Pylon is propulsive, girder-heavy and demands to be played loud. But like the best of their oeuvre, from early single Requiem to last album MMXII, it features chord progressions of intense melodic beauty like glimmers of the divine shining through the depths of hell.

Like all Los Lobos albums this owes little to anything else, the band single-mindedly going their own way--and getting away with an extraordinary collection.

Across nine one-word titled songs, Barlow finds a kind of peace while dabbling in self-loathing, alongside domesticity and redemption.

Happily, it’s been worth the wait as Silver Bullets is fresh, exhilarating and the most essential Chills LP since the critically acclaimed Submarine Bells.

The predictability of Alone In The Universe is its strongest suit, these are all cast-iron songs that will sit on an ELO retrospective beamed down from that spaceship in 10538 and nobody would imagine they were released 40 years after their golden age.

It is a salve, and a beautiful, mysterious thing, which doesn’t necesarily need to be anything more than a beautiful, mysterious thing, however many hours of labour and technical nous have been spent crafting it.

Hayman’s lyrics, vocals and musicianship add up to a frequently touching whole. One wonders though if the presence of others has previously helped smooth out any little wrinkles.

Respectful, then, but not set in aspic.

EL VY provide a more synthetic, but strangely more earworm-riddled, sound that’s great for casual fans, but less emotionally demanding for hardcore Nationalists.

Make no mistake, this is a chilling album, but one with just enough of Haines’ own addictive madness to charm. Best take cover.

This material represents the label’s least easily translatable zone, startling to--and still held dear by--an 80s audience only just adjusting to drum machine funk, but now dated in a way that Adrian Sherwood’s more earthy reggae recordings and totemic pieces with name acts are not. That is not to say that it is unworthy of investigation, though.

There are touches of Warren Zevon in the title track and a smidgen of Squeeze in string-laden first single A Little Smile (from the Amsterdam session, which elsewhere features guest vocalist Mitchell Sink), but the lyrics are typically wordy Jackson fare and ensure continuity.

Punchy, purposeful and convincingly contemporary, it’s frequently spiced-up with exhilarating examples of the band’s trademark, Television-esque guitar duels.

Fading Frontier seems to be Deerhunter’s most crystal-clear record to date. Nine times out of 10, it’s precisely this clarity that allows their miasma of messages to hit home the hardest.

Bob Ezrin’s production is solid throughout, but the whole thing basically sounds like rock stars having fun on their day off.

Good Sad Happy Bad feels like a curio: a work-in-progress raw recording that hints at better things to come rather than the real deal.

Despite some dubious song titles, that horrible “supergroup” tag and annoying residual longing from White purists, Dodge And Burn is a sweet pill to swallow.

Too many of the witty lines feel forced to scan, and the electronics, once subtle and suggestive, are heavy-handed. There are charms though. Down Here is lusciously Eels-like, and Tracey Thorn’s star role on Disappointing vamps with a definite strut. It’s just, after PGG’s fabulous right turn, for this album to plough forwards in the same direction seems a wasted opportunity.

It isn’t completely nonny-less, but it’s folk more in the tradition of Topic’s Voice Of The People series of pub-sourced field recordings than in the tradition of Orwell’s sandal-wearing, fruit-drinking nudists.

With its best songs vividly referencing the 70s South London landscape of Difford and Tilbrook’s youth, FTCTTG is frequently nostalgic, yet it’s largely upbeat and mostly eminently radio-friendly.

You will hear her work ethic throughout, positively Spartan, and tinged with rueful truth. A courtly service for all to attend.

The faster, rhythmic tracks are less convincing, though they can excite on occasion, but it’s this mish-mash of successes that make the album jar, and not in the way HeCTA would have desired.

McDowall is very much in charge of proceedings, even if her confidence in the recordings has had to be bolstered by fans in the intervening years.

What Mind Over Matter does exceptionally well is meld the playful and the cynical while always bringing it back to the songs--in both a lyrical and musical sense.

Rawlings emerges from his usual behind-the-scenes role with considerable originality and quiet authority on an album of entirely original songs.

The overall mood is, ironically, not dissimilar to drifting in and out of consciousness while the TV murmurs in the background, occasionally jolting you awake with a ringing phone or a spray of gunfire.

The bonus disc corrals the single Pool Hall Richard and the jokey trumpet version of I Wish It Would Rain. Faces didn’t outstay their welcome and never took themselves that seriously.

