Konnichiwa isn’t just the sound of young Britain, but a bar-raising example of just how creative UK music can be.

As a whole it’s all rather wearing; it’s a space oddity that doesn’t quite have lift-off.

On this latest effort, Edwards conjures echoes of various esteemed mongers of sweet-melodied sadness but never manages to equal their miserable majesty. At the same time, he fails to stamp much of his own individuality on the collection.

Fellow musos will stroke their beards over this uncompromising pop compromise and devotees of the group’s collaborators will dig it up as a surprising bit of deep catalogue.

After the lengthy wait, at over 20 tracks and about an hour long, Wildflower doesn’t skimp on quantity even if it does resemble a pent-up outpouring of everything The Avalanches have completed (or at least legally cleared), rather than a meticulously curated collection.

At times it’s like the aural equivalent of wandering round a sparsely-attended fairground; there are echoes of a pop melody drifting alongside an eerie waltz, or the frenzy of a whispered lyric that cuts through somehow, despite its subtlety.

There’s feisty attitude in abundance here but significantly, also substance and sincerity behind the rhetoric. Sensational stuff.

In between more scattered wibblings, (sometimes overly) damaged yet lush textures abound on this long but often rather good and shoegazing-influenced record, the vocalist’s true worth finally being illustrated on the naked Purpose (Is No Country).

Spring King might have plenty of bangers, but they should switch up their MO more often.

It’s more of a reaffirmation of what Plaid have always been--dancing between the clever and the clever-clever, always remembering that you need to have gone clubbing to enjoy any post-club chill out.

There are a couple of tracks that veer rather too close for comfort to boy band and eurovision territory, but for the most part, assuming you like the better end of synth-pop, you won’t be disappointed.

Post Plague is stronger, more menacing and, as ever, on good terms with melody.

The results are messy, fascinating and frustrating all at once.

Her most assured album yet and one that will undoubtedly garner her some well-deserved attention.

These are not easy songs to sing, but Harvey, more than anyone, gets to the heart of darkness within even the most luscious Gainsbourg arrangement.

An appropriately joyful and celebratory eulogy.

The Colour In Anything is wall-to-wall longing for old flames and tales of relationships in freefall. It’s also infinitely beautiful; a meshing of gloomy piano and club-ready sounds that show Blake still can’t quite be pinned down.

It’s not all essential--Yellow Stone is a bit of instrumental filler, and you’ve heard everyday metal like Silvera far too many times already--but the high points are satisfyingly high.

While this is unlikely to achieve the same status [as their debut], it proves that these veterans are definitely not yet ready for the scrapheap.

Fun, typically subversive and largely memorable, Copeland’s latest work could be one of his most enduring, whether we were meant to hear it or not. Makes you wonder what else he’s got up his sleeve.

Ever-evolving they may be, but Satomi’s oddball pop songs are another band staple; this time they deliver the cutesy, punky, and thoroughly entertaining Nurse Me.

Earle’s slurring nonchalance and Colvin’s precise delivery are a joy as they weave around each other amid squealing harmonica and distorted, rocking guitars. The result is very much a band (rather than acoustic) album.

An aural pool party for anyone who digs the nu-Baleric compilations of Psychemagik and Too Slow To Disco.

Along with equally genre-transcending Ryley Walker and James Blackshaw, here is stunning proof that Tompkins Square have serious intentions beyond the reissue market. Watch this space, listen to Brigid Mae Power.

It may be a touch overlong and that relentlessly 80s production won’t be for everyone’s ears, but this is a triumph.

Occasionally you find yourself flinching at how closely Biffy Clyro have adhered to the uplifting radio-rock format.

It’ll be a shock to the system for Futureheads fanatics anticipating herky-jerky guitar pop, but with the distraught Monster Again, nakedly vulnerable Thunder Song and the graceful, elegiac titular song standing out; it makes for an intensely cathartic and wholly absorbing experience for listeners prepared to dump their preconceptions at the door.

