What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation; each track seems to take an element that’s been formerly alluded to and stretch it to a fuller form.

The 13-track album is an absolute riot, falling somewhere between the meticulous dreamy psych-pop production of Tame Impala’s 2015 breakthrough album ‘Currents’ and the loved-up summertime vibes of Tyler, The Creator’s 2017 record ‘Flower Boy’.

A brilliantly inventive record that concludes with a bit of sarky musical theatre (which may be aimed at Adamczewski). Saoudi has hinted that this could be Fat Whites’ final album. If so, they’ve gone out on the most surprising note of all.

He and the four gents in his Revue are here to remind you there's nothing more thrilling than the primal howl of proto-rock'n'roll, and this, their third album, is their most convincing sermon yet.

This time around, though, the band operates with a little more future-facing pride and compulsion. It’s a lesson on how to do it yourself, and do it well. Defiance never sounded so good.

Kiss Land is a fascinating record, Tesfaye defying reservations with the self-absorption of a madman.

A record whose luminous soundscapes are at once alien yet familiar, adding hazy heartbeat rhythms to their seductive take on ambient masters past and present such as Brian Eno, Harmonia and Tim Hecker.

He’s bowed out from the spotlight to produce a record that tunes into love, ageing and the search for meaning without the compulsion for a punchline or wry aside. As a result, the lush ‘Mahashmashana’ doesn’t quite mainline the zeitgeist in the same way that ‘Honeybear’ and ‘Pure Comedy’ did. Then again, there’s something to be said, in 2024, for logging off in favour of self-reflection.

Prepare to lose your heart to him.

Unlike their debut's thrilling-but-ramshackle garage rock, this time round the words are harnessed to the kind of big, bold tunes that will lodge the five-piece in the mainstream consciousness.

Following on from a confusing but rewarding double-disc anthology, 'Rifts', in 2009 and the sublime space scapes of 'Returnal' in 2010, 'Replica' is a rallying call for people who don't see synthesisers purely as objects of retro-fetishism, but rather as agents of future creative potential.

Working Men’s Club certainly wear the trauma well, but this riveting exploration truly thrives by seeking the light beyond the gloom.

Much more than a remix album, then, the sheer invention and thirst to push things forward demands that I<3UQTINVU’ must be considered as an entirely separate, and brilliant, full-length Jockstrap album on its own terms.

Views should be a slog. But remarkably, his signature brand of downbeat introspection remains gripping.

Straightaway, what's so appealing about this album is the double-barrel hellfire tactic the four-piece employ on almost every song.

'Mary Star Of The Sea' has that kind of miracle-working effect: a euphoric and consistent hour of genetically-tweaked stadium rock that re-establishes Billy Corgan as a great, rather than ridiculous, frontman.

The sombre project is blistered and broken in all the right ways. Peep’s legacy of making music that has no purpose other than making itself felt is the glue that holds this sprawling 13-track album together.

They’ve certainly made interesting, bolder leaps than before with this second record. We’re ready to jump in again.

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

Tell Me How You Really Feel is Courtney Barnett at her angriest and most vulnerable, but being a drinker of details means she can also blow the beauty of life’s little things up to full-size.

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.

Clearly fed with water from a pool full of wide-reaching influences, Mind Control is a record that reveals more about itself with every listen.

These five tracks climax with ‘Hypnotised’, a solemn country swooner resembling John Lennon’s ‘Mother’, easily their best barnstorming ballad since ‘Fix You’. It’s heartening evidence that Coldplay haven’t entirely been sucked into the machinery while trying to subvert pop music from within.

The live album is built from tracks taken from different shows so doesn’t show off the improvisatory nature of their setlist-free shows, but again, it’s a reminder that their three-year absence is a bit of a tragedy.

'One Part Lullaby' lapses very slightly into generic Barlow-pop two-thirds through, then soon recovers its shimmering grandeur. Sebadoh hardliners will dismiss this record as pop fluff, but few will be listening, too busy hailing The Best Lou Barlow Album In The World... Ever

It takes half a dozen listens before the quality of it really sinks in, and is so all over the place that only the most devoted won't find it initially maddening. But throughout is a braveness and naive sense of wonder.

They were always one of the most metal band of the alt.rock boom that emerged from their Seattle scene in the early 1990’s, but on Rainier Fog; there’s a beauty and an expanse--as well as a major chord or two--that sees the band evolving.

Harcourt... has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a laydee and made his "happy" album. Luckily for us, it's the best of his career. [11 Sep 2004, p.55]