This is a sweet postcard from a man who still gives a shit about trying something new.

Needless to say, this is 45 minutes of Satanism, anti-capitalism, rebel protest, warfare and gore in which every form of sludge/speed/death/pop/goth/punk/armadillo metal is flung onto an increasingly gooey and formless pile, like a torture chamber’s heap of discarded body parts.

It's compelling, and finds new territory.... But it doesn't do a huge amount to lodge itself in your memory

This catchy and characterful album already feels like a job well done. When this girl’s having fun, we are too.

It’s the social commentary that makes this experimental album feel vital and unifying. Okereke lyrically eviscerates the politicians who’ve caused divisions based on race, wealth, sexuality and gender, but also offers a vision of hope and a desire for England to rebuild.

The advance buzz about Luke Temple’s first record as Here We Go Magic suggested the Brooklyn-based songwriter could be about to do a Grizzly Bear, but his latest project is a far more introspective beast.

That this 'art collective,' incubated in south London's makeshift spaces--all sketchy car parks and vibrant experimentation--should turn out a debut as casually brilliant as Other People's Problems is not surprising in itself. But that it should sound so vital, kind of is.

Ultimately, 'Musicology' is a kind of flawed redemption, neither inspired enough to be a true classic, nor insipid enough to make it unworthy of your attention.

Confident, bold, ambitious, bunged with singles and impossible to contain, ‘X&Y’ doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it does reinforce Coldplay as the band of their time.

Mostly Ghettoville is an exciting new landscape to get lost in and explore, even if it does spell the end for Actress.

Wild Divine ain't 'Kid A', but it's hardly musical stagnation.

Fearless himself assumes vocal duties, although Austra's Katie Stelmanis is also occasionally employed to help the music transcend the dank analogue dungeon of its creation.

It can feel – despite the vivacity and thrilling, shack-shaking garage rock beast that this whole album is – that Romero are stuck in a single gear. There’s a sameness to the songs that won’t trouble any listeners who only want to throw their heads around, pogo bounce and get deafened by riffs.

Noctourniquet's greatest strength--or, to hardcore prog-trolls, its unforgivable weakness--lies with its melodies.

In any other hands this would have been a total disaster, but yes, things are never quite that simple with these two.

After all these years, he's still got it.

It definitely ain’t perfect, then, but in concocting a scrubbed-up, carefully wrought maturation of their sound, Born Under Saturn gives us something close to Django Django unchained.

While not their best, it’s decent enough to ensure there’ll be more-- even though the truly off-the-wall moments are either rare or misguided, meaning the record feels slightly anonymous.

Submissive this is not.

Sure, this isn’t going to frighten the rabbits just yet, but they do occupy a beguiling space between playful celtic reverie and the pits of drone-rock hell.

It was a coming together of people and community, and it's therefore fitting that Lupercalia the album is a celebration too.

It’s hardly love at first listen.... Yet across repeat plays, the album’s charms begin to unfurl.

London-based collective Fanfarlo’s debut is a carefully orchestrated treat.

They're tight in the way that only the threat of bottling can foster.

'Anxiety Always' is a triumph of punkish spirit, an album that embraces creeping horror like an un-comfort blanket.

Muse have widened the goalposts and re-established what rock is allowed to stand for. Next to ‘Absolution’, even something as majestic as ‘Elephant’ sounds so painfully small.

His solo debut is frequently as imperfectly perfect as Pavement approaching their best...

Boisterous, full of sincerity and exciting enough to make you jump on a table in the middle of a board meeting, ‘Tickets To My Downfall’ is an album that not only proves MGK can do whatever the hell he likes, but that also maybe pop-punk still has something important to offer the world.

By drinking deep from the coolest records and the hippest poets, Penny succeeds in beginning a new chapter for her band.

The astonishing thing is that on any other record, the two above low points [Snaps and Invincible] would be stand-out tracks. With Tinie, only the best will do.

The Raveonettes are super-cool Scandinavian noise-rockers and they’ve shored Lust Lust Lust in that turmoil to create their most engrossing album to date.

Bosnian Rainbows finds Omar in controlled, more conventional territory than he has been in a while. There’s structure, sub-four-minute songs, melody. It’ll never be Nick Grimshaw’s Record Of The Week and it’s still prog, but it’s a punky prog that at least feels like it is actively trying to make friends with you.