Yours, Dreamily is tight without purpose, bordered where it should be wild, and only occasionally feels alive at all.

The flipside of all the editorial freedom is that rather too much of the album is made up of endless midtempo guitar chug, which can feel like a bit of a chore after a while.

Musically there’s nothing new here, though Anthems For Doomed Youth feels particularly sanitised, especially compared to the freewheeling, ragged approach that gave The Libertines’ first two albums such charm.

You Against You, which benefits from that unpredictable, bolted-together feel that all the craziest Slayer songs possess; and Implode, the first advance single released last year, and now re-recorded. The rest, unfortunately, lack spark.

So it’s an album that demands your attention.

While labours of love are always hard to knock, if Godin is trying to convert untested ears to Bach’s charms, he might be better off using the more effective tools in his impressive arsenal.

There are times when Music Complete seems like the result of a newly passionate group’s desire to squeeze a decade-worth of ideas--and another quarter century of influences--onto one album. That said, it’s still their best work since the age of Republic.

Consistent with the band’s work since All Is Dream, wide-eyed odes to the elements are interspersed with fragile ruminations on relationships. A welcome return.

Ones And Sixes sees Low churning out some of their most accessible work, with What Part Of Me having the potential to be an unlikely hit. As ever, strong stuff in every way.

The man is a master guitarist--and an unflashy one, content to let a wash of pedal steel or a sprig of piano commandeer the songs.

Rattle That Lock is a small, intimate album that maintains Gilmour’s impeccably tasteful quality threshold throughout.

An eccentric take on Please, Please, Please is maybe surplus to requirements, but the rest is lean and lithe.

The songs aren’t a huge departure from Folds’ regular style, with sweet melodies, vocal harmonies and lyrics that switch between the quirky and the emotional.

A record that’s strongest when at its most unassuming.

La Di Da Di comes across a tad too studied, never lifting out of the complex math of the group’s music.

This is a landmark project in that respect, much of which succeeds in being thoroughly bewitching.

The first album in this collection is a rather spotty affair, suffused with dread, as if the band are suddenly experiencing a moment of self-awareness. Still, by most other group’s standards it would be a career stand-out. It’s Leaves Turn Inside You, though, on which Unwound’s legacy rests. A thrillingly diverse exploration of the possibilities of rock’n’roll.

Though recorded cheaply, The JPSE’s early material remains especially sublime.

As with the name (the band is actually from NYC), there’s a satisfying contrariness throughout a curious and sometimes excellent set.

Another excellent studio album of all-new material.

It’s a consistent and often stirring effort, with Liebling in particular sounding on fine form.

Invite The Light is music to soundtrack late-night drives on LA freeways and, when it works, it’s sublime stuff.

If you only buy one multi-disc set by soul legends whose work spans seven decades, make it this one.

Throughout, shimmering walls of guitar give way to echoing, spacey psychedelia; riffery and frantic drumming; tuneful asides and emotional rampage.

There’s enough originality, guile, and plain old-school hip-hop verve here to make this stand on its own.

It’s a sturdy, muscular affair wherein Lydon rants energetically about everything from blocked toilets to Botox and the iCloud, on quintessentially cranky, ruck-friendly fare such as Double Trouble and I’m Not Satisfied.

The album isn’t radically different from the five other records Motörhead have made with Webb since Inferno, in 2004.

When in sharp focus, the sound is utterly charming, with Le Bon’s almost trademark Welsh tones a fine match for the amp buzz and Presley’s meandering guitar lines. Too often, though, it spills into whimsy, lacks direction and frequently infuriates.

Available on vinyl for the first time, and heralding the reissue of Jansch’s entire catalogue, Live At The 12 Bar is a cut above many of the similar live captures of Jansch’s work.

The band lace all 14 tracks from Psychocandy with attitude, adrenaline and volume: their collective belligerence peaking during Never Understand and the relentless metallic KO of Inside Me.

Things become a little more introspective later on, with acoustic guitars, abstract soundscapes and restrained percussive patterns taking the fore, but, thankfully, the material remains hypnotic throughout.

It’s hard not to be cynical about such repackaging, even if the music within is so special.

It’s the kind of album that’s easy to grow very attached to: a personal, secret soundtrack likely to be loved by many.

On his 11th album, that gloss is pared down, revealing just how well-crafted and intricate Bejar’s songs have become.

The whole is a little too tethered to the (partially incomprehensible) songs to drift off effectively, and is too morose to uplift, yet The Telescopes continue to own a certain core sensibility--and the capacity to surprise with how they express it.

