Musically, it's really just more of the boozy, ribald, shoutalong same, but tellingly the best moments are when Hutz reins in his mentalist troubadour shtick.

With a comeback pitched between the indulgent love-metal of HiM and the pubescent pop-punk of Fall Out Boy, AFI's hiatus looks increasingly less like laziness and more like a marketing masterstroke.

We’re pleased to report that her third English-sung studio effort is as nutty as ever; combining Neptunes-esque beats with flamenco, post-punk riffs, synths, Arabian strings, gongs and disco.

Massive in pretension, slightly too long and gothic, but when all the pieces fit, you can't deny its unstoppable power.

So swathed in electronic trickery, space-age swoops and super-produced vocals is My Electric Family, though, that it ends up a little soulless; individually the tracks have a removed piquancy, but an hour’s solid exposure leaves you yearning for a crackle, some fuzz, or any human intervention.

The album feels genuinely organic, a common ground of moods rather than a forced fusion.

A stonking collection of slick honky-tonk pop, the belting Stadium Nashville of 'Together You And I' shows Taylor Swift a thing or three, while 'Shine Like The Sun' and 'The Sacrifice' are pure Mumfords meets Miley Cyrus.

Without [Kate Nash collaboration Awkward], Fidlar is still an electrifying, intensely fun album. But with it, it would have been perfect.

It’s a David Byrne album. Which is to say: it’s melodic, goofy and very quirky.

They appear to be sincere in their sloganeering so you’ve got to admire them, but, really, the message of a song like ‘New Orleans’ gets seriously undermined by the shiny Busted balloon it’s caught inside.

This clash of sweetness and discordance can be irritating.

A truly lovely thing to behold; a pretence-free, summery shimmy through pop's enchanted garden, with tear-tugging Bacharachy bits and choruses of angels and everything.

If the DJ's art is to unite unlikely musical party guests, The Automator is a fine and generous host.

They may have been apart for eight years, but less than a minute into opening track, 'Crystal', they've slotted back into their own idiosyncratic groove and the years are pouring off them.... Being in New Order never sounded like half as much fun as it does here.

If 'The Green Album' was the charming bouquet to apologise for not calling for five years, 'Maladroit' is the rigorous porking in the back of a second-hand Fiesta we've been gagging for since 1996. It's almost as if Rivers cares about music again.

While Mandarin certainly rock, they do so at a pedestrian amble. [11 Sep 2004, p.53]

LJ retain their title as the world's premier inner-space invaders. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]

[He] flips his hip-hop, rave and reggae on their head, using them to produce cute, beautiful tracks rather than ear-shattering junglist uproar. [20 Aug 2005, p.58]

Their future as a metal act with their fingers on the button seems assured.

While the harsher edges of their previous efforts have been sanded off long ago, frontman Neil Fallon still has a bucketload of fire and brimstone left in his belly and no-one does the possessed preacher man schtick quite like him.

With his sixth release, Brown has become the UK’s most consistently entertaining and often innovative solo artist.

The album's overall trajectory feels directed by human hands. But just as often elements feel like they've been left to lie where they fall.

There's something missing here, and that something is soul.

As an introduction to the dark sounds coming out of Scandinavia right now there's nothing better.

A nightmarish listen, but in a good way.

Both musically and lyrically, Daughter ain’t half as clever as they clearly think they are (people get serious and clever mixed up a lot, weirdly).

As Britain suffers from youth unemployment and economic crisis, our greatest currency is the chime of a golden tune. Peace have delivered 10 of them.

Yet another ’90s micro-genre gets the hipster revival treatment on Montreal duo Solar Year’s snazzy debut.

High up the Mumfords scale, checking the boxes for straining vocals, loud and quiet dynamics, thumping bass drums and American gothic lyrics about rivers and literature.

‘The Yellow Roses’ typifies the lull in the album’s mid-section, and is all the more annoying when you realise how special this record could have been with a little more quality control.

She’s as frustratingly twee as a hailstorm of cupcakes. Her second album’s adventures into electronica on the squelchy, sulky ‘Kill My Darling’ and the unsettling ‘Next Summer’ are more remarkable.

Whether listening to them or foolhardily attempting to describe them, there’s little about Marijuana Deathsquads that’s easy, but that doesn’t make their third LP any less rewarding.

III is a fluid, inventive affair.

It’s another excellent addition to Brewis’ catalogue; for Smith, it’s a confident step towards the avant-garde.

An hour of intuitive improvised excellence.

Recorded in sessions at a French convent and a San Francisco studio and featuring analogue electronics alongside strings, brass and woodwind, Geocidal is monolithic.

