There may be simple logic behind the phrase quality over quantity yet here there is clear cohesion and thought.

Sonically the album is engaging and intriguing, but that's only the first layer. The lyrics are poetry, each word there on purpose, just like each note and beat.

They can be packed to the brim with the thoughts and feelings of a whole collection of people. For Algiers, it is this ability to connect with hearts and minds that ultimately makes their record among 2015's strongest thus far.

Mystère is a long, cohesive, and magnificent work of art, full of vivid soundscapes and synesthetic tableaux.

As Bazan embraces his current self by looking at his former, we learn the story of his life, and by the time the 14 tracks of Phoenix are over the picture is clear.

Diet Cig’s debut album Swear I’m Good At This is a reclamation of female sexual agency, a physical mandate for equality, a gauntlet-throwing promise for world domination, and the most fun I’ve had with a punk album this year.

As her music shows, Kelly Lee Owens is honest, fluid and meaningful. Her rise to success is owed to her own creative mind and assuring that taking time to create a solid product can be a virtue.

Though it can eventually make for numerous and intricate readings both technically and conceptually, it's the album's undeniable quality that emerges as solid and everlasting, embodying a timelessness very rarely found.

Dark Days + Canapés is quite simply Ghostpoet’s most accomplished record to date. As lyrically smart as his debut, and building on three albums’ worth of musical experimentation, it feels like Ejimiwe has finally found his niche.

As a careening, breakneck listen, this will be up there as one of the best of the year.

Slugger is a no-holds-barred art-pop surge of iron-clad beats, and acute lyricism that goes beyond post-breakup reflections and confronts the listener to actually think about the state of being a biological, self-identifying, or perceived female in today’s world and the ardent misogyny they face.

As this year's laid-back, folk-tinged efforts go so far, Woods haven't quite packed the sort of emotional punch that, say, Beck did on Morning Phase, but they have provided further evidence that they're slowly emerging as masters of their mellow-pop craft.

The end result is a clean, seriously impressive hour and seventeen minutes of restless, good old-fashioned hip-hop. Zombies' are here to stay, whether you like it or not.

His fifth album is the most grown and mature.

If you can convince yourself of TMLT being a novel, a musical, or five EPs crammed into one record, the experience becomes more immersive and rich.

Although it seems reductionist to place the album so closely with Ellery's other work, it does seem fitting. He writes in a certain style, produces in a certain style and sings in a certain style. LUH keeps everything that made his previous projects captivating and channels them into areas where they shouldn't really work. But that's why this album works.

The highlights come when the songs are underscored by punchy percussion, giving the tracks a slightly sultry groove.

Ultimately, Abyss is like a nightmare. It consumes you, shows you a darkness you'd tried to keep away from, but in the cold of night, wide awake and heart-pumping you can't deny you enjoy the thrill of it.

It is a wholly singular and groundbreaking release that, while adhering to many past and present genre trends, seems prepared to go further in collating and collaging influences than most other electronic releases dare to go.

Though their influences are neatly displayed almost in the same way band posters are hung neatly on a bedroom wall: Cheap Trick, Kiss, Thin Lizzy, The Cars, The Ramones, just about any great power-pop or classic rock band, White Reaper effortlessly make their influences solely their own.

On The Echoing Green is an experiential album, but not in the way of something like The Wall. This is an album that seduces you to come and spend some time with it; sit in the shade with it, stroll in the hot summer sun with it, take a dip in the lake with it.

It absolutely is [worthwhile]--engrossing you from first hammer blow to last squeak.

Many of the tracks vary to such a degree that those not acquainted with Olsen would be forgiven for thinking they were not by the same artist, yet to those who appreciate her work, the artist’s strong narrative ties the collection together.

Are We There is one of the finest folk-ish albums of this decade, but this timely reissue illustrates that Van Etten’s remarkable talent has always been omnipresent. Eight years on, her incoming anxious queries and lovelorn passages are as pertinent as they’ve ever been.

Love Is Magic is his most consistent and enjoyable work yet.

This album is perhaps even more ambitious than its predecessor and, unlike East India Youth's debut, finds the artist stepping out from the shadows to produce a stunning, transformative electronic record.

As with all instrumental rock, Forgetting The Present is hugely evocative and powerful.

In some of its explorations of dance music’s sub-genres it is less successful, and can come off as a bit too cheesy for its own good, but it’s all produced, performed and sequenced with such careful consideration and bountiful charm, that its few shortcomings in pure songwriting terms can be overlooked.