The result is stronger than you might think, but too inconsistent and devoid of depth to stand out on a battlefield where Gaga rules all.

They’re still doing it better than anyone else; ravier than Foals, more fun than Fuck Buttons, flexing more post-hardcore muscle than Metronomy. It’s just that we kind of hoped they might surprise us again. That said, if they’re not pushing any new envelopes, Come Down With Me is still satisfying on its own terms.

Efterklang’s first release on the legendary 4AD label is packed full of immediate melodies and soul.

Flitting between ambient sequences and army-of-guitars maelstroms, this 71-minute magnum opus was recorded in Berlin and Iceland, but loaded with rampant Anglophilia, evident in a Joy Division homage and John Lennon interview clips.

Cash deserves better than this. In fact, he deserves to be left in peace. Some things should just be left alone.

It’s unlikely that you’ll often listen to it in one bout, but whether beguiled one day by its exotic petals and blooms or the next by the less showy trees in the background, Have One On Me is an Elysian record that you’ll return to again and again.

While there was an endearing humility to Smith's work, this dour offering provides little comfort.

It’s a beautiful, unnerving experience that rattles on long after its final notes fade.

End-time celebrating religious nutbars won’t be finding much eternal hope here, but for everyone else, a perfect soundtrack to the approaching void.

Their vision is so focused on piano and guitar tone and so opposed to the notion of tunefulness that MGMT’s new stuff seems like ‘Motown Chartbusters 3’ in comparison.

The Courteeners have developed the ability to, at points, blow away tribal allegiances with hooks forged from pure indie gold.

After a few listens, just when these songs should be beginning to grip, you get the creeping sensation Black’s slick production chops are essentially papering over flimsy songs.

Angst-ridden indiscretions aside, Sigh No More is a fine debut from a band that's patiently picked up the tools of its trade, and chosen the right moment to give them full rein.

Like a vintage Bordeaux, it slips down a treat (aside from lamentable ‘Peanuts’, which gets stuck in the throat), but the moments of oddness whetted our palette for more.

Adam Green’s flowering from puerile anti-folk twonk with The Moldy Peaches to suave lounge-country crooner is laudable.

Yeasayer’s greatest achievement is their balancing act, teetering between heartfelt and overly earnest, between invoking and pastiching past decades, between worldly experimentalism and token tourism.

Two years since the last album, five members with wildly varying tastes and talents, enough ammo to blast out two solo albums on the side, and they still can’t quite make 10 essential tracks in a row.

What it does do, however, is remind us that he is a copper-bottomed genius.

Overall, though ‘Heligoland’ is a puzzling and frustrating listen. Some good tracks can’t hide the fact that this is the stuff of an identity crisis. It’s one thing to call on your famous friends to put flesh on your bones. It’s another if you leave the listener wondering if you’ve any spine at all.

Causers Of This’ infects your mind with pure psychedelia, splicing such conflicting sounds as soul, freak folk, hip-hop and electronica, and the result hits you like Animal Collective on a comedown, or Ariel Pink with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

If it’s mournful epics you want, then the album’s crammed full of them, from the strummed, outdoorsy sorrow of ‘Winter Dies’ to ‘Rulers, Ruling All Things’, which is peppered with cheeky Spanish guitar and weighty, fin-de-siècle lyrical flair.

When he emerged from his stupor, he announced that he was giving up rap to make a guitar album. Which brings us to ‘Rebirth’, a shlock-rock record so absurd it makes Alien Ant Farm seem like a legitimate musical venture.

They may be strutting right down the middle of the road, but they look pretty damn cool doing it. The Soft Pack make being A-OK into something to be proud of.

Just when you think they’ve already smithereened the silly barrier, what the world needs most swiftly turns up: Hadouken! go Auto-Tune.

Sadly there’s only one track here where singer Tigs’ urgent purr and the subtle combination of electronica and bouncy indie pop matches either of those two tracks: the mesmeric ‘Slick’. The rest is solid, but with New Young Pony Club back on the scene, tracks like ‘Two Hands’ feel unremarkable.

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.

They’ve made an absolutely magical record--the jagged edges of their past have been smoothed by the sea, making Teen Dream a soft shore gem in the crown of the great chronicles of youth.