It has all the joyousness, all the Pet Sounds hallmarks, and yes, all the bloody echo chamber of the best of the genre.

9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and Early '80s is, other than a long title, a quintessentially Luke Haines record, it's just not one of his best

Even with today's technology, harvesting emotions as such is perplexing and strenuous. But Kirby does it with a special kind of grace.

It's the work of a mature and serious artist, who has made a unique and lasting contribution to pop, and this album will continue her reputation.

On The Water relies less on the vocals than its predecessor. The music is more robust, adding more layers than the minimalism of before.

Even if his insecurities can illicit a few cringes (he sounds genuinely upset with his haters on All The Shine), there's enough empowered anthems like Bonfire and Outside for Childish Gambino to pull through.

It's not a love-hate relationship I have with his stuff, it's more like a so what attitude. So what if he gets Laurie Anderson to recite drab poetry on his record, so what if he can play tens of thousands of notes in one breath.

It's not up there with their very best, but it's actually not that far off.

There's something seductive and illuminating about Stott's new music, something that transcends the terror being emitted.

Fortunately, his two other pieces on the record, Mallet Quartet, and Dance Patterns are nothing short of the flowery style that make Reich's music so rich. WTC 9/11, on the other hand, just sounds muddy.

Get Lost may not be the incredible experience that Living was, but it's still a very enjoyable listen.

If only Jones would also add some color to his verbatim accounts to match his minimal pop songs, then we would have a real contender in our hands.

He never gets beyond either producing a meditative song or joyful song. The difference between this album from all the millions of other acoustic albums out there? Not much.

Either way you bend it, his confessional accounts on how men view the female gender is all too relatable under any context.

It's another brilliant album from one of the genre's foremost artists.

There's a significant lack of depth to Within and Without.

To be fair, if it weren't for Lynch's lacklustre vocals and lyrics there might be a fairly solid collection of atmospheric retro rock 'n' roll here, but as it seems to be coming at the expense of his film career that's still not quite good enough.

These tracks are not enough to justify the second disc as anything more than marketing filler, so again, unless you've purchased the biggest, baddest, bank-breaking box set (complete with a replica of The Fly sunglasses), it would be smart to stick to the single-disc version.

Cox sounds comfortable and confident, and has made the best solo album of his prolific career.

It's yet another labor of love from The Weeknd, and it does not disappoint.

Humor Risk rhythmically shakes off the lingering sad sick and triggers back the talky, rambunctious oddments of wisdom we've come to know from him.

Up until Lulu, I didn't think it was possible to be both enamored and disgusted at the same time. Mind? Blown.

As it stands, the best that could be said about Ceremonials is that it's a pleasant enough listen that will change absolutely nobody's mind about Florence and her machine.

Shadow's production is wantonly flashy, but it can't mask his lack of flair.

The band's fourth album, Empros, seamlessly threads together a mire of unmitigated sonic emanations with a consciously utilized sensitivity to sound and beauty, crafting a less than monotonous or laborious listen.

Whereas those earlier songs brought to mind a stream of sunlight trying to break through a grayed sky, now there's a battering of haphazard lightning striking against a furious ocean.

That's Real Estate. The composition is flawless, but the feel is mellow and meandering, subdued and slight.

It's an in-the-moment album that's best when it's in the moment.

It's Waits' best album since Rain Dogs, and may possibly be even better than that--only time will tell, but it will be time well spent.

Whilst it might not be the powerful, dark electro that some fans had been hoping for, there's no denying that the more matured Justice is pretty damn good.

It is by no means a bad album, and if you're already into the band it will provide a new fix of freakout, but to deserve any more than a 6/10 it really needs to nail the transcendental and ditch the kitsch.

Despite some flaws in its execution, Biophilia does succeed in pushing beyond the already established album-singles-videos model, and the creation of a digital experience to compliment the music feels like a natural progression in the way that music is packaged and consumed.

Mylo Xyloto does have its unpredictable moments, some of which work more effectively than others.

The material is strong but rarely achieves greatness.

There's much promise for an act like Gauntlet Hair to floor its contemporaries with time, but as it stands, their grimy, sewage system is in dire need of maintenance.

