A mix album of sheer quality.... This should be the soundtrack to every party this summer.

This is the sound of a cleaner, smoother Nine Inch Nails, one that delights in complexities of rhythm more than caustic blasts of rage.

Throughout Empress, an eight-track record billed somewhat mysteriously as a “project”, she states her worth over warm, ‘90s-influenced R&B sounds.

A solid slab of new music from her – the perfect soundtrack for a winter of yearning and discontent.

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

This album offers an elegant blend of trilling piano, strummed guitar and crisp digital beats, but it's dominated by Mason's voice, and his monastic chants prove as soothing and stirring as when they wafted across The Beta Band's deathless debut 'Dry The Rain'.

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.

O’Brien keeps us under with rich, sophisticated soul vibes, oceanic piano, languid sax solos and an overlying tone of optimism.

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

Here The Magic Gang have acted on pure instinct and feeling. This is an album that, despite its recognition of the downside of things, ends up as a more reassuring – and more real – listen than their debut. With its collage of genres and refusal to co-opt modern trends, album two finds the band moving towards something timeless.

Sutherland’s taken dancehall to the American mainstream, but, with Forever, he also transports us to a better world--where positivity reigns.

The descent into indie R&B anaemia on 'Animal' is less exciting, but otherwise, drenched in field recordings of whisked eggs and jangling bracelets, this album is an imaginative and accessible bout of boundary-crushing.

Lyrically witty, full of neat turns of phrase, his songs recall the quirks and kinks of Jonathan Richman, the tale-telling and wit of Alex Turner (specifically the Arctics man's gentle, romantic work on the Submarine soundtrack), and the playful verbosity of Pavement's Stephen Malkmus.

They've proved themselves to be a band who defy convention with an album stuffed full of subtle invention and an emotional intensity that you really wouldn't expect from a band still too young to grow a beard between them.

Just as on her recent EP of ’80s cover songs, ‘Aisles’, Olsen approached the decade’s tropes with care, and at no point does ‘Big Time’ descend into parody. Though it uses them in the same way those aforementioned greats did, to access the deep and real emotion at a song’s core and open it up to her listener as something irresistible.

With the arrival of Fantasy Black Channel--four young men given free rein over four studios – it’s time to hail the new age of anything-goes ridiculousness.

His most confident, cohesive album.

With ‘Cool It Down’ the trio disregard expectations with ease, bursting through conjectures with tracks that make the apocalypse sound fun.

It’s this feverishness that’s key to this magnetic and rewarding album.

It’s a fantastic record, a slow-burn masterpiece that buds gradually and thrives on the oxygen of repeated exposure.

Cyclops Reap keeps the party going.

It’s clear this ‘Falkirk miserablist’ has finally found contentment.

‘Folklore’ feels fresh, forward-thinking and, most of all, honest. The glossy production she’s lent on for the past half-decade is cast aside for simpler, softer melodies and wistful instrumentation. It’s the sound of an artist who’s bored of calculated releases and wanted to try something different.

A spiritual follow up to 2003’s ‘Untitled’, ‘Nine’ sees the trio as confident adventurers. Dealing with the ideas of despair, loneliness and longing, the record doesn’t shy away from the shadows but you’re never far from a dash of hope.

Effortlessly hip and seductively suave. [8 Jan 2005, p.44]

None of these 13 tracks break the three-minute mark, but each works an enormous amount of inventiveness into its brief running time.

Volcano may rank as more of a technical progression than an artistic one, but it’s no less impressive for that.

A cocky, self-assured record that blends Sports Team’s chaotic energy with a smart, heartfelt understanding of the power of guitar music.