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.