It’s post-punk theatre through and through, full of bright colours and left turns, with enough returning cast members to keep the old heads in their seats (“bring back the old Ought!”).

There's a fair bit of tension in his rhymes and it works for him. Earl upholds a dangerous, unpredictable presence--when he slurs “step into the shadows, we can talk addiction” in “Grief” there aren't many who would take up the offer--but at times he holds himself wide open.

FM! might have personality, but it's of the more obnoxious and self-obsessed "Get the Fuck Off My Dick" variety, and there's simply not enough quality on display to justify its own brief and largely annoying existence. Next.

The Ecstatic is solid from front to back, but it's not always entirely cohesive. The production is uniquely executed, with the beats often focusing more on sample placement than drums and bass, but it's this lack of a low-end that sometimes makes your head nod in backwards directions.

The outfit’s edge has found a whetstone that is able to sharpen the previously-established chaos, whilst also adding a gut-punch severity to the overall effect, even if it remains just as playful in its lyricism and garage-band simplicity. Audacious in sound, digestible in focus and a big-bollocked, rollicking good time.

If you felt Be More Kind and No Man’s Land missed the mark, FTHC will remind you of why you fell for Frank in the first place.

His music more than stands on its own in its brilliancy and, again, the fact that it is supplemented by clearly thought out performance aspects should not mean that it is viewed as anything less than genuine.

There are those moments, here and there, when patience isn’t quite rewarded. .... The package as a whole however, those moments when the Pit of Language returns intoned into the drone and choir of Tar & Feathers, those moments where all of the haunted brilliance of Neubauten are on full display again, that same soul that made the subterranean abscesses of the bloated, dying West its echo chamber and forced it to confront itself.

Lie Down In The Light is still slightly marred by this uneven pace.

Although she is a great poet and lyricist, a little restraint would help in these situations. Seeds is still a great record nonetheless, and shows Muldrow hasn't yet lost focus since Umsindo.

While Empty Days and Sleepless Nights offered songs that were entertaining enough without lyric booklet in hand, Letters Home is much more dependent on its story for emotional impact.

Overall, Dark Matter ended up as the most interesting and energized record since Backspacer. It seems pushing the band to work fast in the studio yields better results. Of course, most of the material here sounds familiar, but the members feel once more invested in it.

Flying Lotus has once again proved that he is an artist that can consistently reinvent himself and make his new sound just as effective as it was before

The real problem with The Money Store is MC Ride's consistently incoherent mumbling and meme-of-the-day approach to making hooks.

The attention to detail is impressive and the resulting soundtrack is quite cohesive. Nevertheless, the brief runtime of most tunes here make Tron: Ares more of a Ghosts I-IV type record with an attached EP of what you would expect from a conventional Nine Inch Nails release.

So Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust is just another Sigur Ros album, but if I can be the first to say it, our "first vital band of the 21st century" is starting to feel old hat.

Back To Black is by far the best popular soul album I’ve heard this year.

Zeit is imperfect, but there’s so much to be savoured here, and aspects you won’t get from any other Rammstein album.

Good music that works, effortlessly, and is even easier to love.

Similar to UGK's "4 Life" earlier this year Dilla's friends, family, and admirers have created a(nother) great tribute to one of hip-hop's great.

They’re some decisive stuff, yet tend to leave the listener strangely alleviated, especially the title track: it’s the perfectly weird, yet high-energy song to get anyone out of their bedroom. That is, when they return to listen to this album again, of course.

They have managed to produce their most easily accessible album while still clearly sounding like Fear Factory.

There’s nothing about Ode to Joy that is meant to set the airwaves afire. It’s raw elegance; a surplus of creativity delivered with equal portions of restraint.

Blue Raspberry sees some extremely slight but thoughtful experimentation from Kirby. A playfulness that, on the one hand, gives greater depth to Kirby's music—or otherwise make that depth more obvious to the shallow listener—but also, on the other, reemphasises to you—to me—just how good, how delicate, how thoughtful a songwriter Kirby really is at her core.

It may be unfriendly and demanding beyond a level I've ever experienced from the Necks, but it is so meticulously, disarmingly constructed as such that it might just stand among their most intriguing works to date; leave any expectations of an easy ride at the door, and you'll shocked at how expertly it drains you.

There are several elements from their entire career fused with new ones, as well as a newfound accessibility that also signals a creativity boost. It's great to see Underworld this vital once again, indeed facing a shining future.

Loma doesn’t offer us the moment where the lines converge (i was never good at geometry) but it reaches for something more substantive: catharsis. Funnily enough, it sneaks up behind them as they’re looking elsewhere.

Fake It Flowers won’t blaze any new trails and beabadoobee is a far cry from a pioneer, but for a brief moment in the sun, her debut is both gratifying and immediate. There’s no reason not to bask in it.