A collection of great songs, to the point where exorcising the spoken word passages would have created a more sharply focused set.

While his fourth record is still a thing of beauty, it’s a fractal work that splinters off into bursts of grandiose noise and multi-layered, multi-instrumental wonder; you’d describe it as comfortably at the opposite end of the musical spectrum to early songs like Lookout, Lookout and No Tear.

Easy Machines allows Baird’s vocals to shine, a hushed album, possibly the more introspective.

An often flat-out beautiful curio from an inspired mind.

It’s a delightfully trippy treat that improves with each encounter and deserves to build on the success of Loveless--an aching ballad that, to these ears, likely had some genesis in the work of electronic pop pioneers Alphaville.

As ever, it’s all played with impeccably economical style, tight-as-a-drum country shuffles with occasional jazz excursions; the work of a bona fide legend who’s never sounded more alive.

Moore’s followers will glory in the winding passages of guitars scratched, spiked, stroked and droned, now with the added bonus of fuzzy solos from latest axe accomplice James Sedwards.

True, distinction is not at a premium. But if the job for now is to keep mosh-pits lively while adding chasers of personality and long-term promise, the melodiously snarky Pull The Other One and all-together-now anthem Formidable offer crowning evidence of a job well done.

he Last Rider is yet another confident stride along that path, and anyone with a passion for smart and savvy grown-up pop is enthusiastically urged to follow him wherever it leads.

The thing about Mulcahy is that he can try on all of these voices and it never once feels contrived, the sensitivity of his readings means you believe in him. That, along with the quality and variety of songwriting makes Possum a rare gift.

Great vocals are a bit of a given here. The real treat is in discovering just how eclectic Gargoyle has turned out to be.

The lyrical dimension jars a bit painfully with the generally highly serviceable blasts of clanging, paint-stripping, mildly experimental, and somewhat extended rock.

Humanz’s flaw is what gives it its energy: like the scattered flashes of (mis) information flying out from every handheld and household device, the album throws it all at you in one gloriously delirious barrage that has no real anchor. Richly energised and energising, it’s not only infectious for the listener.

All This I Do For Glory is a triumph of ingenuity, a genuinely experimental work that echoes with the multi-faceted cries of the human soul.

It could run the risk of being a bit of a patchwork in its revolving styles and cast of five vocalists, but it works perfectly in being an ensemble creation that taps into a hazy nostalgia vibe.

The sigh of relief provoked by Doom Or Destiny morphs into a mile-wide smile as Pollinator unfurls some of the most resonant music Blondie have recorded during their second phase.

Fujiya & Miyagi is the sound of a band no longer press darlings (see 2006’s Transparent Things), but not old enough for local festivals just yet. And it’s that tension that gives us the band’s most confident LP for ages.

It’s as capricious and confusing as it sounds, yet the overall result is one of surprising cohesion.

The feel is desolate, doomed and desperate combining their hallowed 60s Texan psych with 80s and 90s influences. If not instant, it’s a grower.

Ray Davies’ dreams and reality combine to make Americana an absorbing listen. Just touching an hour in length, it is as curious and rewarding as anything he has ever done.

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.