For the most part, Honeys is a prime example of how the innovativeness of your chosen style matters not a jot, as long as you’re doing it with aplomb. And most importantly, having a bloody laugh.

Eminem’s cameo on ‘Medicine Man’ is technically superb, but the content somehow comes over both hateful and boring.... But it's hard to deny Compton is brilliantly constructed, a masterclass in 21st century hip-hop.

It’s definitely in need of a more brutal edit: the 18-song tracklist is a little bloated and some songs such as ‘Don’t Go Hungry’ (which features Labrinth doing his best Weeknd impression) are pretty forgettable. However, there are enough bangers on here to keep you hitting the replay button, with Giggs’ unique vocal delivery never anything but interesting. He sounds ready to reign for a long time yet.

Bubba may be lacking the type of big bangers that thrive in festival sets like ‘99.9%’, but is no worse for it. Instead it’s a dizzying hour that is more interested in enthralling the already-fans that have made it into the club and to give them a helluva night. Job done.

A charged effort with dynamic results, ‘Karma 3’ may not be as flawless a spectacle as ‘Survival’, but it’s not all that far off. And it’s definitely the best entry in the ‘Karma’ series. East remains consistent, unapologetically flying the flag for New York hip-hop.

This album is the work of a man with no time for big cash reunions or the squabbling that prevents them. Instead, he has turned in a record fuelled by soul and new ideas.

At its core, the record continues the thing that made them so exciting in the first place – chaotic, brilliant curveballs that capture the confusion and commotion of life right now.

Much of ‘Struggler’ may be unsettled but it never feels restless.

Through his sprawling and ambitious album, Bad Bunny spins the trappings of fame into Latin trap gold, and, as his album title promises, he continues to blaze his own trail with big carpe diem energy.

It’s easy to simply pore over Savage’s frantic wordplay--which peaks when evaluating kebab-wrapping techniques on ‘Berlin Got Blurry’--but the music is equally brilliant.

By turns brooding and effervescent, but always outrageous fun, 'Writer's Block' is a compact minor classic.

What makes it so compelling is the simplicity of concept: like everyone, they get pissed off by jerkish behaviour, subdued by small misfortunes and comfort themselves with life’s small pleasures.

By now, it should be clear that this lot know how to pen a whopper of a pop anthem – that remains apparent here – but more crucially ‘MUNA’ also serves as solid evidence of a band with many more chapters of evolution up their sleeves yet.

Rodriguez has turned heartbreak into a glorious 30 minutes of club-ready electro-smashes. ‘I’m Your Empress Of’ is nothing short of breathtaking.

Much of this album, with its gritty street-level reportage of booze-alleviated dereliction and crooked politicians, feel so perfect for right now.

There are so many distinct yet intertwined influences peppered throughout Slave Ambient it would be remarkably easy to lose the thread altogether. Yet somewhere in the haze it all just kind of… fits.

Back To The Woods is both a consolidation for Haze (they sound like themselves again and there’s clear sonic unity--all the tracks were produced by old friend/collaborator TK Kayembe) and something of a hangover of a record.

A timeless creation, the record’s nine carefully crafted tracks draw gracefully on the past 50 years of folk music.

This is massive leap on from ‘Songs Of Praise’ – ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ is more ambitious and more accomplished than its predecessor, showcasing a band brimming both with ideas and the confidence to pull them off. ... ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ confirms Shame’s status as one of the most exciting bands at the forefront of British music.

'Silent Alarm' is no 'Franz Ferdinand'. In fact, listen to it with the words 'popular' and 'arty' in mind and its spirit is closer to the Manic Street Preachers' 'The Holy Bible'. [5 Feb 2005, p.49]

Easy Pain proves hard to like; and with little more than aimless aggression to cling onto for eight songs, you realise it’s all muscle.

It’s another tension that helps to define ‘Girl With Fish’ — a sense that nothing holds so much weight that it can’t be taken elsewhere in the next moment. While that idea perhaps keeps these songs from being as memorable as they could be, it does occasionally work, shaping the album into a really nice cut of slacker-noise.

Musically, Carpenter mostly finds that niche she’s been searching for, getting comfortable in a country-pop groove on the likes of ‘Coincidence’ and ‘Please Please Please’, or nailing frothy pop bops like ‘Taste’ and ‘Juno’.

For the most part, this is an album of love songs: not in the trite, wishy-washy sense of the word but as an elemental and all-consuming force.

Funny, heartbreaking and at glorious odds with the world. [4 Sep 2004, p.73]

He calls love and life as it really is: occasionally sweet, rarely trouble-free and often so suicidally routine we could all become the man he speaks of on 'Ballad Of The Bastard'.

For two men famed as political firebrands, Robert Wyatt and Israeli anti-Zionist and saxophonist Gilad Atzmon certainly make a beautiful noise together.

As the name suggests, Nothing Is Still is a fluid, complete piece of electronic music that sways from thoughtful down-tempo beats to swelling pieces of orchestral beauty. There are particular moments of beauty, though.

Depending on your mood, there’ll be songs you’d happily lop off for a more streamlined listen, but by and large, all of these songs make the patchwork much more vibrant.

