The album can’t help but feel like an appetizer. So, yes, it is too short, but that’s the point. We can be hungry for more, yet still satisfied here. That this is Vol. 1 means there will be a Vol. 2.

On the Dears’ fourth album, the Montreal melancholics take simple melodies and spin them into seamless epics.

Trouble, while not a huge departure from the Woodpigeon canon, proves Hamilton's songwriting is always growing. Here's hoping his audience will be, too.

The result is a poppy, polished, triumphant record augmented by backup vocals and violin from new member Miranda Mulholland.

Sebastien Grainger’s vocals show the benefit of spending the last few years touring with quieter bands, and listen closely for the subtle analog synth touches Jesse Keeler’s added behind his trademark wall-of-fuzz-bass sound.

A triumphantly outspoken, brash blast of incisive songs informed by inequality, displacement, joy, loss, humour, working, time’s passage, wit and sick production.

YG may just want to party, but the layered storytelling displayed here proves he could be the next transcendent, endlessly original West Coast superstar.

Here, he ratchets that up another notch, attacking familiar concepts (wantonly commercial rappers, his complicated relationship with his mother, the push and pull of celebrity) with seasoned vigour.

Building on the critical goodwill he received from 06s stripped-down This Old Road, the 73-year-old Kristofferson offers another sparsely produced batch of reflective acoustic tunes that he sings with sage simplicity.

Demented, sloppy, brilliant, and above all a great way to spend three-quarters of an hour.

There is plenty of [crescendos], but Gonzalez also proves adept at pacing, surrounding M83's bigger, more anthemic moments with ambient instrumental interludes and balladic "comedown" tracks.

Assume Form doesn’t have the instant gratification of his 2013 album, Overgrown--arguably his best--but it gradually pulls you in like a soothing balm. ... It’s still a James Blake record, but with brighter synths and more natural instruments. Any moments of darkness are balanced with light.

You won’t find many dance-floor fillers here, and on that level this album comes closer to Junior Boys’ wistful electro ballads than to Metro Area’s laid-back club magic.

Young Fathers' alarm at being boxed in has led them to make an uncompromising, and, yes, prize-worthy pop statement.

A full three years later, Sound & Color avoids the sophomore slump by packing a sense of purpose into its 12 sleek yet gritty soul tracks.

From the church-bell-ringing, banjo-plucking funereal title track opener to the into-the-sunset Hawaiian ballad Aloha Oe that closes the album in perfect cinematic form, Cash sounds completely at ease, and wholly preoccupied, with the approach of his own death.

With fewer experimental throwaways, the album puts the band's best foot forward: toe-tapping, harmony-laden kernels of pop.

[It] offers the comfortable familiarity of an old flannel shirt from the 90s but leaves you wondering if time has stood still for the Chicago post-rock quartet. It has not, as is apparent on the five follow-up songs.

Despite ups and downs, Suede have remained an impressively robust-sounding live act, and that energy comes across in Night Thoughts.

Songs, though distinct, spill into each other, with heady euphoria tying it all together.

Some trendy lite disco and uplifting, singalong hooks give her voice more to compete with and play up the universality of experience, but Sullivan sounds better the more specific she gets.

It’s characterized by both futile resignation and hopeful nostalgia. That’s a generous way to write, and Phoenix stands as a complex, giving record backed by some of Pedro the Lion’s finest musical compositions.

The wistful elegance of the music makes Luciferian Towers a peculiarly gorgeous portrayal of our threatening political reality. Xenophobia is on the rise and we seem to be on the brink of nuclear war, but at least we’ve got this album to provide the soundtrack.

Hard-driving Helen Marnie-sung tune Melting Ice, meanwhile, is surely Ladytron's steely attempt at self-aware irony.

Vitality courses through every song on her sixth album.

If Cry Cry Cry had the feel of a band shaking off the cobwebs and getting used to each other’s company once again, Thin Mind leaves no doubt about Wolf Parade’s continued vitality. You instantly feel that renewed vigour in the storming first seconds of the opening Under Glass.

There's still some banjo-pickin' and fiddle-playing, but The Long Way's clean, soft-rockin' vibe is striking in contrast to the traditional bluegrassy leanings of 2002's Home.

Houndmouth resurrect a blistering, off-its-hinges breed of Americana complete with tangible wild heart and soul.