Freed from the obligations a full album would have entailed, Wu-Tang are free to make their best music in over ten years.

In short, it’s a Wolf Parade album. Much like last year’s EP4, the aperitif the band dropped prior to a reunion tour, however, it sometimes leans too far on the formulaic side of things to leave a real lasting impact.

Compared to previous outings, this may be the most bold and unabashed offering of Annie Clark’s career. It certainly isn’t her best collection of songs outright, but there’s a certain amount of style points that she garners for remaining so committed to bucking the expectations set by her audience and industry.

Colors is a varied and blissful pop album that finds joy in our times, and Beck expectedly makes it interesting and vibrant to experience. He has decided to make something optimistic in the midst of so much unrest, and it succeeds in bringing a celebratory presence to a world that need it

The songs on Black Mile are expansive, textured, each one like a painting in a distinct style; the layers of Simple Math are back with a vengeance, but instead of the empty palazzios and antique wooden drawers of that album, we're left with mineshafts. Pitch black, filthy, bottomless. Tempting.

Whether she’s touching on the impact of losing a legend like Bowie or battling her own demons, Strangers in the Alps is a vibrant and rare debut that’s not afraid to tell it how it is.

At its worst, Younger Now is inoffensively bland, wasted Dolly Parton talent aside. Songs like "Love Someone" are dead on arrival with their lifeless energy and forgettable hooks.

The record’s energy is impressive; the craft, even more so. What it doesn’t have, though, is any sense of vision, nothing of that dangerous excess or discovery that the best Cut Copy provides in spades. Instead, Haiku From Zero ends up being a bunch of great songs and little else.

The Amulet won’t necessarily bring instant gratification to all of its listeners, and it’s difficult to assess how it will be perceived by dedicated Circa followers. However, it is certainly one of the most well-composed alt-rock/post-hardcore albums of the year, and it seems to bring a newfound sense of maturity to both the songwriting and production aspects of the group’s sound.

I can easily see it lacking the longevity of their other albums, but for now it’s damn good to see the Weavers doing what they do best...screaming about natural nonsense and making some excellent black metal.

The band is out of gas and has been for a while now. Wonderful Wonderful fills the same role as Battle Born, taking mid-tempo pop-rock with aimless verses and marrying them to one stab-at-the-radio chorus after another.

Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay does everything its predecessor did right, but better, and with more style, flair, and conviction.

The Spark as Shikari-lite, a poppy album which forsakes the sound and fury which made the boys so interesting in the first place. But making the same album twice is anathema here, and the sound of the band isolating the human element and expanding it into their most beautiful, focused work to date is a wonder to behold.

Sure, the lyrics are better, the songs aren’t quite as boring, but it’s becoming harder and harder to defend this band on the charge of being dad rock.

A lot of tracks start off OK, but his flow and style are so unfocused and muddled the songs become a chore to sit through.

Sleep Well Beast sees The National flourish with candid lyrics and diverse song craft, embodying the band’s continuing evolution and life’s constant change.

Although Every Country’s Sun isn’t a flawless album (there are a number of tracks in the middle section that need more time to kick in), it shows us Mogwai nowhere near losing their touch.

Good Nature recaptures the brightness and pop sheen, sure, but it's a trip back to a treasured childhood location only to find that the palace in your mind was always just a fallen tree, and the river your dreams used to float along forever is just a kinda gross, muddy little stream.

When the songs are this satisfying, when each guitar solo tears through cynicism like a wet paper bag, sometimes good old fashioned honesty is more than fine. It’s downright beautiful.

Science Fiction is a bold, legend-making statement well worth the eight year wait. If it ends up being their swan song, then we can rest assured that Brand New is going out on their own terms: in peak form, bearing no regrets.

S/T is a valiant try by a band that has a strong history of trying, but it’s neither an impressive return to form, a nostalgic trip back to 90s emo, nor is it a breakthrough in Rainer Maria’s sound, it mostly just exists.

Hill's End is an album of good songs with good hooks; who could ask for anymore?

He displays that it’s just as impressive to make an effective pop song, as it is to create a progressive rock epic. Steven Wilson proves that an artist can venture into uncharted musical waters, even 30 years into their career, for ambitious and vibrant results like these.

It doesn't all work, of course, and that kind of wacky humour nestled alongside self-empowerment anthems can be jarring, but it's all in service of Kesha re-discovering the fun, the joy, the rainbow.

Musically, many of the songs here are not as melodic as the ones on TSAF and rely a bit too much on those blueprints. Nevertheless, the lyrics matter most in my opinion, while the music is just as engaging and easily sucks you in its universe. Dig it!

Kindly Now isn't perfect, and feels more like a transition to something truly spectacular where everything in Henson's bag of tricks can be perfectly utilised; for now, it'll do just fine.

Resonate with them, and you learn to speak about yourself in a way that carries meaning--and this is what What Now does best. Take a walk with this in your headphones and look at the people passing by; you’re allowed some isolation among others.

PP&DS is self-indulgent, silly, messy and heartfelt. It's Cudi at top songwriting form, and the songs on it are arguably the best he's ever written.