Winningly, their wit is matched by a thrilling, fizzing set of noisy, melodic songs that ought to inspire utter devotion and soundtrack many, many summers of abandon and heartbreak.

Far from instant, spectral in feel and altogether dark in tone, The Bride is a challenge--although one with glorious pay-offs. Fans expecting the poppier sheen of Daniel or What’s A Girl To Do? might be disappointed, its treasures lie just beneath its surface.

It’s true, Love & Hate will win no prizes for innovation. But this s more than just gussied up heritage soul to peddle to nostalgic baby-boomers.

All the pieces are beautifully composed and played, as you would expect from someone whose orchestral arrangements are sought by artists ranging from Gorillaz to Katherine Jenkins, but what Postcards From really needs is an accompanying, immersive Virtual Reality video experience that would allow us to see, and understand, what Brice heard.

Genuinely experimental, A Hermitage is a tremendously exciting release which demonstrates there is still new territory to be explored in heavier music; it need not always rely on tried and tested formulae. Jambinai are proof that it is better to be brave.

It seems to exist almost in spite of itself, careening energetically down paths it desperately wants to avoid. To that extent, Blood//Sugar// Secs//Traffic is a cacophony of contradiction, but one very much worth investigating.

Capsule Sickness boasts a warmer tone, if one that lacks direction, unlike the fuller sound of Crux with its sharply distorted, decidedly un-humanlike “vocals”. Other tracks stalk the no-man’s land between noise music and techno, constantly threatening to stomp on any unexploded landmines just to see how impressive a sound that might make.

It’s infused with enough rhythmical disturbances and difficult time signatures that it ends up straying far from that path. It’s still full of joy and wonder, but there’s an extra element of wilful confusion. While it makes these songs less accessible at first, in the long run, if you stick with it, it actually adds to their clout.

No one ever asked The Monkees to be anything more than pratfalling archetypes who could act and sing a bit, yet they asked more of themselves than they needed to; and they’re digging deep again today.

Oscar is still finding his feet but with promise like this--and the irresistible Sometimes--there will be plenty of room for him when the time comes.

It’s an album to truly cherish.

Holy Ghost [is] their best effort yet.

All the members’ parent groups are associated with dramatic music, but arguably in quite different styles, and the first few numbers are what you’d expect Editors to produce if they got hold of previous collaborator Goswell and placed her inappropriately high in the mix.

Frontman Jake Webb’s lyrics are often as intricate and tangled as his weaving guitar lines.

This mischievous ethos has rarely been better displayed than on this often uneasy listening set from Berlin-based, old-school activist DJs Graef and Astro who, after name-making solo careers, came together last year to form their Money $ex imprint as a platform for their woozy marriages of obscure vinyl sensibility and startling aural foraging.

Their sitar-heavy take on the genre incorporates a variety of outside influences, though it’s a penchant for krautrock which yields the best results on this fourth album.

LUH can write a spirited song, that’s for sure, but if you’re not ready, forget it.

It makes for an uneven, unbalanced experience that, sadly, is better on paper than in practice.

By the spangled keyboards, spectral funk and squalling sax of closing pair Toots and Teeth, Van Dinther has successfully forged his own new personal universe, showing jazz’s original questing spirit still alive, kicking and able to make new sonic waves.

It’s an album that feels reflective but forward-thinking, observing a time and space but interpreting it in a way that all can appreciate.

Crisply produced by Glyn Johns, working with EC for the first time since Slowhand, the record proves a remarkably rewarding listen.

On Teens Of Denial, Car Seat Headrest makes his case for being leader of the pack.

This time, with another dance music stalwart in Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung on producing duties, Orton shows no fear in heading into the electronic void, with some of her most eclectic and exciting tracks to date.

The nine sizzling tracks here may fly by, but reveal a true pioneer still firing on his much-abused cylinders.

Piano is a solo work through and through. Simple, yes, but considered, dignified and something of a palate cleanser too, wherein everything seems reset.

Thankfully, despite all this period charm, Air’s music more than holds up today.

