Blazing, brilliant second album.

Shedding old skins with jubilance, ‘Expert in A Dying Field’ is testament to the belief that better things are always yet to come. For us as listeners, they’re already be here.

The journey home for the pair has been perilous, but that mix of rage and hope is potent. They see a better community on the horizon, but know that they must be a part of its foundations – ‘Regresa’ is a magnificent rumination on those complex emotions.

‘Good Lies’ puts the pair on the edge of a major breakthrough. Its pop-leaning moments are also its most exciting, and the creativity and skill with which they bridge these worlds is thrilling.

An album which radically extends the Franz musical palette.

Yes, we could have done without the plodding, church-baiting 'Hash Wednesday', but songs such as 'Explode', and 'On A Fix' more than make up for it and are so incredibly abrasive that you probably shouldn't put 'Eyes & Nines' next to valuable records on your shelf.

eedly bass, tumultuous drums and big, dirty guitars careen beneath Casey's deadpan delivery, building riotously enjoyable labyrinthine passages that lead to nowhere, though Protomartyr make the journey feel essential.

While it’s not quite all gold--over two CDs the listener’s resistance to slap bass and super-smooth vocals may be tested--the standard as a whole is incredibly high.

SVIIB is a fitting eulogy for a musician and a band ever connected with both.

‘A Written Testimony’ is a 39-minute, 10-track project that offers all the usual Jay Electronica tropes: complex rhyming patterns, double and triple entendre, lyrics across various languages laid over psychedelic production with minimal drums. Electronica excels on a technical level throughout. Yet, while this is the most anyone has heard from him musically in over a decade, there’s a sense of reticence throughout the LP.

Though it’s not entirely without precedent, there’s still more than enough innovation here to mark Visiter out as one of the summer’s must-have releases.

‘Ain’t No Friend Of Mine’ is a brilliantly snotty two fingers up at the world. There’s no danger of finding the same fault in Street Safari, a record even more loveable than PATV’s first.

Amidst all the experimentation and extremes of this impressive album is a message about life: bathing in the moments of ecstasy will ultimately enable us to cherish and value life more.

The trio reflect the growing bleakness of the world around them by sounding more fiery and furious than ever before.

‘Black Star’ isn’t the diasporic spectacle she originally hinted at – it’s a hedonistic pop recalibrator that hits no matter where you’re from.

It’s a record riddled with questions, while refusing to offer answers. In remaining tight-lipped, this taciturn new aspect to Father John Misty might be his most genuinely sincere, and his most profound.

Their peak may be years away yet, but this is still some of the most exciting music you’ll hear until then; I’m not sure what more you could ask of a debut.

So We're New Here isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it showcases a producer so in love with the music of now that he not only preserves the power of his source material, but makes it more relevant.

If you've ever wondered what growing up in middle-class 1970s America would have been like, these deeply personal revelations are for you. [30 Apr 2005, p.64]

There’s a fresh warmth to ‘Forever, Howlong’, but don’t mistake that for sonic pathetic fallacy. The pregnant protagonist of ‘Nancy Tries To Take The Night’ has one of the most devastating narrative arcs on the record; the combination of banjo and nylon guitar makes for such an unusually rich tone for the band, bolstered by Hyde’s sonorous alto that grounds the song.

The songs splatter unpredictably with little concern for cohesion, forming a whole that is emphatically unique.

Debut album Songs Of Praise courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all their own.

Where previously the comparisons to their Radiohead catalogue could warp expectations, the breadth of the material on offer here suggest that it could, eventually, flip that dynamic right on its head.

Soused manages to feel understated and ripe for listeners to engage with entirely on their own terms.

For in the Düsseldorf duo's continuing remit to bewilder and dazzle, conformity is the enemy. Sick of being billeted as d'n'b smugsters, 'Idiology' is a post-everything record - it's the sound of music being carefully shredded in the hope of finding something new and better.

With High, they’ve recorded an almost perfect 30 minutes of indie-punk. There’s no flabbiness, no million-dollar production that adds nothing to the songs, no bloated guitar lines or pointless drum fills and nothing that even comes close to seeming in any way meaningless.

A magpie pop masterpiece that could only be made right now and right here. And for every stupid joke you’ve heard about avocados and house prices and safe spaces and jazz hands, this is a piece of art that shows another side to a generation, one of achievement, wit and humanity in the most confusing of times.

Recorded with help from Fantomas shrieker Mike Patton and Buzz ‘Melvins’ Osbourne on guitar, Carboniferous rocks out with little competition.