Tighter than anything they've recorded previously, it’s a great return and a slick change of direction.

Gloomy as it is, there are some brilliant flashes of light to be found here.

There’s something so deliciously wrong about hearing these usually graceful instruments and sounds turned wicked in Iceage’s hands, like being read a nursery rhyme by Jack The Ripper.

Our Love, then, is the moment it all came together for Caribou.

If ‘The Messenger’ was everything anyone could want a Johnny Marr solo record to be, Playland is pretty much all anyone could hope for as a follow-up.

You’re Dead is a madly inventive record, one that takes hip-hop and jazz as starting points, beats them both to death and then brings them back to life in an almost unrecognisable form.

His production work on this fourth album adds a brittle EDM crunch to their formula, but lacks enough choruses ripped from the candy-curled fingernails of the Pet Shop Boys to stop the likes of 'Chemistry' and 'Real Real Love' sounding painfully dated beside Jungle, La Roux or even Daft Punk.

The barbed musings on dead scenes (‘Dull Boy’) and vacuous hipsters (the aforementioned ‘Big Toe’) add lyrical bite to an album that, sonically, barely strays from good vibes territory.

It’s hardly love at first listen.... Yet across repeat plays, the album’s charms begin to unfurl.

The tunes offer a smooth enough ride, but The Vaselines aren’t really stretching themselves here.

Shot through with warm hooks, it's a worthy retooling of old synth styles.

Moments when his former wretchedness is recognisable rescue the album.

Not to be outdone by US stoner-rock peers Sleep and Earth, who have records out this year, the Dorset satanists have spat out this eighth album.

Gerard Way has wiped the slate clean and started afresh, with invigorating results.

No Romeo may be sweet, but it doesn't leave a lasting impression.

Worship The Sun continues that approach, sounding more cohesive in the process. Somehow, though, it’s also more sluggish--their ‘60s indebted garage-rock drags where once it excited.

Black Moon Spell is scuzzy, wired and bulging with Marc Bolan vocals, riffs Jimmy Page forgot to stick on any Zeppelin album and a bunch of outrageously catchy choruses. Big fun.

Their first new music in three years, is a cohesive listen.

While we may never fully understand his inspiration, when his work is as colourful and inventive as this, it's a small sacrifice.

It's a collection of enthralling confessionals where stabs of bleakness mean that heavy bleeding dominates.

As intimate, beautiful and witty as ever, there’s an impassioned life in Leonard that's missing from many artists a quarter of his age.

What lies beneath is frequently glorious, especially in the second half, where rolling, Afrobeat-infused rhythms underpin their best work.

Syro is amazing: bug-eyed, banging rave that sounds quintessentially Aphex while not quite sounding like anything he’s done before.

From the frantic 'Smoking Kills' to the joyously frank drinking song 'Bottle To Bottle', there's more than enough evidence to suggest the Brighton trio are the caustic blast of honesty and character the UK punk scene's been lacking recently.

This Is All Yours engulfs you like a deep forest. Alt-J Mk II, then: an impressive expansion, with hugely improved connectivity.

Repeated listens unmask 'Ryan Adams' as a great record, and a sleek departure from 2011's 'Ashes & Fire.'

This Is My Hand should see her join him, her other collaborators and St Vincent in the US experimental pop pantheon.

[Songs Of Innocence] has only a handful of standouts.... This is a serious mis-step that might win a week's worth of good publicity, but could foreshadow a year's worth of bad.