Original Colors isn't extraordinary music.

Tomorrow's World isn't a bad album but it's not a complete "return to form" either.

Ultimately, what it all boils down to is that, as much as an album can be, it's pretty damn close to being flawless; not only matching the quality of The Reminder but actually bettering it.

So, if everything works reasonably well, why does this sound like its lacking something important? It is perhaps the result of long-distance collaboration.

while Roll the Dice's single-minded desire to evoke and capture the mundane and nightmarish may make In Dust sound like a rather joyless and difficult prospect, they fortunately still manage to include more than enough moments of bleak beauty to make it worth the repeat visits.

Earth Division is more interesting than satisfying, but it's difficult to dismiss its beauty and its reach past the band's comfort level.

It's a sweeping, expansive album, that covers a lot of ground and leaves the listener satisfied.

It's an album of striking and stark beauty, with finely crafted songs that feel stripped to their bare essentials, and just allowed to be what they are, unadorned.

Once Wilco blazon forth their centerpiece, the remainder of The Whole Love takes a more familiar form that embraces self-assurance, even if those lopsided moments sum the overall experience.

Perhaps the album hits its heights a bit late, but when Youth Lagoon's full confidence is on display, it's hard to turn away.

For Kasabian fans this will be a fine, perhaps even happy result--another album in a similar vein to satiate your lust for new music, but the nagging thought catches as it wonders how new, interesting or innovative any of this really is; the short answer is no, it's not.

As an album, it's probably the dullest anticipation of the year.

There's nothing here with quite the same catchiness that The Field somehow achieved on the head-nodders A Paw In My Face or The More That I Do, but each track is a fascinating experiment in sound, and this is perhaps his strongest record yet.

The vocals are obscured, but nothing else really meshes.

From start to finish, The Hunter is a collection of songs that inadvertently expands their repertoire and capabilities while they turn off their heads and let their fingers tell the story.

Ultimately Conatus makes for a very sensuous, luxurious forty minutes, but it's minor flaws like these that prevent it from hitting quite as hard as it could have done, and from being the unqualified success that Stridulum II was.

In Heaven certainly does enough to make an initial impact, and on its own, it's hard to ignore.

For all its faults, give Night of Hunters more than a little patience, and perhaps don't pay too close attention to the plot, and it reveals itself to be Amos' most consistent, interesting album since her mid-90s heyday.

The production is inconsistent and largely a bit too bombastic for Das Racist's usually free-associative, untechnical rapping.

The album is amazing. The reissue is amazing. The band is amazing.

Their overzealous sense of accomplishment can't be denied, especially when the album itself manages to never skip a beat.

Modern Art doesn't have the pure pop exuberance of Girlfriend, but it proves to be a welcome addition to a distinguished body of work.

An excitable sound, great vocal harmonies, a jangling noise that is immensely listenable: It's all here, it's catchy as hell, and it's exciting.

As dedicated as he is to forming these characters into life-size beings, it doesn't change the fact that some are less interesting than others due to a lack of personification.

Celestial Lineage may be well crafted and even (relatively) accessible but by eschewing the ideas that coloured their previous work, Wolves in the Throne Room have ended up creating something that's not really black, but rather quite grey.

There's a weird combination of influences at work here.

This album is a great one, and proof that the band are able and willing to develop and grow their music.

It feels like they've been doing this for years, and while they quite literally all have, the way they have formed and moulded that sum of past experience into one new entity is nothing but impressive.

This album then delivers anger, honesty and arrogance, all in sporadic scatter-gun fashion: the overriding feeling is confused, uncertain, often unreasonable, but ultimately well intentioned.

While Palomo advances his songwriting by attempting a concept album, he fails to vary the songs enough to allow their inner essence to shine, to glow, to hook inside the listener, to haunt them.

More than anything, Big Talk reflects the Vegas background of its middling maestro.

Richmond Fontaine should be commended for bucking the singles trend and crafting an album that functions best, possibly only, as a whole, especially amid rumors of the album's impending demise.

Not once does this record manage to clamber out of its self-imposed constraints of mediocrity; and for a band genuinely capable of blissful set piece tracks, that makes it mostly a somewhat distressing token.

