The group are at their best when melding reverb-soaked, crunchy multiple guitar layers, playing with dynamics atop a kind of jungle-drum thump.

This is a great country album to boot: full of great craft and guile, no small bitterness and a cracking production from Ray Kennedy.

Citizen Zombie is more disciplined and linear than its epochal predecessors, yet it also reveals that its creators remain a force to be reckoned with.

While this is a project of inherently limited appeal, many of its 14 tracks certainly work better than one might otherwise expect.

Aureate Gloom continues in this vein but, while Sylvianbriar was Barnes’ most mellow offering yet, this album is more aggressive and troubled.

Shadow Of The Sun expands their palette, mushes those hues over one another and deliberately, deliciously, paints them outside the lines in a glorious mash of fuzz.

The album proper finds an omnipotent Led Zep still within hailing distance of the top of their game.

They’ve fashioned a rich and powerfully diverse record.

On the whole, Fresh Blood is an often difficult journey that’s still worth taking.

There’s a light, electronic dusting to many of these songs, but on tracks such as The Pain Of Never, Marc’s distinctive vocals have rarely sounded richer and warmer.

This one challenges in its immediacy, with an emphasis on melody that twists into more muscular signatures so that listeners are never quite sure of the ground they’re on. Meanwhile, in the words and music, there is spellbinding poignancy and aching beauty.

Best here are the former Free/Sharks bassist Andy Fraser uncurling his immortal taut funk on Shock Treatment and New York’s Robert Gordon crooning I Still Love You with quivering pathos.

Adamski’s productions have moved with the times, while keeping references to the piano-rave era (though inviting us to Pump Up The Waltz might trigger less happy flashbacks). If there is a key weakness, however, it’s Adamski’s soft spot for a shaky cover.

The band’s full-length debut has spent a long time in the works, but it’s nonetheless an impressive statement of intent.

Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon is another collection that showcases the band’s strengths: Dave Tattersall’s winning way with a pithy short-story of a lyric, and hook-laden songs punctuated by bursts of savage lead guitar.

Brooks, though, stands out by dint of a nimble melodic touch, compositional sophistication and a broader historical frame of references. This makes From Out Here both satisfying and hard to pin down.

If you like your house served tartare then this is an uncommon delight: 15 brutally raw tracks to smack, jack, bump, pump, pop and drop your way through.

Hayman may fall short of fully embracing the Victorian utopian dreams of his source material, yet a communitarian spirit of which Morris would have approved pervades.

For the most part, this album of amiable desert blues lacks the fire that lit up its predecessor.

Certainly, Childish should never be making laptop beats or recruiting choirs from the DRC, but there might be a sense that his sound needs fresh vigour.

Hold On It’s Easy is in fact one of Cornershop’s most difficult works, for all the wrong reasons.

It all adds up to reaffirm that The Unthanks are among the most quietly accomplished groups around.

Roberts’ latest work is full of sonic space and warmth: an intimate and classically manifested set of tracks in which his melodic arpeggio fingerwork on the guitar is reflected by a soft and expressive voice.

Hexadisc is, for the most part, a difficult listen that doesn’t really seem particularly groundbreaking.

The old sarcasm and spite that made the first few records such evil fun is still here--in particular on Long Haired Punks and Grinding Teeth--and while speedy thrash beats aren’t present, miserably filthy and heavy drone riffs are--a step forward.

No Cities To Love is Sleater- Kinney’s most focused, accessible and often furious work.

It’s not the second coming of Ironman, but tracks such as Love Don’t Live Here No More, Emergency Procedure, Homicide and Blood On The Streets make this one of the best Wu-related releases of recent years, confirming Ghostface as its most consistently engaging member.

It’s a bold and vibrant experiment that, over its beguiling 40 minutes, realigns the piece’s hypnotic power to the trance-inducing qualities inherent in Malian music.