The songs and melodies may be brighter, but there is a nagging sense throughout that something special has been lost somewhere in the process.

Yeezus is a divisive album, one that contains some of West’s most inspired samples, collaborations, and racial observations to date while at times being insufferably misogynistic and confoundingly lyrically lazy.

The most impressive thing about Long Way Down is how, despite being an album based on a simple, almost naïve set of concepts--being in love, falling out of love, the raw emotion of being young and not understanding the world yet--it sounds accomplished well beyond Odell’s years.

For an album that was certainly not recorded spontaneously, Desperation sure sounds spontaneous.

Yes, it’s true, the music stands up more than well by itself. But this is an album designed for listenwatching. So listenwatch.

Tthe Icelandic trio has now adopted darker musical stylings to create a record that’s every bit as transcendental as their best work.

Nothing here quite matches the excitement of Feel It Break highlights The Beat And The Pulse and Lose It (although Home, Forgive Me, Painful Like and Annie (Oh Muse You) all come close). But this doesn’t stop Olympia being a sizeable step up from its predecessor and a fine album in its own right.

It’s compelling stuff; we need more musicians who are prepared to go nuts in this delightfully joyous way.

As real big-bucks contenders, Kodaline aren’t quite there yet. But as a debut, In A Perfect World manages to find its feet with ease.

It’s an album that comes from an older, more mature band than the Jimmy Eat World that yearningly whined on Bleed American, one that has refined their melodic craft.

This is exhilarating from start to finish, and it makes Hyetal stand out from what is an overcrowded market.

Invisible Enemy // Crescent Moon is a brave attempt from its creator to change direction, but ultimately KT Tunstall’s limitations are laid bare on a record that meanders pleasantly without ever leaving a lasting impression.

It is perhaps slightly too long and lacks anything as thrilling as Drop The Other, but it nevertheless represents Emika as a fascinating artist with immeasurable promise.

Young Fathers are exactly as their name suggests: firstly young, but more noteworthy, brutally honest father-figures who show the music world that, when you take musical and topical risks, you get noticed.

Howlin is an intoxicating first showing from a band with bags of potential and, although it loses its way somewhat towards the end, it is brimming with the confidence of a vastly more experienced band.

The music on Field Of Reeds is certainly not easily accessible but, at its heart, this is a supremely evocative album.

It’s easy to dismiss bands that receive so much hype before they have even got going, but with Peace, the early signs are definitely promising.

The whole thing just feels so lightweight, as if the remaining members of CSS are struggling not to play their instruments but to get any magic out of them.

Gold Panda has come up with another fine album with some standout moments, but overall Half Of Where You Live doesn’t quite have the coherence or impact of its predecessor.

Feel The Sound provides, when they’re on form, a reminder of how reliable they can be at creating crowd-pleasing indie pop.

At times, it is a little overwhelming over the 17 tracks, but there are plenty of beautiful moments here, the sort of moments which continue to propel BOC well ahead of many of their IDM contemporaries.

Even if Settle quiets the unreasonable expectations surrounding it by offering a solid collection of smart dance tracks, some songs do not fully live up to the hype.

Overall, June Gloom is an accomplished return from Big Deal, one that shows they are more than worthy of their name.

Yet despite its flaws, this is still an impressively confident debut from a band that sound far older than their years.

This album is the full realisation of his talent as a bass player, musician and, most importantly, a songwriter. Apocalypse is, in short, a supreme triumph.

No matter how many times you listen to Nightmare Ending, you will probably never figure out why it was given its title: sad or happy, deaths and endings are not treated on the album as nightmarish, but as natural to humanity as is emotion.

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.

This is an intelligent and deeply human album and it would be no exaggeration to say that it’s already a modern classic.