While it's still shrouded in the frontman's down-in-the-mouth moodiness, its slinking rhythms offer the album's most striking and effective contrast between light and dark.

What’s really intriguing about Jungle, though, is its darker side. There's a tone of inner-city malaise, romantic ruin and psychedelic alienation to a raft of its tracks that speaks to those modern urbanites feeling screen-wiped and robbed of opportunities, busy earnin’ for nothing.

This is funny peculiar, not funny Barenaked Ladies.

Luck has its moments, but in terms of defining a way forward for Vek, chance would be a fine thing.

Mostly, Landshapes sound like a band that might be a better prospect live, where their ever-shifting ideas can fully flourish.

Night Work makes no apologies; Stuart Price creates a sound that is fierce and muscular.

Currently, there are few notable British producers creating such brilliantly odd pieces of music as this.

A lot of Every Now And Then was recorded in the rural French studio they’ve compared to the doomed country retreat featured in cult comedy Withnail & I. And that fits, really, as the place this album had to have been made: somewhere haphazard and idiosyncratic, but weirdly brilliant.

If 'It's Never Been Like That' is a failure, at least it's not a boring one. [20 May 2006, p.31]

['Wrist'] sees [Deftones] continue to explore that hazy hinterland, where The Smiths' sensitivity and Sepultura's sledgehammer riffs overlap. [28 Oct 2006, p.35]

Up there with Cash’s ‘American’ series this is not. But 48-year-old Lanegan is a classy bastard, so he just about gets away with it.

It’s a self-important album, but an accomplished one.

Occasionally, Smith slips back into blandness. ... But like Adele’s ‘25’, this is an undeniably accomplished album that will, deservedly, shift a helluva lot of copies.

Always Ascending is, everywhere you look, a record driven by vim, vigour and ideas, and plenty of Kapranos’ idiosyncratic way with a lyric.

From there on in, though, it's ploddingly lightweight.

Like their sonic brothers Iceage, they’ve evolved without losing their edge.

There's little warmth other than a palpable meeting of minds of its creators, whose culture of experimental collaboration is only to be lauded.

It's a little like a Crimewatch reconstruction: very well put together, all in a good cause, vaguely entertaining, but really they're just hoping it'll vaguely remind you of something that happened years ago. [1 Oct 2005, p.47]

Missteps are few. Instead of taking a battle-axe to what came before, ‘WOMB’ refines Purity Ring even further. The subtle experiments pay off – even if you may sometimes wish they’d surprise you more.

The Day's trademark bubblegum punk rock guitars have all been turned down in favour of a less electric, more organic sound. Where once they rocked out, now they polka on the awful Levellers-like 'Fashion Victim' - a song about Gianni Versace. Please.... 'Warning' is the sound of a band losing its way.

Common Existence is a worthy addition to Thursday’s canon.

The Irish duo are joined by an unnamed vocalist on a couple of tracks, but the instrumentals are the best work here.

One knock-on effect of going professional is that you can now hear the music clearly and properly, and it turns out that Mr. Williams isn't exactly a Mozart in the songwriting stakes.

Dulli generally succeeds in keeping things as darkly hypnotic as a rain-lashed midnight motorway.

Uncomplicated, exuberant melodic thrash. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

The Tipping Point has more soul, vision and musicianship than most bands muster in a lifetime. [31 Jul 2004, p.41]

It’s a pleasant listen, but this feels strange juxtaposed with the lyrical content that flits between brazen vulnerability and all-out raunch-fest, demanding something more. As an introduction to the next era of Grande’s career, it’s solid, but you can’t help but feel it’s missing some of her trademark sparkle.

Policy is a gloriously unhinged sprawl of a record, but fittingly for the man who constructed sparse piano tech-paeans for the soundtrack to Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her, the downbeat moments resonate, too.

There’s surely enough here to bag him some space under Rihanna’s umbrella-ella-ella.

The lyrical complexity of this mostly killer, little filler debut suggests that the singer, prone to pop bangers and searing confessionals, will dig up more compelling insecurities for whatever’s next.

Four potential singles are dropped in the first 15 minutes and, frankly, they're all about as good as it gets.

Forget all the baggage, this is just a band in a room, and the noise they make is thrilling.

Yes, PiL have made better records. But it’s nice to know John Lydon still cares enough to rage.

