As much as ‘Something Worth Waiting For’ is a confident, seemingly effortless next step into the musical big leagues, it also feels like a warning from Kapetan to himself: to step off the brakes before the whole beautiful machine that is Friko falls apart.

With In Our Bedroom... Stars are rewriting the textbook on romance with effortless glee.

Shotters Nation isn't his magum opus, it's still infinitely more consistent, listenable and likely to get played on the radio than its predecessor ever was.

Waking Lines is a success.

‘Sideways To New Italy’ might sound like sun-splashed indie for good times, but there’s a great deal of angst buried within. Yet this is clearly also the sound of a band excited to be in the studio together; warmth and friendship seeps through every note.

How refreshing, fun and free it all sounds.

Variety keeps things interesting, but it also allows the duo to flex their musical muscles, and they’ve traded in some of their previous blistering punk for a more relaxed pace on certain tracks, but without sacrificing any intensity.

Whilst 'The Argument' still sounds unmistakably Like Fugazi, it's the sound of an inspirational band, renewed, at play.

Despite the fullness of its sound, ‘Call A Doctor’ never loses its personal touch, too. “You’ve been swell / Oh, what the hell / You’ve been dear,” closes James on ‘Outro’, bringing all this colourful melodrama to a touching end.

Mostly this is Nas going back to his former role as a keen street observer, ready to dispense wisdom to up-and-coming youngbloods.

Where 'Songs For The Deaf' was about jumping up and down until your eardrums burst, 'Lullabies To Paralyze' will use its enigmatic mysticism to lull you into a blissful daze so you don't at first notice that the riffs have broken your neck. [12 Mar 2005, p.55]

As explorations of pain go, ‘Color Theory’ is as beautiful as it is brave.

MIA innovates club music, art music and pop music at every turn.

Part 1, ‘Together’, is a collection of music more soothing than balm. Spatial beauty is the order of the day.

Reality Check stands as a fun, frank and startlingly perceptive debut that surprises for all the right reasons.

Without [Kate Nash collaboration Awkward], Fidlar is still an electrifying, intensely fun album. But with it, it would have been perfect.

Common has just gone way, way off the hip-hop map.

If The Horrors' "Primary Colours" is the night out, then Three Fact Fader--Engineers’ follow-up to their 2005 debut--is the sound of the blissful recovery next day.

‘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.

Her vocals now sound stately, and the impression is of a grande dame breathing new life into work made as an ingenue.

Deafheaven’s brilliance has long been hung upon the pursuit of a truth, like documentarians before they hit the edit suite. These songs are filthy, dank, often devoid of light, but like a weed emerging from a pavement’s crack, there’s something resembling hope there. A suggestion that maybe there’s something more.

If ‘Re-Animator’ felt like it was lacking the kind of knockout blow that Everything Everything have provided on every album, they saved it until last. Recent single and album closer ‘Violent Sun’ is the biggest revelation here. You could mistake its opening seconds of The Boss’ ‘Dancing In The Dark’, or its propulsive surge of drums and synths for New Order.

With the standard set, Turner brings an almost literal meaning to the notion of 'traditional English punk' and, as always, it's a fearless venture for an artist with something interesting to say.

‘Who Cares?’, O’Connor’s fourth album, is a gorgeously measured step forward.

Woman is a joyous album of hope and optimism.

The result is both brutally honest and joyfully exuberant, as the band get comfortable and cathartic in their own skin – and invite you to do the same.

In this brilliant new time of directional change, the piano-led analogue boy is practically smiling his words out on the Mark Ronson-produced 'Ballad Of Old What's His Name'.

Here, Byrne's well-plotted tunes can rule, and Norm can keep himself in the background, going against his natural tendency to overstuff.