It all suggests a promising future for the reinvigorated band.

It's the mischievous desire to deconstruct his own perfectly rounded pop snapshots that marks him down as a post-everything wunderkind

The objective was to make a fucking brilliant album where the mood is king, the delivery is queen and studied modern coolness is a jester that's one misplaced quip away from being the lion's breakfast. And, of course, they've succeeded.

Over length of 12 tracks, the soul/G-funk stuff becomes a little one-note, while the Disney-fied material lacks the charm that makes Prass such an engaging, idiosyncratic performer.

This is a simple collection of woozy slow-jams and blissed-out recollections (a step back from the hip-hop stylings of ‘Oxnard’, which wrong-footed some fans).

These are some of the most interesting and sonically varied songs of her entire career.

Yes, it's solid rock but what they might lack in glamour (no back up dancers here, dude), they make up for in sheer sincerity.

Within all the emotional turmoil, there's a lot for the listener to love.

It’s not an easy listen, but it may just be one of the most nuanced, soothing and adventurous of 2013.

As with some modern art, you may find Silence Yourself leaves you whispering, “I appreciated it, but I didn’t love it.”

There are moments where the production feels slightly misjudged. .... But ultimately, ‘Virgin’ is a vibrant combination of Lorde’s best qualities, and then some.

What could have been an act of self-sabotage or self-indulgence – or both – has transpired to be a welcome reminder of all that this band does best, rooted in raw relevance for today and the cyber-punk energy of tomorrow.

If you were looking for a new Bowie, Patrick Wolf is proving himself the Thin White Duke's successor in more than just his extravagant dress sense.

The Californian five-piece’s 14th album packs everything they’re good at into one concentrated effort: frenetic rock, pulsating psychedelia and buoyant melodies.

A new, added tunefulness makes this a much-welcome Exile In Nihilist-ville.

This is a folk-gospel tribute album with harmony and backing vocals so powerful you'd think it was the population of New Jersey marching in Technicolor over the grey, polluted Hudson singing along. [22 Apr 2006, p.39]

It's music for downhearted cattle rustlers to mournfully skin steers to. [9 Apr 2005, p.58]

Come the closing ‘Nocturne’, Bradford is wailing into a malfunctioning microphone like the late, great Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse phoning a wasted lullaby home with one unreliable bar of phone coverage, and ‘…Disappeared?’ becomes less Cox’s ‘High Violet’, more his ‘Low’. This is how you turn pop into art.

If the worst of times brings out the worst in people, Viagra Boys are set to be icons of the age, and ‘Cave World’ its defining document.

Hegarty's songs and personality suit the drama of orchestral arrangements, providing him with the perfect platform to 'perform' rather than sing--and his voice works in perfect harmony with the 42 musicians behind him.

What remains is pure, unspoilt guitar-pop genius that demands to be marvelled at. [18 Sep 2004, p.65]

At 73 minutes, it could easily have been boiled down to give it more punch, but you can’t bemoan the celebratory feel of The People In Your Neighbourhood.

Michaelson’s oaken, hefty voice is flecked with creaks of optimism, while the band slump elegantly into their forlorn Americana, to stand proudly alongside the likes of Bill Callahan and The National.

Mission Desire, a token shard of folk gloom, does little to undercut the finely honed futurist gleam elsewhere.

Good news for OutKast fans, basically, although the pair’s debut works best when it’s playing it weird.

There’s much to be said for playing to your strengths, though, and they’ve honed their contrasting, distinctive sounds with this impressive double release. Krept & Konan have plenty of days and nights ahead of them.

Sure, in terms of quality, Rap Or Go To The League isn’t the classic album that 2 Chainz craves, but--on this evidence--he’s not far from delivering one.

Mournful acoustic strumming, slide guitar, hushed percussion, strung-out woozy piano – there’s consistency and clarity to ‘Curve Of Earth’; perhaps more than you’d expect of a record 15 years in the making. What this album does, though, is contain the chaos of addiction, crystallising mistakes into something much more beautiful. The result is extraordinary and life-affirming.

It’s the work of an artist with a sincere appreciation for dance music and the skills to make her own galvanising bangers. Many of these songs will give you a prick of emotion at the back of your eyes – a sure sign that Romy really appreciates the healing power of a packed club floor.

Their most daring and collaborative record to date. Featuring the likes of Damon Albarn, Holly Humberstone, Jay Som and, er, Chaka Khan, the results are as eclectic as this list would suggest, spanning across indie, pop, hip-hop and even garage.

On ‘What Happened To The Beach?’, perfectionism is released to make space to revel in creativity, resulting in a truly joyful effort.

There’s confidence, and then there’s this.

This record is loud, raw, and impossible to ignore.

There’s also clarity in the lyrics--some of his most direct yet.

‘Asphalt Meadows’ is as assured and stately as you’d expect and hope for from indie veterans now 10 albums and 25 years into their career, but this beaut is as consistent and satisfying as their early-mid ‘00s career peak.

It doesn’t always work, not least in ‘Shotgun’’s iffy mix of Nashville-ready instrumentals and a chugging house beat. On the flipside, ‘Do I Have To Talk You Into It’ sticks so stubbornly to the Spoon template it could be a discarded number from any of their previous records.

