Squeaking with the glamour of a rusty gramophone, 'The Rushing Dark' flashes with delicate splendour and, alongside 'Time Is Not', evokes moonlit, cobbled Parisian streets and carafes of elderflower wine.

The album is beautifully structured, leading from spare and shimmery beginnings into harder, weirder and more varied territories, all those snippets and elements and personalities crafted into a shifting, subtle whole that quietly captures your attention from start to end.

Much as there's no getting away from the fact that this is basically one long remix, it's much better than the car crash we all predicted it would be.

It's unquestionably a beautiful (debut) album, and one that may be well-timed.

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.

A collection of offcuts revamped in the industrial style that has characterised his recent work--isn't [a latter-day masterpiece that will spread his appeal beyond his hyper-devoted fanbase].

Oh Fortune spans a wider spectrum than its folky core might imply, adding grandeur and a refreshing, cerebral spin to proceedings.

For 37 rollicking minutes, they give it the full gun, meeting the challenge of being the biggest garage rock band in the world head-on.

It's a shame Mr Pain needs these cameos as much as his instrument of choice--without them, the temptation for the listener would be to simply Auto-Tune out.

You know those people who moon out of train windows, in love with their own picturesque melancholy? Fionn Regan's third album is like that.

It's the less controlled, less sleek excursions that are more exciting.

This is music for message-board moderators and the greasy-haired sycophants who hang around too long after gigs, and precisely no-one else.

A tasteful set of sorrow-wallowing wet-indie covers produced by James Ford.

Cher's not proved herself nimble enough to be more than roadkill beneath its wheels.

To hope for a "Running Up That Hill" or a "Wuthering Heights" would be to miss the point, and the subtle pleasures – there's enough people walking the ways Kate cleared 30 years ago. Follow her footprints off the beaten path, and you'll find some weird winter wonders.

"Both Ways Open Jaws" is tribal, prickly and wickedly playful.

He wields the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as deftly as he did his spliff-stained six-string.

A so-so album which suggests it may be time for Ms Fenty to take a holiday.

They tag-team across the record with a cheery glint, a self-deprecating wink and a boundless charm that's hard not to like.

There's really only one salient truth about "Ersatz GB" – that The Fall, even at nearly 30 albums old, still stand alone and aloft.

The kids of the LC! still bristle with a fundamental melodic vibrancy, and the hand-in-hand maturing of music-writer Tom Campesinos! into the realms of Sonic Youth thrashes, cranky synthetics and handclaps, harmonium, violin and bar-room piano gives the record a gravitas to counterpoint Gareth's lyrical anguish.

While it's sometimes hateful and sometimes hate-filled, "At Your Inconvenience" is rarely boring.

Its mix of clanking rhythms, bleeps and whistles is certainly insistent, although it's the vocal tracks that stick.

It's not quite pop enough to dance to, and almost shlock-country enough to make you give up listening to music altogether.

Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride have the Human League/Thomas Dolby textures down to a tee but, crucially, they haven't skimped on the songwriting

This is a hugely personable album full of gawky heartbreak and Yorkshire sad-glam that makes you feel like you know Louis as well as your oldest school chum.

That same battle between tension and relaxation runs throughout, fueling this understated gem of an album.

[Shonen Knife's] 13 Ramones covers sound exactly like you'd expect.