This record is not the sunburnt wooze of Tame Impala: it’s angrier, colder.

It’s lyrically weak, however, (sample: “The moon falls in your doorway”) and although there’s sparkle in the production, Johns reveals himself to be a far from charismatic singer.

Fifth time round, they're proving there's still plenty of value in their elegantly downtrodden aesthetic.

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

At times, its a record that feels slightly lacking in range as a consequence; as this album chugs on, Night’s wittiest turns of phrase can’t help but take centre stage against a familiar backdrop.When The Regrettes shake things up, they’re most ferocious.

It shimmers with wonky ’90s-indebted pop smarts, a daisy-chain of balmy nostalgia with blissed-out guitars, hushed vocals and kaleidoscopic lyrics.

After all these years, the songs still stand up, even in a different dimension. ‘Black Stallion’ can either be listened to as the twisted inner monologue of a masterpiece, or a standalone rattling gun of gnarly and weird electronica.

You finish this collection feeling lighter, a little more optimistic about what the world has to offer.

In the end, Taylor stands strong, heart laid bare in a tender, nuanced close to an imperfect but heartfelt album that proves that you can find your way back to yourself.

The abrasion and urgency of their sound remains, but magnified, as they explore new territory.

The trio are made up of Rakel Mjöll on lead vocals, Alice Go on guitar and Bella Podpadec on bass, and their glimmering punk-pop is the most exciting thing you’re going to hear this dreary January, and quite likely all 2018.

Foals [has the] potential to be the most inspired and inspirational band of their generation. All they need do now is let go of the safety rail and plunge.

With the core ‘XTRMNTR’ team--the Scream, Shields, producer David Holmes--More Light, the Scream’s 10th album and first in five years, lives up to its bilious billing.

Scruffy melodies informed debut album 'A Thousand Heys' and they return here ('Vapour Trails') but Jack Cooper's homegrown themes are interwoven expertly.

While ‘Dancing On The Wall’ does tread newer ground lyrically on songs like ‘Big Stick’, and at times dabbles with heavier, rock-influenced sounds, it also doesn’t divert too far away from the hyper-saturated synthpop sound the band have nailed since day one. And in MUNA’s world, precise, irresistible consistency can be just as compelling as constant reinvention.

The swagger is really what drives that point home. Casual, not-bothered insouciance drips from Go Tell Fire To The Mountain.

Canta Lechuza deflates its ambition by bleeping and whirring in every direction at once, landing in a confused heap of awkward samba jangle and rippling steel drums, a curious and compelling mess.

If you have to buy one painfully esoteric, scrotum-tighteningly hip, show-off album this year, you may want to make it this one.

Though The Futureheads' established formula still sticks steadfast, there are enough wild cards peppered throughout to prove that, far from stuck in a rut, they're still moving playfully forward.

While it's a wiser and more weathered quintet that greets us in 2010, the Londoners return not bruised or broken but infinitely more polished and positively bursting with ideas, passion and optimism.

It could have been so easy for an album that's strung out on the tension between artist as paid-up perma-kid and responsible grown-up to be self-indulgent and, worse still, boring. Instead it's cathartic.

Sure, it rests in a lot of the sonic territory of The National, and this isn’t the departure that his peppy indie-pop side-project EL VY represents, but what we do have is an intimate and generous offering from one of 21st Century rock’s most prominent voices.

The blanket of noise is provided by her male cohorts, but the lynchpin of PP’s allure is undoubtedly Meredith, another artist key to redressing the great gender imbalance that never goes away.

The difference this time is small but significant, in the overall high quality threshold - from the silken slo-mo waltz of 'In Love With A View' to the listless Dylan-lite stumble of 'She Broke You So Softly', there's not a bum note here. Which is not necessarily a recommendation. Because if you stand too close to these tunes they can seem suspiciously perfect, like a newly painted Wild West movie set.

Tracks like ‘Angels On A Passing Train’, swoon with religious imagery and elevate in their choruses, nodding unashamedly to Dylan and Springsteen, while ‘Jesus In The Temple’ is a BRMC mosey into the sunset, delivered with adventurous gusto that’s matched by anything found here.

The Manics' 10th offensive is a more playful beast than that--poignant, joyful and above all really, really loud.

‘Freakout/Release’ certainly isn’t a complete misfire. Its loose premise of retooling negative feelings to a positive end is sometimes realised, though it was always going to be difficult to evoke the sparkly catharsis of its dizzying predecessor.

The pop-punk politicising does get exhausting over 14 fiercely energetic, relentlessly right-on tracks, but even after a decade as a folk star, Oberst still gives the other grown-up emo kids a run for their money.