While there are other occasions--notably All The Wild Places’ excessively grandiose orchestration and the ridiculous gothic chanting on Chalk Circles--where it all feels just a bit much, all in all The Blue Hour is a bold, accomplished effort from a band who still have plenty of ideas more than a quarter of century after they first emerged.

The nine songs gathered on her third record beautifully convey heartache, loss and desolation. It’s not just in the songwriting--although, that is, of course, wonderful. It’s also in the production.

Room(s) is both evocative and threatening--a place of danger and thrill.

Surely nothing tastes as delicious as this music feels.

A more radical shift in that direction might prove fruitful, but sadly The Don Of Diamond Dreams feels like aimless indulgence from a group that are capable of much better.

Killer Mike has taken a meticulous approach to ensure MICHAEL paints a nuanced, vivid picture of him and his community, and the effect is inspiring.

Not all of the 11 tracks here strike gold, but they glitter and glow with positivity.

Forced to do something different out of circumstances, Owens searched deep within her musical soul and tapped into her deepest creative touchstones to record a remarkable record, one that’s a product of a distinct time and place in history.

Maybe not a wholly successful album then, but at its best, The Truth About Love proves that Pink can still credibly compete with the pop stars she helped to inspire.

It's Xiu Xiu's strength--as well as their weakness--to assault the listener with specificity, giving Women... a deeply voyeuristic sheen that can detract from the often thrilling musical invention at work here.

All in all Suga is a very promising work, an enjoyable snapshot of a rapper becoming a bona fide star.

So while Cuomo might be frustratingly stuck in himself, Everything Will Be Alright In The End shows that he’s taking the first trepidatious steps into an earnest reflection on what it’s taken to be the man he’s become.

This a slow-burning, intimate and accomplished disc, best enjoyed if you clear some space to let it grow.

It’s to their huge credit that they have made such an assured and immersive album on their own terms.

In terms of songwriting quality alone, Invasion Of Love knocks spots off the competition.

It shows that regardless of environment, aesthetic and personnel, Holtkamp is as capable as ever of making quietly unassumingly transporting music.

While Wild Crush is by no means perfect, it does feel like a fresh start for the band and there is a clear sense of direction from start to finish.

El Pintor is sleek, minimalist and brilliantly realised, and is the band’s best work since Antics.

We Were Promised Jetpacks have pushed the bar for these bands even higher with the release of Unravelling.

I Forget Where We Were is an album to grow into rather than one of instant satisfaction, one that blossoms upon every subsequent listen, one to clutch close to your heart and cherish forever.

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

Monument is a record that you’d wish didn’t need to exist. But its staggering, sobering beauty will linger in your mind long after its 55-minute running time elapses.

Travelling beyond the accepted norms of the swarm of post punk girl groups operating at the same time, this Technicolor tinged album somehow melds droning krautrock sections and psychedelic experimentalism into its jaunty street hoodlum doo-wop core.

This is, without cliché, a life affirming record. It is easy to share in the wonderment at such a young life when Weeks phrases his vocals as he does.

If the point of a debut album is to capture a moment, to provide a snapshot of a new, hungry band bursting at the seams with hope and abandon, then this must already be one of the debut albums of the year.

Just as André 3000 isn’t as good at singing, acting or guitar playing as he is at rapping, he also isn’t as good at playing wind instruments, going some way to justify the disappointed reaction to this record’s announcement. That being said, the fun he’s having through experimentation is undoubtedly infectious, and at various points the musical ensemble create such an otherworldly vibe that one forgets the main artist is famous for something very different.

With only the intriguingly named Snake Oil providing somewhat of an average, doomy, Kasabian type entry in an otherwise exemplary set of songs, Foals have produced yet another outstanding must-have album.

As it develops, it shows off a new side to them once again, one which wants to make records which draw on their experience rather than trying to do something completely new, and that in itself puts More Light up their with their best.