[Flowers] bares more on Wonderful Wonderful than ever before, and the result is the band’s best album since 2006’s ‘Sam’s Town’.

A kind of urban folksiness runs deep through the record, and the strummed softness of ‘Would You Rather’ even features Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. The downbeat vibe is cut through by unmitigated banger ‘Motion Sickness’ but Strangers In The Alps is definitely album for the sad times.

As the album unfolds, the band continue to nail the balance between rebellious anthems and cutting social commentary.

It’s honest, personal and wholly relatable. Rostam may have defined Vampire Weekend’s sound, but with Half-Light he begins to define himself.

This is not a subtle record, but these are not subtle times. So grab a Marshall stack, put it through a fascist’s window and let’s start the revolution. Now.

A record that features some of the band’s most vital and impressive tracks in years.

Dom Ganderton and Ryan Malcolm are a deft hand at bringing colour out of the mundane in their honest, and often nostalgic lyrics.

They’ve [experimental sonics] been added to the steadfast elements that make The National so good: clever turns of phrase, genius storytelling, Bryan Devendorf’s marching-band drums, delightful arrangements and piano and brass that work well together.

It’s the sound of all your messiest student rock nights packed into 39 breathless minutes.

It’s hard to see where Bugg goes from here: he’s either a man still in search of a niche or, more worryingly, locked into the wrong one.

The good news is that American Dream delivers, point by point, on everything you could want from an LCD Soundsystem album.

Lovers of the plush paranoia of 2014’s breakthrough album ‘Lost In The Dream’ will be relieved that his fourth outing doesn’t touch that dial. From the opening highway piano judder of ‘Up All Night’ it’s like losing yourself once more in some lost golden age of MOR.

This, then, is the sound of living in the moment and it’s glorious.

By the time ‘No Mercy’ arrives, there’s no escaping how catchy this record is.

A Fever Dream is by far the most focused, making good on frontman Jonathan Higgs’ recent claim to NME that the songs “need each other”.

SCUM, then, is more revolt than revolution. But there’s undoubtedly talent here--and there’s every chance Cardy, not T, will be the touchpoint 10 years from now.

The cathartic nature of the album is clearest on the emotive piano and string-laden ballad ‘Praying’, a forceful Lady-Gaga-worthy offering of defiance, as she hollers “’Cos you brought the flames and you put me through hell / I had to learn how to fight for myself”.

It’s a scattershot album gelled together by Mensa’s emotionally frank lyrics, which reveal a complex persona.

Lust For Life deals with themes that’ll be familiar to Lana devotees; faded Hollywood glamour, skewed Americana and terrible love. But this time around, Lana is even more grandiose than usual, with lush, sweeping orchestration draped elegantly over each of the album’s 16 tracks.

Backed by a supporting cast of R&B superstars and bright newcomers, it’s a record of long, lazy summers; sitting back and staring at the clouds.

He hasn’t sounded this vital in years.

To all intents and purposes McKenna is a teen breakout star, but describing him that way feels reductive after listening to his debut, on which he proves himself a serious lyricist who deserves more than to be put in a box.

Energy, desire and that indefinable cool that any great rock band must have burst from every angle. This album feels like a celebration, and Sheer Mag sure deserve one.

Universal High is the reinvention we never knew we needed.

Ultimately it’s the album’s sense of humanity, not its innate clever-cleverness, that elevates it to something special.

These five tracks climax with ‘Hypnotised’, a solemn country swooner resembling John Lennon’s ‘Mother’, easily their best barnstorming ballad since ‘Fix You’. It’s heartening evidence that Coldplay haven’t entirely been sucked into the machinery while trying to subvert pop music from within.

The record never diverts from a tried-and-tested formula, but Crossan brings a modern touch via nifty production tricks and songwriting knacks.

The end result is a record rooted in the bass flicks, shimmering synths and lovelorn lyrics that defined their debut.