Tracks like 'Oya', 'Think Of You' and 'River' have a sparse, ghostly quality reminiscent of early Regina Spektor or Björk. Innovative and comforting.

The result is a beguiling--albeit, at seven tracks, rather short--set of intricate, finger-picked songs.

I Know Myself (Montreal)’ revitalises the album version with warped acoustic guitar and brass, and Tanner adds foreboding guitar noise to a narcotic ‘Green Eyes (Music Blues)’. But the rich piano on ‘Love (Montreal)’ is best, crowning an EP that expands on the wealth of ideas McMahon put into Love.

An exuberant record that is well worth your time.

Depending on your standpoint as regards selling out and cashing in, you'll either be baffled or delighted to discover that they've adjusted their modus operandi not one jot on the follow-up, O Shudder.

For the most part, Peace have made their 'difficult' second album look surprisingly straightforward.

Childish’s defiant presence guides.

Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt 2--don’t go looking for a part one, you won’t find it--sounds like it’s on its own strange course.

A freshly squeezed record with the pulp left in it.

Both modern and natural, tragedy has tugged defiance from The Charlatans once more.

It's odd that parts of it sound too careful.

It's all wildly self-indulgent, but pleasant enough.

Written around the time Tillman got hitched to this girlfriend, it's a hugely ambitious, caustically funny album about the redemptive possibilities of love, and being heartily sick of your own bullshit.

This year’s first great pop record bowls in with a rapturous celebration of the genre's rebellious, trashy potential (and a bottle of champagne and a pocketful of pills to boot).

It’s not a bad record, but, ultimately, All We Are lacks energy.

A buoyant record that should widen his audience, up to now largely confined to his Bandcamp page--a trove of gently weird psychedelia.

None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.

It’s not an easy listen, but a brave, beautiful and affecting album--an attempt to find order in chaos that, as she wishes for it, offers a “crutch” to the heartbroken.

It all adds up to an emphatic showcase of Pond’s personality, and their ability to inflict their eccentric spirit on any genre they fancy.

Uptown Special is Ronson’s moment of absolution: you can try to hate it, but in the end, as with all the best pop music, resistance is futile.

Fans of Women’s challenging melodies will appreciate the songcraft here, but Viet Cong are very much their own animal; with deep forays into demonic white noise ('Continental Shelf'), clanging post-punk ('Silhouettes') and psychedelic/prog-rock on sprawling closer 'Death', they're expanding into adventurous new directions.

It's no classic, but perhaps the surprise here is that Manson’s music can work without the shock shtick.

It’s a shame that on The Mindsweep, Shikari's message is occasionally lost among the madness.

A very weird album, but a very intriguing one too.

Menace Beach’s debut may relish a world on the brink of chaos, but this is a band with their shit together.

It’s heavy, assured and profound--a terrific record alone, but also one that sits in the Sleater-Kinney catalogue naturally, like they’ve never been away.

Opener ‘Teenage Exorcists’ really would have been an awkward fit on ‘Rave Tapes’, a rare vocal-led effort with the enveloping guitar of shoegaze and REM’s anthemic tenderness. More plausible is the idea that ‘History Day’ and ‘HMP Shaun William Ryder’ were left off the album because they’re basically Mogwai-by-numbers. Of the remixes, Fuck Buttons’ Ben Power, trading as Blanck Mass, triumphs.

It’s easy to confuse simplicity with triteness, but the pair have a knack for magnetic and clearly considered ditties.