Potential cover performers take note: this is how you do it.

For all the strange twists and turns, the rich layers and dark beauty to be found, nothing here grabs you and sets up home in your heart like 'Veckatimest' did.

Rarely has reliability been this funky.

Although Leven recites a fair number of hippie clichés (“Make some peace, everyone” implores ‘Seasoned Sun’), it’s her inventive use of an arsenal of rich, vintage synths that rescues Season Sun from cloying sweetness.

This album may be svelte, but it’s far from slight.

In defiance of a criminal lack of universal adulation, they just get better, harder, faster, stronger, and you boggle at just how formidable they might be in their dotage.

Not likely to appeal to your common or garden new raver, but perfect with a nice cup of tea.

Blige’s enthusiasm is most powerful on Follow.

It’s still a brilliantly sleazy punk rock’n’roll album that feels, sounds and smells just like you want The Bronx to be, and the fact it’s so pure and elemental works strongly in its favour.

If this really is to be Lambchop's final album, it's an undeniably lovely one.

It’s still occasionally a bit too ‘nice’ for its own good, but in a cynical world, sometimes a little hope and buoyancy doesn’t go amiss.

Occasionally devastating, often outstanding.

Adam Green’s flowering from puerile anti-folk twonk with The Moldy Peaches to suave lounge-country crooner is laudable.

They're most fun when they're really letting loose, though, which is pretty much always.

A fun comeback album filled with screeching and penis jokes.

The anti-folk pioneer's sixth album for Rough Trade is a familiar comedy of errors, full of dusky textures with a sparkling hue of optimism.

Allow Caramel to ooze out and it’ll rock you into an unsettling trance.

It all suggests a promising future for the reinvigorated band.

Gauntlet Hair’s reference points are sublime, of course, but when they come up with the grudging funk of ‘Simple’, it’s something that’s all their own work.

With bursts of martial snare and brass held together by a minimalist, bass-powered spine, it's reminiscent of The Neptunes' spare genius and feels like off-the-peg future pop.

Made In Sheffield is a surprising record, lovingly conceived and beautifully executed.

The Bachelor is a thoughtful record whose greatest flaw is only that it’s overthought (though to the fans obsessive enough to fund it, that’s probably a bonus).

Overall, it makes for a fascinating listen that rewards close attention, even if a lack of true standouts means the album is more impressive than loveable.

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

What's most intriguing about Content Nausea is listening for possible signposts as to where the next 'proper' Parquet Courts record might be headed.

They’ve upset people’s expectations and made a handful of very good pop songs, but Twenty One ultimately just proves that they’re as unpredictable as they ever were.

Soft and slipper-shod as it may seem, there's a complex coldness to Sandoval's lyrical persona.

Overall, Pure X’s immersive charm remains intact. Only ‘Rain’ betrays the heady sonics of old.

Overall it just about balances out.

You won't listen to it again and again; yet the time you do, it'll be a blast. [4 Feb 2006, p.29]

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.

Kill For Love keeps in this spirit, playing with the attention to detail of an art-house movie (and a near 1½-hour running time).

Brain-rinsingly psychedelic without needing to tell you about it, they deserve to sit at the table with Current 93 and post-Syd/pre-stadium Pink Floyd.

One of the strongest punk debuts of 2015.

As Minor Alps, Hatfield and Caws have made a gorgeous debut that sounds as if they’ve recorded it in each other’s pockets, their tones exquisitely matched, the songs intimate.

The trademark tempo jiggery remains and it's all threaded together with airy production that underlines rather than overwhelms.

This time around Tessa Murray and Greg Hughes give the same tricks a more professional finish.

Most of the scattershot pastiches hit their targets.

Foals [has the] potential to be the most inspired and inspirational band of their generation. All they need do now is let go of the safety rail and plunge.

At its best [Four] excels with a glut of sensitive pop tunes which, although no substitute for exhilarating, provocative post-punk, prove Bloc Party are still capable of depth.

'Have Some Faith In Magic' sees them unbuttoning those stiff top-collars and delivering some of their finest pop bangers to date.

They’re still working out the kinks, though, so a few tracks fail to match their ambition.

There's nothing on Anxiety so arrestingly new or comfortably familiar.

The kids of the LC! still bristle with a fundamental melodic vibrancy, and the hand-in-hand maturing of music-writer Tom Campesinos! into the realms of Sonic Youth thrashes, cranky synthetics and handclaps, harmonium, violin and bar-room piano gives the record a gravitas to counterpoint Gareth's lyrical anguish.

It's not the world-claiming masterpiece it could have been. But as an evolutionary step from world-party-queen towards a more complex beast, it's intriguing.

The tender optimism of tracks like "The Morning" and the gorgeous, harpsichord-led symphony "Oh So Lovely" are wonderfully uplifting, but there's still room for some snarky self-deprecation on "Baby Loves Me" too.

Power's handful of great tunes make it worth the wait, but its more affected moments make it difficult to love.

We're treated to none-too-shabby performances of the obvious lighter-wavers as well as several lesser-known wonders, including a rocked-up take on 'Green' favourite 'Orange Crush' and an airing of the sublime 'Cuyahoga' from underrated 1986 release 'Life's Rich Pageant.'

It’s not a bad record, but, ultimately, All We Are lacks energy.

Oklahoma’s Samantha Crain does weird so very well. The only trouble is, she just doesn’t do it nearly enough.

Recorded with a Luddite's zeal- no keyboards, samplers, sequencers - he's... managed to document the clanking claustrophobia of modern life.

