While its beauty may be a bit abstract for some, Mother is intense without being dark or oppressive; timeless, a windswept, life-affirming work that makes more conventional music seem stale and staid by comparison.

Tight drums that bring The Smiths to mind hold the whole thing down, as guitars and bass sparkle, their counterpoint (not to mention reverb applied with a trowel) creating a comic-book cool atmosphere throughout. Throw a few saxes into the mix and you’ve got yourself a vintage-yet-modern rock’n’roll classic.

While many elements of the 10 “love songs” on Mount Qaf are competent, deftly crafted efforts betraying a lifetime of attention paid to such things, any Walkmen magic is rarely present.

If you sometimes miss Tigers’ unruly improv-tumult, the pay-off is an album of poised beauty with its own pocket-universe logic, exemplified by the softly searching communion of synthetic/organic sounds on Marsh Chorus.

The emotional climax of The Little Things That Give You Away is one of several moments that promise more than the album as a whole can deliver.

As anyone cognisant with the likes of Tuff Life Boogie, Putta Block and Butterflies 4 Brains already knows, these discs aren’t without their misfires, but when doubled with their respective A-side partners, the likes of No Bulbs, Wings, Lucifer Over Lancashire and Brix’s majestic LA all lend their weight to the argument that--regardless of their chart positions--The Fall are long overdue recognition as one of the great British singles bands of the past 40 years.

These eight experimental tunes combine the old and the new, but funnel the former through the latter to such an extent there’s very little distinction between them. It’s an approach that’s much more successful on the shorter tracks here.

While there isn’t anything here that leaps out with quite the immediacy of Dunn slam-dunks such as Face The Nation, everything has the assured touch of a master, and will undoubtedly re-establish Dunn among the sea of young pretenders currently working in this zone.

He breathily conjures up memories of the excellent recent Anohni album, and drops an ominous-sounding male voice choir into the mix for good measure. The industrial vibes are there in the rhythms, but softened immensely by clean Scandi strings. One to keep an eye on.

From Wanna Sip’s opening videogame blitzkrieg to the Blade Runner drones of Mustn’t Hurry, Plunge is a complete thrill.

While there’s plenty of thrilling rock’n’roll here, his faith also gives us some flat-out gorgeous moments.

Wherever you turn, exuberance and invention are generously served.

Pinballing between modern fright and fervent fight, I Can Feel You... exults in the thrill of self-determined discovery.

Tthis dark horse of a debut isn’t just vastly superior to most of the recycled indie landfill swilling around--it’s one of the most emotionally-charged guitar-based debuts to be unleashed over the past 12 months.

Four Stones is not quite as immediate as his previous collection, but McPhee’s work is remarkably underrated and all well worth hearing.

By its very nature, RTVD is eclectic, and there is an obvious element of hit or miss to contend with. The sequencing isn’t fantastic, and the compilation does lose focus at times. It does however do what it sets out to do; it explores, and gives a good sense of the ways in which African-American music of the late 60s and 70s splintered off in different directions and absorbed outside influences.

At their best, Garrie’s songs are tender, well-observed vignettes of a life well travelled, mostly on dusty French roads with a bar at the end. At their not-so-best, Garrie’s lyrics are more than a touch hokey (the quite frankly awful Boy Soldier) while the jauntier back bar numbers (Bacardi Samuel) are for Francophiles only. The Moon & The Village is destined to again divide punters and purists. One for fans new and old it is.

This is a great place to start--and possibly to end.

What strikes you as the cast of thousands run through the Guthrie repertoire on these three discs is just how singable they were--Woody played fast and loose with his melodies, but his words still score and sear.

All Together Again proves to be a warm and diverse collection of mostly unreleased pieces for a series of commissions over the last 10 years.

There are a few misses here but Unleash The Love is a fun upbeat song that bounces along with the help of a choir, and both Pisces Brother and Cool Head, Warm Heart are strong ballads that sit comfortably in the live set of the touring Beach Boys. ... Disc Two is a head scratcher.

If maturity is on the Bad Boys’ lyrical agenda on the sardonically titled Rot, letting up the pace is not.

It’s a refined downer, enriched by self-lacerating wit (I Only Smoke When I Drink), indie-boy piss-takes (Sleeperbloke), story-song skills (unwanted-pregnancy tale Johnny (Have You Come Lately)) and briefly off-guard touches of synth-pop wistfulness (Big Blue Moon).

Goin’ Platinum, meanwhile, places him in Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio with his house band--comprising guitarist Duane Eddy (yes, that one) plus Memphis Boys Gene Chrisman and Bobby Woods--and the results elevate his work even higher.

Perhaps a little inconsistent, Habibi Funk packs a lot of charisma, and on balance delivers the goods.

Their eighth studio LP, is fearsome stuff. Tracks like The Grind, Lung and A Slow Reaction display perfectly pitched aggression to fine effect but Unsane are at their best when they allow a circular groove to really take hold and lock down for the duration. Not all is quite as compelling--Distance and Avail feel rather leaden, but this remains a fierce listen.

If the trappings are lovably stiff and arthritic, the songs are zeitgeist thunderbolts--especially so when a baying, screaming audience charges the very air with O-face abandon.

The remixes mostly offer lush versions festooned with synths, offering a glimpse of how the album might have sounded had Stevens followed a different path in the studio.