The actual music on this album is excellent--the sort of Canadian indie beloved of people who live in cities yet dress like the Unabomber....A hole is kicked in the side of it by Carey Mercer’s berserk singing however.

A dark, beautiful collection. [26 Aug 2006, p.43]

These blow-dried disco numbers are unmistakably well-toned. [18 Sep 2004, p.65]

London duo Mount Kimbie are stronger than the latter temptation; this six-track mini-selection bows to no imagined commercial pressure.

Sandé clearly has the chops to stand out in the sophisticated cross-platform arms race of modern pop music--the soaring ‘Shakes’ and ‘Sweet Architect’ are proof of that--but you still wish she didn’t fall back so readily on cliché.

As a simple collection of songs, it’s as strong as anything they’ve come up with since 2004’s ‘American Idiot’.

The album’s glossy production and lyrical vagueness mean these songs could just as easily be about relationships.

Even if the Mensa-folk crew feel dumbed down on, there's just enough Mercer magic on Morrow to light up your local drop-in centre.

Terrific to get stoned to, the unfortunate upshot being that this is music that makes you fall asleep. [3 Sep 2005, p.74]

[Danger Mouse's] electronics in ‘Lucid’ detract from the caper and the sub-Lily Allen skank of ‘Jelly Belly’ is ill-advised, while ‘The Running Goblin’’s harpsichord mires it in a midden of shtick.

As a self-conscious play for stadium-rock ascension, it may prove successful. As a successor to one of the most honest and affecting debuts of recent years, however, it feels a little empty.

The album’s inner momentum offsets any occasional wrong direction.

Trading bolshy indie for pin-drop lullabies and pedal steel guitars, 'Whiskey Tango Ghosts' is Donelly's 'I'm a full-time mum and dammit I'm happy' record. [24 Jul 2004, p.49]

Dear John is more or less all about getting dumped, blending hymnal keyboards, tender strings and pained vocals.

Packing too much tunefulness and pop sensibility to ever feel crushingly miserable, Compassion is nevertheless ripe for wallowing in.

There are glimmers of loveliness in the industrial-calypsos of 'Drool' and 'Bananas,' but that just makes the wilful awkwardness all the more frustrating.

The good news is that 13 is an amalgam of everything you’d want from a new Black Sabbath album featuring three of the original members.

Trust never want to be seen to be trying too hard, but finale 'Sulk' is where it all comes together, like Chromatics with an evil glint in their eye.

The result is a weighty collection of tunes that toughens up the band's predilection of a softly rendered, Cure-indebted jangle and nudges the harder edges of Green Day's stadium punk.

There's certainly a good ear for a melody in evidence (most noticeable of all on Imperial), but testicles are nowhere to be seen.

The music shambles between arid Americana and early Strokes pep, but ultimately it’s Chapman’s grizzled longing that enchants.

By recording the album with his live band, he frames his unmistakably husky countertenor with a set of warm, natural sounds that form a bedrock for the raw emotions on Blood rather than distracting from them.

So while ‘Something Beautiful’ probably isn’t Cyrus’s most hit-packed album, it does feel like a fully realised artistic statement. This post-genre pop star has pulled off another pretty big swing.

It’s hard to find a unifying meaning beyond the beautiful noise or any indication, really, of what a band that’s cut‘n’spliced a plethora of sounds and genre has left to say or do. Perhaps a part two will answer.

Hushed vocals, strummed guitars, creeping cello, and an all-encompassing sense of politeness are the order of the day. [19 Jun 2004, p.57]

For the most part, though, After The Disco unfolds at a fertile equidistance from each man’s comfort zone (inasmuch as a polymath like Burton can be said to have one) and the results are a marked improvement.

You finish the record hungry for more of these febrile, insistent Kinshasa sounds--and that, surely, is mission accomplished.

It’s a scattershot album gelled together by Mensa’s emotionally frank lyrics, which reveal a complex persona.

It’s a fan-pleasing record that’s actually more Beach Boys than peak Beatles.

Every track brims with exuberant life. His first true masterpiece.

It's an intense record that lingers in the memory long after it’s finished.

What they offer on Waiting For Something To Happen is a fey-pop selection box that leaves out the gothic grit and garage-infused rabble of early tracks.

Farewell to Condale, the ’80s teen-flick soundstage for Summer Camp’s brilliant rom-pop 2011 debut; welcome to the slick ’90s house club of their equally impressive second.