Beautiful as it sounds, Double Roses largely reminds you of other things without ever fully settling into itself. It’s deft and accomplished, but Elson has yet to fully bloom into her own talent.

They have that whole male/female duality down to a tee as well. It’s just that a few more sonic peaks and troughs wouldn’t go amiss.

Beneath the noisy sludge and distorted mire of these six tracks there lives a gorgeous, golden majesty.

It is, like its predecessor, a beguiling union of east and west--an album that quickly establishes its own universe and welcomes you in, with its reference points of Indian classical music, jazz, kosmische and dub.

Sincerely captures the mood of our dislocated times with style and bite.

Prolific in output, both together and in their separate projects, Sorcerer reflects a relentless drive to create something that’s restless and demanding in its realisation.

Records of this clout and calibre are ringing endorsements that Crowell is his own man.

It’s not so much that Robyn Hitchcock (the album) resonates with sonic surprise: its default paradigm of dense, shimmering neo-psychedelia is a home comfort that has sustained Hitchcock from The Soft Boys onwards. It’s more the fact that the bendy mirror through which he refracts experience offers a sharper view year upon year.

Like Hacquard, Fussell has the gift of the gab, born to tell his tales with a dark humour that raises these fabulous fables up to splendid life.

Arguably not as good as his main act, it’s still a welcome addition from an otherwise “non-moonlighting” type.

It’s a witty, endlessly creative look at where we are, where music is right now and what’s next; it all makes for essential listening.

Temple Of I & I is the most rounded and enjoyable album of theirs to date.

This is probably their best record in years--so jump on board.

Rarely dipping below engaging, Doris is a welcome return that could all too easily have been dashed off or worse, ended up morbid.

A Common Truth is mountainous and haunting, yet also exhibits a certain vulnerability.

The feeling is one of two planets that happened to get into each other’s orbit, with pleasing results. Hopefully they’ll eclipse again soon.

Nightmare Logic says it all over eight tracks in a damn near perfect 35 minutes.

Employing a Drake-like emotional honesty (though thankfully minus the Canadian’s tendency for self-pity) he recounts unflinching vignettes of Seattle street-life shot through with harrowing biographical details.

An exciting follow up to 2014’s Foundations Of Burden that edges the band’s sound forward while keeping sight of what they do best, Heartless is a glorious open wound that bleeds melody. Right on.

Unbelievably good and groundbreaking, even at a point in heavy metal history when every third band sounds more like Pink Floyd than Pantera.

While Find Me Finding You won’t necessarily offend dyed-in-the-woofer Stereolab aficionados--no apple need ever fall far from such an efflorescent tree--it still successfully stakes out a corner of its own, its abstract yet meticulously formal layers suggesting an aural Mondrian painting.

Holter is a master at conjuring up beguiling atmospherics. Here, backed by her usual live touring accompaniment of drums, viola and double bass she concocts a variety of striking permutations on familiar work.

While the album’s rear end succumbs to repetition, redemption arrives in the wistful Day Glow Fire and a bright-eyed duet with Debbie Harry on Shadows, where romantic doubts are treated as a spur to dream bigger.

If at times Silver Eye is easy to admire yet difficult to love, you are never that far from a tremendous hook or captivating vocal.

The messages of richly-orchestrated missives like Gun Clap Hero deserve to be heard; hopefully their contagious settings will take them to the masses.

The Navigator knows in which direction to head. Hurray indeed.

A sultry take on Burt Bacharach’s The Look Of Love, pitch-perfect version of Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage and an emotive rendering of Ruby Andrews’ soul classic Casanova (Your Playing Days Are Over), are among the highlights on this welcome boon for lovers of high-grade instrumental funk.

On Spirit, Depeche Mode aren’t quite repeating themselves, nor is there real revolution in their sound. But they are nevertheless going forwards, and fans will be happy to join the march.