A Moon Shaped Pool represents a return to the ambition and perfectionism that has characterised their best work.

An instrumental album that never fails to hold the listeners attention, with a plethora of quotable passages and delightful moments. A coming of age album.

Though there are innumerable influences at work here, it is blessed with an offbeat and singular charm.

It’s all very pretty and pleasant, but whereas Smith Westerns burned with the emotions of their songs, Whitney seem rather more detached from theirs. Which, as easy-going as these 10 songs are, renders them more as temporary, unconvincing background music. It’s nice for a while, but their effects soon give way to the winds of truth and reality.

[The Glowing Man] finds Swans ever so slightly more playful, and on the cusp of a new era.

Musically it’s a side trip to the shop of horrors.

It’s a psychedelic North American road trip, coloured in by touring member Brent Cordero’s Farfisa and Wurlitzer, adding a fleeting but panoramic sense of wide blue yonder here, and a taste of honey there, to these otherwise introverted and haunting tunes.

[A] challenging, deeply odd at times and hugely enjoyable album.

A Melvins selection box of sorts, Basses Loaded is packed with delights.

Craft’s intention is to take the listener “off into the clear night of Joshua Tree” and there are certainly moments when he achieves that. It’s not quite the same Joshua Tree of Gram Parsons or U2 but that’s the thing about deserts--they bring you up against yourself.

While it’s churlish to accuse the young of veering towards the childish, the frustration from some of the outré moments on I, Gemini only comes as a result of the satisfaction derived from the more involved, accomplished half of the record.

A rare example of a collaborative album that reflects well on everybody involved.

Relief all round then that their fifth album is a shimmering thing of beauty; a fresh summer breeze blowing in full of character and heart and sweeping away the dirge and disappointment of their last outing.

What you’re left with is the impression of an artist with her receptors fully open, resulting in a debut reaching far more emotional touch points than you’d expect.

They focus on the mundane without giving much life to it, leaving the songs hypnotic when they’re playing, but hard to remember when they’re not.

It’s no River II, though perhaps with a bit of harsh pruning, it could’ve been a carefully edited and extended version that preserved the blues-vs-bossa split of the original vinyl. What The Other Side of The River most definitely does offer, though, is proof that beyond those superlungs that still belt out the 60s cover versions in 2016, it’s from Reid’s breathier excursions that true beauty flows.

While rockers such as Mr Policeman are sufficiently rambunctious (only descending to barroom romping on Willie Dixon’s over-played My Babe), The Rides shine brightest on slower outings such as Stills’ poignant There Was A Place (which sees him lamenting lost friends), Shepherd’s intimate By My Side and Goldberg’s riveting I’ve Got To Use My Imagination, which he wrote in 1973 with Gerry Goffin and became a hit for Gladys Knight & The Pips.

It’s not so much that these two work well together, but that they work well in spite of each other. There are obviously two very different musical personalities on show, but where they meet is a convenient hinterland that somehow manages to honour the music they love.

On an initial spin, the listener likely won’t understand Juarez’s cult appeal or indeed Allen’s own obsession. However, as superbly documented by the excellent liner notes and art prints (reproducing the 1974 lithographs that accompanied the album’s initial 50-run release), repeated listens will quickly have Juarez clawing at the brain and the heart.

There’s an urgency to Paradise, with punishing drums and agitated guitars, but the band never quite embrace the obvious.

Haynes’ mellifluous voice hits home throughout, particularly effective on slower burners such as Tide and Keep Me, invoking a deeper hoodoo on Kingdom Come and Don’t Need It.

An engrossing work in which the organic and electronic intermingle to create complex layers of sound; Felder invites you to explore its singular terrain.

The mellow-vibed Green Aphrodisiac also stands out with its succulent refrain and addictive, jazzy groove. The song’s introspective demeanour reflects the album as a whole, which mostly presents heartfelt meditations on love and life.

Anohni is at her very best when rawly cracking over glacial blasts of percussion.

