All 10 tracks here bear such scars, adding up to a staggering work of honesty, beauty and artistic achievement. It’s hugely impressive on those terms alone... but even more so given everything PVRIS endured in its creation.

What Fucked Up have done here is to take what they've been honing for the past 10 years and go one better, adding lush female vocals and celestial, electronica-inspired effects in an effort to constantly titillate and surprise.

This album does ooze quality though and has enough flourishes of originality to keep the quartet moving forward, but perhaps even more importantly for the band, their fans (and us, for that matter), the wait is over.

Their name might suggest one thing, but this lot are definitely not going around in circles; this is their best record yet.

Spiral Shadow might just be the album of the year so far. All hail the kings (and queen) of nouveau-prog.

It's a gruff affair, yet Caruana's trademark gritty-subject-matter-meets-treacle-thick-melodies shines throughout, and marks a welcome return for I Am The Avalanche.

If you had ever written the band off or traded them in for a younger model, this is the record that will force you to reconsider and repent.

It’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s nevertheless a formidable collection of songs by a formidable gathering of musicians.

TesseracT have taken the djent blueprint and, barring occasional plunges into riff soup, have re-engineered it into a living, breathing, emotive display of rousing poly-prog.

An impressive third effort indeed, designed to compel you to throw your fist skyward and indulge in a good old sing-song.

It'll probably help if you're on mushrooms, but nevertheless this is quite something.

Intimate, impressive, and ultimately cathartic, Stage Four is well worth your time.

Influences are obvious but the balance between light and dark is perfect here.

Front to back, start to finish, this is pop-punk for those who have lived, loved and lost and aren’t afraid to contemplate the fact that maybe, just maybe, it isn’t going to be their weekend or their year.

The riffs, breakdowns and complex time signatures thrown into 'Sleeping Giants' and 'Ghetto Ambience' lend the album a raw, live feel that's groundbreaking for any genre.

Opener ‘Sponge’ leads off the cracking first half before a handful of (even) more introspective numbers add the expected emotional weight.

As usual, chaos and consistency make for a winning combination.

11 blistering, confrontational, and breathtakingly intense tracks.

Though this offering doesn’t quite live up to genre-busting, career-defining predecessor ‘Gospel’, engaging, inventive albums like this are yet more proof that pop-punk’s renaissance won’t fade away any time soon.

The Shadow Side contains some of the best material the man has been responsible for and proves Mr Biersack is one of the most captivating figures in music today.

Make no mistake, Gira has his mojo back and Swans are very much alive.

In Our Bones is a versatile, ballsy take on modern pop-rock, and it’s impossible not to sit back and admire as Chrissy, Dan and Will take another step on the way to superstardom.

To fans it'll undoubtedly shine as their best record yet, while the uninitiated may be about to find their new favourite band.

Now that they've finally given up the goods, it's easy to understand why they decided to go with what they already had because their eighth album is rooted firmly in hip-hop's old-school.

Equally experimental as it is disturbing, their latest musical experience doesn’t disappoint and is an altogether leftfield and very noisy affair.

Galloping metalcore anthem ‘You Want Me’ shows flashes of brilliance, too, but it’s difficult to escape the nagging feeling that their fourth record is the sound of a great band spreading themselves far too thinly.

With longer songs between their trademark short frenzied blasts, they maintain a clenched grip on how the ethos behind grassroots hardcore and the necessity of a modern punk fusion can mix effortlessly to create something truly special.

Listening to the album when fully engaged with the story of its creation is both exhausting and exhilarating. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius? Very possibly.