Bondy trudges along without much to believe in, but his instilled confidence tells otherwise.

here isn't enough variation on here to retain its limited intrigue, as Lortz relies too much on his consistently unremarkable songwriting; ultimately, it's a forgettable record.

Please don't let any negative first impressions put you off though, as it just might be the album that Ladytron have been working towards for a decade.

Beachy summer party/winter bummer wallpaper for your Bohemian café-bar and for the hipsters that frequent it, who like their pop music perfectly pleasant and non-threatening.

They've deftly struck the balance between breaking new ground and retaining their sound while making a record that has – bold statement alert – NO bad songs on it.

It's a mediocre album, and I'm only being hard on you because I sincerely wanted more. Like a pissy parent, I'm not mad at you... I'm disappointed.

Simply put, it's far too repetitive, especially considering its short length, and even on repeated listens tracks seem impossible to tell apart--particularly, after the strong opening provided by Welcome, the run of Apart, Motion and Expect all sound pretty much the same.

With Junk of the Heart, the Kooks are completely discarding level-headedness in favor of offbeat trial tests that fail to give any of the tracks any added gravitas.

Sound Kapital, with its concise length and sound quality (omit none of these songs), should be the flagship for such a shift. Spencer Krug should take note.

Most of all, the music is a nostalgic trip to a time that most of its listeners have never actually experienced. That concept makes Out Of Love enchanting, but it's one of those albums that mood, time, place and company all have to line up correctly to capture the intended experience.

I'm With You is the sound of a band that continues to coast off past achievements.

There are some nice moments in the mess, and sometimes I'm almost tempted to look past the annoyances before they build up--but sometimes, that's frankly just not possible.

If you're not a fan of gangster rap, BlackenedWhite is unlikely to change your attitude towards the genre. But for fans, this album is definitely worth checking out.

Lenses Alien is a thick, abundantly ornate listen that overawes as much as it enthralls.

Fever Dream may not be the most revolutionary electronic album of the year but as a whole, it's strong, and will prove an enjoyable journey for fans of instrumental hip-hop, triphop and chillwave, as well as anyone who is partial to the occasional moment of dreamy, psychedelic dance.

Ultimately, Our Blood must be graded on what it is (rather than what it could have been), and it is quite good.

All that being said, every track has at least something of interest about it, and with Obscurities managing to squeeze in fourteen of them in less than forty minutes, even the worst never outstay their welcome.

And, though, theirs is not the only voice of dissent, they continue to provide an argument against convention. And, it's very convincing.

Stuck in his salad days, the problem isn't so much what Wiley is doing, it's what everyone else has done in the interim.

So in spite of the complacency of the later tracks, there are enough stellar moments here to make it worth keeping an eye out for I Break Horses.

It's been a pretty solid year for electronic music thus far, and this comfortably sits with the best.

They're good but not excellent; they have brilliant songwriting over mediocre melodies and the old-newness becomes old again quickly. Five. Right smack dab in the middle of nothing and everything.

With the satisfyingly realized and solid Mirror Traffic, Malkmus is at the top of his game, both as a consistent songwriter and guitarist, continuing the upwardly mobile trajectory of an enduring and golden indie-rock solo career in it's second decade, playing and singing better than ever.

If ancient Rome is where you want to go, Ancient Romans is your time machine; your one-way ticket to that magical, distant land.

What they lack in experience they make up for in pure zeal.

The relentless energy expended throughout the album will no doubt also make the album appeal to fans of Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Pendulum or the Prodigy. But listeners with a broader appreciation of dance and electronic music would be well advised to source their dubstep fix from elsewhere.

Excise a few tracks and La Liberacion would make a good soundtrack to the summer, or what's left of it at least

It's just painfully mediocre.

If Small Craft on a Milk Sea was an installation piece in the museum of Brian Eno's career, requiring rapt attention to find meaning, Drums Between the Bells is modern art that immediately captures those witnessing it in a state of aesthetic arrest.

here's no escaping the fact that although Mazes are quite capable of a good tune, there's often very little to separate one track from the next.