Although multi-instrumentalist Scott Jacoby’s production reduces the wall of sound to a digital prism, the starker backdrops provide an unobtrusive frame for that towering voice which, while displaying some Marianne Faithfull-style gritty life experience, still sends vintage shivers on her respectful renditions of Sandie Shaw’s Girl Don’t Come, The Beatles’ I’ll Follow The Sun, Ray Davies’ Tired Of Waiting, Gerry Marsden’s Don’t let the Sun Catch You Crying and Lulu’s Oh Me Oh My (I’m A Fool For You Baby).

Some flattening elements that are hard to put your finger on lurk deep in the mix, below the whumping bass and the bewitching sax riffs. These perhaps include the aforementioned vocal treatments or the occasional use of other obviously studio-born effects.

Their dense, clenched teeth sound has allowed them to cross over to rock fans, but can come over a bit try-hard, though that is not to say that the album is anything less than interesting, well put-together, filled with high standard rapping and at times strangely majestic.

Nocturnal Koreans is a testament to their continued relevance.

Day Of The Dead not only represents a triumph of admin on the part of its curators, but the sweetest love letter to the Grateful Dead imaginable. Deadheads will adore it; the unconverted may find themselves a lot more Dead-curious.

It’s a shame then that the music too often tips into the bland, with too much fey folkiness to handle in one sitting.

Santana IV rolls back the years to the time when the band melded spicy percussive Latin grooves with searing blues-rock. Seraphic-voiced Ron Isley fronts a couple of tunes but it’s the spacey, psychedelic instrumental, Fillmore East, and addictive salsa-rock of Anywhere You Want To Go, that impress the most.

Particularly bad is For The Kids, which could come straight from an amateur production of High School Musical (complete with repellent husky spoken-word middle eight), while the just up-to-scratch Beck track, Time Wind, and his presence on the record as a whole, only really serves to illustrate how poor the songs now are.

There are touches of My Morning Jacket in the vocals too, but in chief it is the already-mentioned artists who dominate Dolls Of Highland and if you’ve been missing them a lot, then this is an album not to be missed, filled with yearning and melody.

One hates to say it of a pleasant record, but much of it seems like background music for shiny-looking bars, where people pose around before the action starts.

Lacking a common language (they were forced to communicate via sign language) the sessions--recorded in a garage on the outskirts of Lisbon--have nevertheless resulted in a winning hybrid of styles.

For all the exuberant looseness of their recordings, most remain essentially song-based, skilfully produced and slyly focused.

While there is little new ground being broken on this debut album – DJ Spinna and Onra have both pursued similar territory--Kaytranada adds a pop nous and Dilla-like beat-making precision to the equation.

British Road Movies comfortably flits between exhilaration and devastation, with the production careful to mimic the song’s subjects. It’s an album that firmly points Jackson in a new direction, allowing her to flourish on her own terms.

The sound overall holds the germ of the sort of ominous, steady-paced material that goes over well in stadium support slots.

There’s the odd filler track, such as Phantom Bride--an experimental shriekathon, which even guitar parts from special guest Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains can’t save--but those aside, Gore is an album with the depth and emotional range that Deftones fans have come to expect.

Alas Salvation is defined by being undefinable, and thrives off the surprises it delivers over its 40-plus minutes. If the execution isn’t perfect, it nevertheless reveals a scope of ambition that should serve the three-piece well further down the road.

Take your cues from Twin Peaks and find solace in their best effort yet.

It’s warm, rewarding and a very, very comfortable listen. And therefore definitely not pysch.

Their previous album Tincian revolutionised new Welsh language music and won Best Album at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for its troubles. The follow-up is equally as dark with a dystopian edge that suggests we’re all doomed. Yet there is a salvation of sorts in the band’s glorious three part female harmonies and in lead singer Lisa Jên’s centrifugal force-of-nature presence.

Shauf’s musical ability is impressive, tackling all but the strings, but his vocal tone, much like a bore at a party, is unwavering, Elliott Smith-esque and never with the variety you’d expect meeting 10 new individuals.