Their most complete, most important album yet. Ferocious, thrilling and unrelentingly heavy, it’s an emphatic reminder of who Cancer Bats really are.

Thirteen-minute finale ‘Through The Knowledge Of Those Who Observe Us’ is the crowning glory of their career best album.

How refreshing, fun and free it all sounds.

Less of a concept album, more of a patchwork, Mirrors runs together not so much seamlessly as breathlessly.

Those vocals are the magic ingredient, saving potentially limp tracks from extinction. But it’s equally impressive to hear how confidently the debut holds itself together, flitting between styles but always shining a spotlight on a legitimate pop sensation. She’s the real deal.

While the title track and ‘Belong’ also simmer with a caustic but expansive electro pulse, it’s not all dark and mechanical--there’s equally as much humanity and light. ‘Cold’ is a U2-worthy triumph, begging for fields of swaying arms and lighters aloft, while ‘Darkness At The Door’ is the closest Editors have and probably will ever come to an ‘80s power ballad--and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As a whole, Let Yourself Be Seen flows more like a meandering DJ set.

A tighter and more compact project would have elevated some of the album’s more enlightening moments, but, when taken as a whole, ‘Modern Dread’ ultimately disappoints.

This collection encouraged them to follow their instincts and embrace the melodies, choruses and beats that arrived the fastest. The result is brilliant, bruising dance music right from the gut.

The result is a consistently uplifting set that feels like Minogue’s best album since 2010’s ‘Aphrodite’.

They deliver a record of impressive contrasts; one that allows them to show off exactly why they’re beloved in their native Scotland, and soon beyond.

‘Convocations’ is a mature work, but its length and intricate creation makes it difficult to get under its skin, the record’s wonderful honesty hidden behind layers that you wish could be peeled back.

By the time the end credits roll, Snow’s fulfilled his aim of providing some much-needed escapism and light; he’s also succeeded in instilling confidence in the listener that they, too, can be the star of their own story.

While The Lathums may crib from their working class heroes, they don’t solely rely on them.

It’s a lot to take in, but the compact and well-executed transitions make sense of the chaos.

‘Ready For The High’ barely sits still for a verse at a time, ducking between buzz-rock, falsetto funk and bits that seem written for the first dance at the marriage of MGMT and Jungle. The rest of the album further delivers: confident funk pop (‘Wildfire’, ‘Worry’) and inventive future disco (‘This Car Drives All By Itself’, ‘People Don’t Change People, Time Does’) are staples, but the palette is wide here, the brushstrokes bold.

Propelled by a glossy indie sound hell-bent on dragging the band up festival bills, opener ‘Hometown’ expresses this best. ... The problem is, such weighty ambition is left off this album, which too often finds them content on taking the easy road.

[‘Gold Rush Kid’ is] a fun and curious ditty, yet the songwriting frustratingly positions Ezra as someone who got lucky, rather than an ambitious auteur ready to set his own fate after years of hardship. Elsewhere, though, this theme comes secondary to descriptions of a crisis induced by losing control, with bright, almost homespun production tasked with keeping our narrator grounded.

‘About Last Night…’ leaves you with your ears ringing, hooks stuck in your head and a healthy dose of dancefloor catharsis that’ll make you feel lighter – much like the jacket you forgot to collect from the cloakroom.

‘Suckerpunch’ is a bold sonic adventure that thrives on excess. Throughout the record’s constantly shifting 13 tracks, Moriondo proves that she’s an artist that can do it all, all while having an absolute ball.

Though the romantic elements of ‘Discount De Kooning (Last Man Standing)’ are nice enough, it fails to penetrate in any meaningful way. As the record meanders on, tracks such as ‘The Dreamer’ and ‘Anonymous In Los Feliz’ fail to leave a lasting impression. That’s not to say it doesn’t work. It might not offer anything new, but it doesn’t necessarily need to.

‘Teething’ sees the quartet level up their sound without losing what fans have come to love. A swaggering collection of complex-but-catchy cuts, you won’t hear any teething problems here.

Melding intriguing lore with a provocative (and sometimes crass) take on feminist politics elevates the album into more interesting territory than mere revivalism.

Some bars are simple to a fault – a continuous problem throughout the record. Luckily, ‘Formula OneDa’ shows a lot of promise. Other songs represent her strong storytelling better as she seamlessly shifts between grime, dance, and hip-hop, delving into a wide array of themes.

The run time might seem a tad lengthy to some, but it would prove hard to tire from a voice as listenable as Tala’s.

King Night is sick. Not just in the sense that it's outstandingly good but in the fact that it seems extremely unwell.

It's a bit like The Slits at Notting Hill Carnival. Add in lush single "Why Have We To Wait" (a cover of a track by '60s pop group The Pussycats) and it's pretty perfect.

