By the end of the album, the technical ability of Hindman and the lyricism of Versprille feel exhausted, gargled, and outsized by the very same influences that they try to honor in their thoroughly hackneyed attention to 80s Cocteau Twins-inspired rock.

Despite being nothing original, Crimes of Passion comes off a good rehashing of the genre, making you rethink what Jesus and The Mary Chain's Just Like Honey really meant.

Interestingly enough, Where You Stand may be the first Travis record that snugs comfortably into an adult contemporary format.

Even though there aren’t any forcible tracks or extreme depth to this album, it captures an experience that should be played out entirely.

Where The Heaven Are We is a solid start for B-Town’s latest export, and when considered the almost fainéant construction, there’s probably a lot more to come from this lot.

Whirr crafts their own mold out of their influences, and, with an effort that feels grand and mesmerizing as it does dreary and bleak, Around hits the nail on the head and all those long lost sentiments of not having a shoegaze band to get behind seem to dissipate.

It’s more of an unconscious escape hatch that Lynch has constructed with intangible aural elements--a fantasy place that he allows us to walk around in for a while until we are forced back into the realm of the painfully awake.

It sounds like a labor of love through and through, and its painstaking process of development only augments a desire for something exclusive. In all accounts, your satisfaction is most certainly guaranteed.

Like Grouper before her, she’s wonderful at exploring those liminal spaces, washing over and subtly overwhelming you.

Pond constantly struggle to find a balance between prog, classic yuppie rock and psychedelia in Hobo Rocket, cramming a cheat sheet of tired rock trappings and psychedelic clichés that were already fatigued even before corporate rock detoxified its very essence.

If we could compare each of Fuck Button’s works some sort of dazzling spectacle, whether it be a firework display, a meteor shower, falling in love, or something of the like, than Slow Focus makes a strong case for being their most brilliant event yet.

Most of the songs on In A Warzone are full of energy, and it’s hard not to get swept up in the slimmed down punk rock that the album delivers with gusto. However, there is definitely a point where they start to sound very similar.

With Jinx, we get to see a promising band push their sound outward and gracefully mature, even if it doesn’t always floor you as immediately as some of Sports’ loudest moment do.

Circumambulation practically evades any trace of sheen that was found on their two previous efforts. The differences are minimal but not predictable, lying somewhere between sludgy stoner metal and expansive, yet acute rhythmic precision; it’s their ability to never stand on solid ground that elevates their caliginous mid-tempo tunes.

You may well have to look elsewhere for music that will one day remind you of 2013, but this is still a great, brief blast of noisy, off-kilter rock; a consistent debut which sounds better each time you hear it.

Yes, it’s been done before, but as much as there is to nitpick, there’s just as much to revel in.

Me Moan is a challenging effort that rewards as much as it confounds, and really doesn’t bring us anywhere closer to understanding Gibson’s true guise.

So while it’s worth checking out, DVA lacks any real core.

While the music might still be a bit detached and remote, the more collaborative nature of this record does make it easier to meet half way, as does Stelmanis’ unerring sense of pop melody, and of when to drop a 4/4 beat for maximum effect.

Kveikur is a strong album, one with no low-lights and an intriguing progression of sound.

What we have here is an album’s worth of incredibly passive, indifferent music-making.

Between the two, disc 1 is more memorable than its counterpart, but together they still form a fascinating insight into one of the foremost production talents operating on our shores today.

Even if they’re slow in the uptake, and a cursory listen will only reinforce them as makeshift compositions, the tuneful nature of the album begins to flourish with repeated spins.

For Long Way Down is an album that, while often samey and, in the grand scheme of things, says next to nothing, heralds the arrival of a highly talented artist.

Soft Will won’t enter the annals as album of the decade, but it showcases the tools and talent to make it happen one day.

Tomorrow’s Harvest, the duo’s latest, is a perfect reminder of how well these two can bring their unique aesthetic to life through music.

There’s enough raucous obnoxiousness, not to mention effortless expert musicianship, in these eight tracks and thirty-five minutes to mark Melt Yourself Down out be the front-runner for not just that token Mercury nod, but the ironic moustache twiddling party album of the year.

It’s a dense, difficult listen, nigh impossible to compare to the rest of Kanye West’s work, and its rewards come slowly.