Most of Hypnotic Nights already sounds worn out.

The album is a melting pot of so many brilliant musical perspectives, which could only be channelled by a band with a gleeful, wide-eyed fascination with the possibilities of their music. And they succeed in their knowing but expertly-delivered goal: to sound like no other band out there.

Unsound is, in many ways, their best work since Vs.

When Friends get down to it, the energy that brought them together dictates the making of half-profound statements in retro R&B funk jams; and frankly, the result is brilliant.... Yet, when they explore other avenues, the band seem unable to hide their influence and consequently come off as half-hearted.

With a confectionery of similarly colored assortments, The Idler Wheel... retrenches most of her past output, whether its wistful balladeering or sultry jazz, as a means of expelling a truly uncharacteristic voice.

Truly electrifying.

If albums could have Nutrition Facts, Quarantine would lack the vitamins and minerals we normally associate with Laurel Halo's production, but it's hard to dislike the album entirely because, after all, she's still quite skillful at making her Metal Gear Solid-esque ambiences seize and enrapture us with their swirling, bubbling drones.

The trio's assembly of sharp percussion and atmospheric melody as logically configured and essential to the make-up as words are to a properly written or formed sentence.

Because it's tediously unassuming, people will listen to it in the background once or twice while skimreading blogs and forget about it within a year.

There's something about how these tracks activate complicated astrophysical sequences dense with mathematical run-off that makes them have hi-speed, cyber-virtual effervescence.

It's good, but it's not essential.

Locked Down is the result of a synergy between musicians of different generations – both have something to bring to the party, and the combination is compelling. It is an album of rare energy, heat, sweat and motion, and a salutary lesson to all that age need not diminish one's mojo.

For all the missteps along the way, El-P arrives somewhere quite poignant, and although he may not have paved his own way there, his route is quite impressive, and there is no wasted beat and no unseen seriousness and intensity.

The contemporary beats and intermitted uses of techno make this album youthful. For instance, Stupid has a stoic loop that runs through Womack's raspy cries and a sophisticated piano melody. It's a really beautiful blend of new and old.

There are no real standout tracks, it is a four song EP after all and electronica has a slight tendency to blend into one long reverby track. But as a piece, it moves so softly, so deep and so colourful.

The phenomenal performances from Cherry and Gustafsson simply blast away any genre preconceptions – by sheer virtue of the musical confidence of this collaboration, they've created something magnificent.

There is a laudably uncompromising quality to the album which I admire. But by the time I get to album finale Brunswick Sludge I find myself getting a little bored with it all. There's only so much wacky noise experimentation I can take in one go.

While Corgan feels reinvigorated, utterly convinced that's he's finally nailed it this time, the final product doesn't hold up as an entirely ingenious one.

Magic Hour's never exactly bad. It's worse than that. It's boring.

An LP with a long gestation period but a short attention span that revels in 1960s pop music and is as fun as it is jangling.

Freak Puke is at its very core a Melvins album: strange and abrasive, muck-borne and jagged.

[Banga] may be the songstress's most ambitious statement yet.

You have never heard these songs like they are presented here, and there's a chance you have never heard them better, either.

They're taking everything they have at their disposal and mixing it all together, creating something undeniably unique and fantastic.

It boasts some of the band's most emotionally charged material, but just like all their efforts, it requires bearing some stiff, docile guitar melodies to discover some of its finer points.

Go! Pop! Bang! is a fun album, even when it's suffering from the too many cooks syndrome. I just hope Rye Rye asserts more control over her next release.

It's a good album, revelatory in that Liars can carry their sound into different realms of possibility, a translation carried out by different instruments.

Newcombe has constructed his most level-headed and consistently engaging record since ...And This Is Our Music back in 2003.