You’d be hard pushed to find a more beguiling soundtrack for late summer evenings.

At the very heart of Elitism…, however, are The Modern Dance and Dub Housing: the two extraordinary slabs of wax upon which Ubu’s reputation largely rests. The result of a brief liaison with major label Chrysalis, Dub Housing arguably enjoys the better production, but it’s on The Modern Dance that Ubu thrillingly realised their self-styled avant-garage sound.

Despite scoring plenty of high moments, there is a sameness to this collection, which can become trying on repeat listens.

It’s a fabulous voyage that delights at every unexpected turn.

It’s an absorbing, plaintive record that gets under your skin.

Despite being classed as a mini-album running to eight tracks, this is DeMarco’s most fulfilling and cohesive release to date.

What’s significant about this box set is that it illustrates the major phases of Miles’ career in a live context, charting his journey from hard bop--via modal jazz and free bop--to jazz-rock and avant-funk.

Musically, the Virginians deliver a thrash/groove metal brew broadly similar to that of their previous albums, but that’s not to say there isn’t a wide range of textures, from all-out blasts to subtle acoustic tones.

Dalton gets her dues and other voices gain welcome exposure.

How Far Will You Go? is generally closer to The Rocky Horror Picture Show... and is accordingly tremendous fun.

They’re a classic singles band, but Jason Williamson’s pit of needle-sharp, evocative lyrics seems bottomless, so here comes another meaty full-length selection.

Some of the material threatens to drown in a mire of painfully bland songwriting and sleepwalking guest appearances.

Radial, a 17-minute symphony in three parts: first, a foreboding, dark-tinged awakening, replete with nonhuman sounds in the vocal register; after six minutes the band comes in with another trademark minor-key song; then a final, tense, otherworldly coda hinting at stranger worlds to come.

On paper, such an ambitious sonic reinvention could easily be dismissed as an overblown conceit, yet in reality this new Classic Quadrophenia soars.

What could have been an embarrassment is a quiet triumph.

A welcome return to form.

Despite the great weight of hype, Tame Impala have evolved into a satisfyingly altered form, both alien and humming.

With nary a filler in sight, it’s an exquisite, richly evocative listen infused with the very smoke and steamy atmosphere of its natural nightclub habitat.

Though clearly indebted to Joy Division and Metal Box-era PiL, the band’s two official 45s, Final Achievement and the IV Songs EP, remain compellingly bleak post-punk snapshots, while their lone John Peel session (posthumously released as the Fin EP, and featuring the intense, 11-minute The Fatal Day) reveals just how formidable a unit In Camera were developing into on their own terms.

What it has is a mood, a continuing tone; and it’s a shimmering thing with pastoral chimes that fervently calls the faithful.

The album’s momentum admittedly falters on less essential tracks such as the dub-infused, 10-minute sprawl of In The Graveyard, but it’s soon regained on Do The Supernova and the defiant 21st Century Man.

True, goofy lyrics are littered about, and the questionable Babble On seems a misfiring pot-shot at global religion/terrorism, but Subculture is a surprisingly potent cocktail: far more insightful and balanced than it might first get mistaken for.

Rising above the occasion, Rickie is still getting up close and personal with the listener.

Sadly, Wyman can neither sing nor write a decent song.

Walk Dance Talk Sing documents something that may work best in the live arena.

Rewarding, yet keep it familiar at the same time.

While the album is relatively low-key and meandering, that’s arguably what we want from The Orb--and hence it might just be the one you’ve been waiting on from them for 20 years.

There’s a void at the album’s centre; edges so rounded they’re virtually flat.

So they’re not reinventing the wheel, but Willie and Merle are comfortable in their own company.

The performances are sterling and there’s a clear intention to deliver rounded albums, not just drifting techno selections.

There are some familiarly sunny pop moments on here, including Hearts Are For Breaking, which trundles along like a Deborah Harry solo single, and the rather nice Take The Silver, a nu-folk single in the making, featuring The Rails and including a brilliant three-part vocal chorus.

While not the cutting-edge of US punk, it’s still a wholly engaging retread.

All 11 tracks are evocative and addictive.

The voice has held up well, the fingers are still nimble and, if you’re a devoted fan, you won’t be disappointed.

It’s an all-killer-no-filler collection that sees the band benefiting from a bedded-in Mick Taylor’s influence and the colossal confidence that being...

There’s something rather standoffish about Tenderness as a whole.