The overall impression is of gloomy landscape paintings with a spooky, residual feeling that God might be hiding behind every cloud or passing tumbleweed - electrifying.

For, as derivative and daft as The Apples are, it's impossible, like a scowling adolescent laughing at the antics of his irritating kid brother, to hate them.

Overall, SY fail to get into their groove between twisted, brutalised melody and spastic six-string experimentalism.

Seems that after all the pale imitators, Radiohead finally have a competitor worthy of healthy comparison.

Sheffield's ever-progressive 65daysofstatic have outdone themselves here, loading their fifth album of megaton guitar instrumentals with electronic styles.

Catchy and abstract in equal measure, Sea When Absent is the thrilling sound of shoegazing introverts coming out of their shells.

The 10 track Historian is far bigger, meatier beast than its predecessor. Recorded in Nashville, this is a rock’n’roll album with deep understanding of pop melody but layered up with bold lyrics which disarm you as much as they connect with you.

Their determination to not bend to conventional song structure makes Schlagenheim an engaging piece of work that will reveal its true nature over time, perhaps. Black Midi are making music like no other band in the world.

It’s a hollow, unforgiving, brutal yet utterly beautiful record, full of deep intricacies that won’t let you go. ‘By The Throat’ indeed.

While Snaith could’ve easily packed ‘Cherry’ full of wall-to-wall bangers, it shouldn’t be too surprising to hear that he does switch things up. The soothing steadiness of ‘Clavicle’ and the exquisite piano loop of ‘Cloudy’ are fine examples of when his toned-down production approach works wonders, though he can be guilty of overindulging.

It is indeed a really good record--but not a patch on their 1988 masterpiece 'Daydream Nation'. [17 Jun 2006, p.37]

A stunning LP that, in a just world, would do for Roky what the "American Recordings" series did for Johnny Cash.

It’s no revolution, but It’s Blitz!’s heartfelt love letter to the transcendent possibilities of the dancefloor is an unexpectedly emphatic reassertion of why Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of the most exciting bands of this decade.

This time there are killer hooks aplenty that immediately hit the spot. Midnight scorchio, more like.

This new music sounds fresh, vibrant and effortless.

American Love Call is a timeless, optimistic listen in a time of peril one that now, and in the future, can confidently be referred to as a truly great American soul record.

‘Born 2 Rap’ isn’t just a library of classic records blended together: it’s a lesson in storytelling, something The Game has never received enough credit for. ... There’s a flawless project somewhere among the album’s 25 tracks, which could certainly do with trimming.

There's two sides to Nedry. One is given to taking faintly voguish reference points, lopping off the sharp edges and smoothing out the kinks. It's pretty, but weirdly bloodless....The other is less polite....Message to the band: ignore your nicer side in future.

This album shows that Pearson isn’t shying away from darker themes. Instead, she guides the listener through new sonic terrains and out into the light.

Working Men’s Club certainly wear the trauma well, but this riveting exploration truly thrives by seeking the light beyond the gloom.

This is the sound of a band at their most confident, capable of still pushing the boundaries they seemingly reimagined years ago without overwhelming audiences with their own love for endless improvisation. There are no lyrics on this album, but it feels like you can hear these three musicians louder than ever.

Sonically, ‘Critical Thinking’ has touches of the European modernist propulsion of 2014 renaissance record ‘Futurology’ and the graceful ABBA pop flourishes of 2021 predecessor ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’. But its uplifting warmth met with provocative spikiness feels like an album written staring up at the posters of their teenage art-pop and indie heroes – meant for the crackle of a record or the buzz of a cassette.

This LP could have injected some creativity back into 4/4, instead it settles for quaintness.

Combining the band’s slightly sidelined knack for writing huge, immediately memorable pop bangers with the more complex, neurotic lyrical voice of The 1975’s more recent releases, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’ feels like the right next step after pushing experimental excess to its logical conclusion.

Had the stronger songs been contained to an EP it could well have rivalled the extraordinary consistency and thrill of its predecessor – but frustratingly, it falls short.

The Black Keys are clearly determined not to get stuck in any such rut, with ‘Brothers’ marking the midway point between the garage-rock stylings of their first few albums and the hip-hop influence of last year’s Blackroc side-project album.

'Jarvis' never quite gathers an irresistible momentum like his past glories did. There isn't a bad song on here, but there are several which don't fulfil their full potential.

Their debut is a gale-force riot, a virtual tempest of joyous abandon.

If Christopher Nolan ever does one of his gritty makeovers on Twilight, the soundtrack’s as good as sewn up.

While the clipped melodies and eerie tinklings are gently brushing your feet with a feather duster, Margaret Fiedler is fiercely proclaiming, "Something's gotta give/And it sure as hell ain't me" ('T Street') like a mightily pissed-off Edith Piaf.

Their most well-rounded effort yet.

Album of the year? It's definitely a contender. [7 Aug 2004, p.49]

Time will tell how Primary Colours stands up to the likes of "Loveless" or "Psychocandy," but right now, this feels like the British art-rock album we’ve all been waiting for.