Alvvays’ massive potential and makes the perfect soundtrack for those nights indoors as the summer begins to fade.