This album is a subtly, sweetly wonderful thing--proof that, sometimes, sonic actions speak louder than words.

There’s a lot to like about Turn Blue, but it’s a cruel irony that the heaviest hand in Dan Auerbach’s warts-and-all confessional sometimes seems to belong to his producer.

This is one house of horrors that’s worth the ride.

Jack Penate has made a record that’s light on its feet, has glamour bordering on sex appeal and that doesn’t make you wish a fatwa upon its author.

Denser than any of their three albums, New Misery blends catchy solos, beefy drums and thick synth parts indebted to Spiritualized and OMD with Cullen’s voice--which remains evocative of some dreamy American high school utopia.

On the evidence of this impressive and winningly authentic second album, Cara is increasingly unforgettable.

The beats and lyrics get better with each listen.

The record leans at times too heavily on its basic formula of pizzicato electric guitar and seedy, somnambulant basslines. Still, as a slice of squalid glamour with a beating heart under its rusted exterior, Coastal Grooves deserves your attention.

More A-grade angst from one of our cleverest songwriters.

‘Optimist’ is an accomplished first album that really shines and, given Finneas’ track record so far, we wouldn’t have expected anything less.

It's cinematic, dramatic, and has vocals so indistinct that Tamaryn (the singer whose band this is) could just be coo-ing "turn up the smoke machine" over and over again.

Someone needs to tell Wainwright there's a huge difference between 'epic' and 'over-egged'.

A record that features some of the band’s most vital and impressive tracks in years.

Central Cee could easily remain hidden behind his signature mystique, but instead tells the story of a boy turned man all while on the world’s stage. No smoke and mirrors, the album is authentically Cench every step of the way.

Overall, MGMT's refusal to co-operate with the listener jars with the crisp and professional production – which, despite Sonic Boom's involvement, is more Van Dyke Parks than Spacemen 3 and leaves Congratulations sitting somewhere in the middle, not complex enough for the prats, but too obscure for the jerks.

Produced by the band, with help from Pink and former member of Test Icicles Sam Mehran, its follow-up is cleaner and more conventional. But there’s a tease of their old sound before the murk lifts completely.

It’s all deranged enough to convince us that Sleigh Bells are still menacing outliers, but on a deep cover mission to infiltrate the mainstream, horns still poking out of their ’80s mullet wigs.

Taking Mangum’s recorded-on-cardboard lo-fi folk epics as their ground zero, TRAA turn in the best alt.debut of the year.

On his last musical hurrah, Glover has made a record as otherworldly as his other outings. Yet, ‘Bando Stone and The New World’ stumbles slightly – where its sonic variety is exciting, it lacks a clear sense of cohesion or theme compared to his previous work – making it a bittersweet farewell to the legend of Childish Gambino.

It has the pomp and arrogance of their best work, enough new sounds and interesting new avenues to satisfy the musos and, at its core, is a very good collection of very good songs played very well. A little more silliness would go a long way, though.

Hs 16th (16th!) studio album, sees him eschew such stylings and instead go for broke on telling tales and flashing his soul

You feel the need for something other than Bryan's croon, and it isn't there.

Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor has his production paws all over San Franciscan quartet The Morning Benders’ second full-length effort, and while Big Echo has more than pastiche to offer, a great deal of it still sounds a bit too familiar.

Tighter than anything they've recorded previously, it’s a great return and a slick change of direction.

It's certainly a messy record, made by half of a broken legend.

While I Want To Grow Up doesn’t exactly break new ground, it compensates by being affecting, relatable and having occasional gnarly solos.

Sounds as hideously vital... as [Slayer] have at any time during their 23 year career. [26 Aug 2006, p.41]

Home Again provides a sumptuously soft place for tired ears to rest.

It all adds up to a deeply deranged and intermittently great listen, and serves as a decent stopgap 'til the band's next album proper.

Its high points are so charming you're willing to forgive the occasional low one.

There's no deely-bopping 'Wow And Flutter' on here. [4 Mar 2006, p.29]

I Disagree is her most accomplished record, full of daring theatre and snarling forward motion. While all our favourite rock bands are going pop, Poppy is unapologetically embracing her desire to go heavy. It might be inspired by the bands she grew up listening to, but there’s not a moment on ‘I Disagree’ that feels like a throwback.

Today, in a world rooted in an entirely different stratum of rock, they're as lively as the corpses that archaeologists hook out of peat bogs: perfectly preserved, but not great for dancing or conversation.

It works for the red-raw confessional 'Family Portrait', but everything else is so bad Natalie Imbruglia would be proud.

Starsailor have produced a debut album of real emotional depth.