To be blunt, much of Smoke + Mirrors is horrible to listen to. And yet, one can’t help but admire the band’s ambition and, on occasions, their apparent lunacy.

Ultimately, Vestiges & Claws is a solid return from González.... Though, as without a distinctive cover, his comforting, low-key style can at times become repetitive and forgettable.

Iit feels like there’s so much more music and ideas for them to explore, so many other potential directions for them to head in. For now however, this remarkably mature and accomplished album will do just fine.

Hexadic is most certainly a challenging and confusing album and one that can, at times, be a struggle to listen to. It is worth persevering however, for there are flashes of brilliance to be found in the constant battle between control and abandon.

With Blackbirds poignantly beautiful in many places, it may just be the one to do so.

A guilty pleasure for some perhaps, yet one well worth indulging.

It’s the sort of album that even repeated listenings can throw up a myriad of surprises: you never really get to know who the character of Father John Misty is (is he a self-hating misogynist, is he a sage or is he just a simple romantic?), but it’s clear that Josh Tillman has slowly turned into one of the most talented songwriters of our age.

Picture You succeeds in combining influences from a variety of genres to make an end result that’s lush and timeless.

Maximum Entropy is the somewhat frustrating work of a band with potential in need of some fine tuning.

Chants For Socialists is full of beautifully written and well-crafted tunes.

With Transfixiation now becoming the band’s fourth album, the formula of overwhelming noise was becoming perhaps a little too familiar. There are still elements of their early guise present, but the need for change is clearly reducing the decibel levels.

Idlewild have taken some time, done the latter and the result is their most accomplished album to date.

The music may be unspectacular, but it just works.

It feels engaged and defiant, but perhaps more inward looking than the inevitably direct political feeling behind Albala.

Shake Shook Shaken may not be an unqualified success, but it certainly does what its predecessors couldn’t--it marks out The Dø as real contenders to keep your eye on.

There are numerous highlights on Coming Up For Air to ensure success in sales and chart placings and that is, of course, the dream for any aspiring act: fame and fortune. But it comes at a cost as the charm and character of their early guise is being tempered.

You don’t see the whole way through it, you get a glimpse of shadows on the other side, but in the end it is the colours and the craftsmanship that keep you looking, or in this case listening.

The lameness of the words would be forgivable if they were paired with music that provided any kind of pleasant distraction. But across Happy People’s 10 tracks, the band prove themselves incapable of writing a single decent hook.

While most folk acts are content to simply keep churning out album after album of tried and tested traditional standards or self-penned campfire sing-alongs, The Unthanks are stretching the parameters of their genre with an ambition that’s rarely been heard before.

Wholly unexpected and majestic, repeated plays will reward tenfold as song after song worms itself under the skin to create a thoroughly rewarding experience.

Individ is certainly a challenging listen. The intricacy of the drumming and the choppy vocal style are both compelling components and together represent the key ingredients that will determine a listener’s attention span.

It is unashamedly cerebral music, but this is a band now finding that they have a powerful beating heart as well as a head.

Fears Trending is the musical equivalent of a cross-country run on a cold, wet winter’s day: challenging, occasionally a bit of a trudge but, ultimately, rewarding.

Yes, it’s a mess but somehow a thoroughly glorious and jubilant mess. In other words, it’s a perfect encapsulation of everything that Man It Feels Like Space Again is.

Given the expressions of vulnerability and exploration of heartache here, this album has had timely release. It makes for a glorious companion to Björk’s Vulnicura but also stands as a confident, masterly debut album in its own right.

10 Futures may sound like a collection of individual tracks on the surface, but the more you listen the more it all begins to make sense.

This is a difficult album to find fault with--not only on an immediate, aesthetic level, but also on a more considered, objective one.

Vulnicura feels, overall, as if it is one of Björk’s most successful albums, one where she mostly finds sonic strategies that are well matched with her concepts and themes.