A brutal and beauteous slither from the grave.

He's turned in an electronic album that’s full of character without resorting to robot costumes or Pharrell bloody Williams.

Australia’s Chet Faker has a pretty big hole to dig himself out of on his debut. Singing no faster than 2mph doesn’t help either, but there’s an unexpected range in his schtick that’s disarming.

Thought Forms' side peaks with the driving Sonic Youth riffs of ‘Sound Of Violence’ and the dizzying My Bloody Valentine lurch of ‘For The Moving Stars’.... Having left their label, [Esben And The Witch] are using crowdfunding to record their next album with Steve Albini, for which these raw tracks offer great.

A good seven years out of date, Doom Abuse is pure synth-pop mania, frequently teetering between unadulterated Trent Reznor pop brilliance and impressions of Skrillex driving a monster truck through a Savages gig in a video arcade.

Here and there, though, it’s a bit of a grind.

It’s far grubbier and more riotous than any high school musical.

Intelligent and visceral in equal measure, PUP is effortlessly cool, charmingly nerdy and wholly brilliant.

The pit-friendly snarl of ‘I Won’t Be A Casualty’ and ‘You Must Be Damned’ show that these guys are all still the real deal.

Tremors is frustrating. But when the colours align it’s alluring and impressive.

Old Fears provides a fascinating insight into the mind of an increasingly-indispensable pop polymath.

Her most outward-looking work to date.

This is one house of horrors that’s worth the ride.

The London four-piece have never had trouble creating pretty atmospheres though; it’s contrasting them with a bolder hook, lyrical or otherwise, where they struggle.

Slowly, their melodic smarts outweigh their influences.

She sounds like she’s having a bathroom hairbrush-singing party to which we’re all invited. These are sweet sweet fantasies, baby.

This is cold-blooded revenge pop that strikes like a shard of shattered plate to the heart.

Sustained power and little in the way of variety can make for quick fatigue, but at just 38 minutes long Cope has hooks and energy to spare.

If there’s anything wrong with Brooklyn-via-Kentucky singer-songwriter Dawn Landes’ seamless fifth album, it’s that it’s just too damn nice.

It’s business as usual with the release of their spaghetti-mess fourth.

The moments of imperfection that let the album down come on ‘Two Of Us On The Run’ (as basic as acoustic songwriting gets) and ‘Until We Get There’ (just sounds like a Cults offcut), but there’s promise here.

The problem is simply the songs: route-one, four-chord grunge adrenaline hits that have none of the haunting and eerie dissonance that set them apart from bands like Wavves, and the rest of US indie’s surplus of breezy slacker-rockers last time around.

It remains a 1980s Johnny Cash album and it wasn’t until Rick Rubin got hold of him 10 years later that he came in from the cold.

In turns more glam-indebted and more duskily evocative than anything they’ve previously offered up, Himalayan’s aims are as monumental as its title.

It’s crisper and glistens with ambient atmosphere and mellow beats.

Though there are less standout moments than on previous records, it is a wonderfully cohesive whole that renders brooding menace into graceful songcraft.

Overall there is a sense that this is the sound of a band brushing their hair and fixing their make-up, trying to convince the world they're OK while secretly crumbling on the inside.

Despite this early start, she oozes a smoky maturity that bodes well for her debut, but unfortunately then shanks it off the fairways by prattling on about Air Max 90s and hanging on the District Line.