A happy, penguin-chilled sunset beach barbecue of a collection. [3 Jul 2004, p.65]

It’s nothing new, but it is fun.

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

Time and circumstance have not blunted his abilities, and Understated is lyrically empathetic, musically emphatic.

At other times we're not sure whether we should be laughing or feeling uncomfortable; either way Ventriloquizzing is certainly no dummy's game.

Biggest irony? A trillion bucks' worth of vocal talent can't top 'Watch This', a crunching Dave Grohl-embellished instrumental jam. Sounds like a convenient juncture to give Axl a reconciliatory ring, fella.

Trouble is, as grown up and grouchy as Sum 41 may have become (on record, if not in Strokes-mocking video), they sure aint no Fugazi.

Still not Friday night material, then, but a moving display of one man's myriad sorrows nonetheless. Bless.

A Better Tomorrow isn’t all good (most noticeably, it’s lacking killer verses from Raekwon and Ghostface Killah), but it’s a bold, clever album that’s thankfully positioned away from the hip-hop zeitgeist.

The record works as just five songs.

Interesting but inessential.


There’s been a hope that he’d one day return to his dream-pop roots. Stars Are Our Home isn’t that, but there are shades of his past on the twinkling, self-titled opening track and ‘(I Don’t Mean To) Wonder.'

Like the enraged hormones of Iggy Pop slugging it out with the grandiose pomp of Queen. [28 Aug 2004, p.57]

The results are remarkably plangent and romantic.

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.

This record may not be as wild-eyed and rabid as it's predecessor, 2000's 'Cocaine Rodeo', but it's loaded with more illicit sex, insanity and glam-punk brilliance than you can shake Satan's pitchfork at.

Big Talk is a record to be roared while stood atop the bar, and then deny all knowledge of the next day.

Untrustworthy, confused, touching and idiotically ambitious; hard work that, undoubtedly, repays the effort.

They expound spiritual philosophies (“I am a hieroglyph of love!”), grasp the rural jig-folk baton from Mumford & Sons and, post-Beirut, remind everyone it’s supposed to be fun.

By the end, they've told a story of adolescence spent crumpling at the hands of others, while having to pick up the pieces all by yourself.

The notoriously hardcore sexual aggressor has swapped strap-ons for sentiment and turned all flaccid in the process, and guess what: it’s quite...nice.

After is personified by her ragged, powerful voice, under which she picks, thrashes and strums riffs that mostly sound just as full of character.

[An] impressive lo-fi debut. [27 Aug 2005, p.74]

It's crystallised, but the light shines through.

So the album doesn’t sound old but there’s a refreshing warmth emanating from these fizzing and burbling Moogs and Parker Steinway keyboards.

Gently acoustic, peacefully steeped in nostalgia and remembrance, it generates a warm glow of grace...

This fifth set (their second since breaking out) pushes the city limits of their fantasy world even wider and masks an uncomfortable truth.

It's just a shame that quieter moments such as 'The Lengths' sound a little weedy in comparison. [4 Sep 2004, p.72]

Like Johnny Cash jamming with Holly Golightly, Little Amber Bottles is the grizzled embodiment of everything that's brilliant about sleazy, Deep South rock'n'roll.

When two such spiky forms collide you can’t expect everything to click, but FFS is still a wonder of gelling idiosyncrasies.

On this lovely little patchwork pop record, there's enough going on to make you actually quite scared of what they'd come up with if they had a budget.

There are tough, commanding rare grooves, fly spy-thriller tracks, big, daft hip-hop tunes, a brilliant lounge-reggae skank, 'Good Girl Gone Bad', and, in 'The Turnaround', and the 'Apache'-like b-boy break-out, 'Battle Of Bongo Hill', two of the funkiest, party starters you'll hear all year.

He continues his obsession with broken-hearted collages and interstellar folk music. [25 Jun 2005, p.64]

This album sees him rising from the hordes of spider-black hoodies, becoming a musical force beyond the Download ticket-holders.

Proving he's no slouch when it comes to keeping up with musical trends, he's brought in producers like DJ Scratch and one-time junglist Adam F to make sure his beats match up to his evergreen vocal skills. And it works... Amazingly, this is his ninth album, yet he still sounds fresh.

The cocky confidence that barrelled them into the big time might just be losing momentum--a band made of bold leaps have started dipping toes.

Farrar has the passion to carry the songs beyond any hackneyed themes. [6 Aug 2005, p.56]

This time around, however, they've paced themselves and delivered an album packed with punchy, literate guitar music.

Confusing, in a fun way.

Chasing Yesterday has its flaws, but they’re far outnumbered by moments where it succeeds in catching up with its titular quarry.

What's most pronounced is the subtlety of it all, the tastefulness, the lack of bombast and histrionics.

Angel Guts: Red Classroom is his third album in under a year, and superficially it resembles many of Xiu Xiu’s others by draping wracked and fragile vocals over obtuse electronics and analogue atonality.

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

Although less vitriolic than 2006's "Nux Vomica," his third album still throbs with delicious melodrama and anguished assertions.

'Storytelling' is the first indication that Stuart Murdoch has finally got some decent red meat down his gob and he's no longer resigned to wallowing in his dank indie mire until The Pastels come home.

While a grisly backstory doth not always a masterpiece make, the album's finest moments come when she takes a Misery-sized sledgehammer to the youthful irreverence of yore and reduces it to rubble.

Kicks with a passion and inventiveness that's seen them steam up the specs of everyone from Moby to Graham Coxon. [17 Jun 2006, p.39]