Even given the mixed results it's good to have them back. Listen without expecting the impossible and you'll find ample to enjoy.

In bitesize chunks this is a sumptuous feast--but it's more buffet than banquet.

Recorded in Los Angeles and produced entirely by Tommy English, most expressions of individuality have been removed and replaced with polished finesse. You are left with eleven songs that are entirely devoid of personality and the delivery only emphasises this.

Someday World shows us our trappings and our mortality, but rather than get overly sentimental, or even revert to doom-mongering, it creates something fun.

There aren't too many moments on the band's fourth studio LP that are going to reach out and steal you away.

As usual with Cooly, the sound selection is on point, as an 808 cowbell is included in the arrangement.

At its core, Death Race for Love feels less like music and more like a cynical attempt to bring out the worst in both emo and rap.

The rest is beautiful, sure, and there's moments that are truly intoxicating where you just want to stop what you're doing and let it wash over you, but it's also an album that, once it reaches its end, sort of fades away. There's nothing here that really sticks with you for any longer than the album's duration.

There is precious little personality to be found on this dry, pedestrian record, which comes across as a selection of yawn-worthy Adele-rejects rather than a cohesive body of work from a singular artist.

If you welcome the need for a slab of simple hedonistic pleasure, then you might find yourself some treasures here. Switch off and put yourself on party-autopilot.

Neon Icon is either the greatest social commentary on 21st century music, a moderately funny joke or a terrible hip-hop album. It is this conundrum which makes it such an endearing listen and one of this year's must hear albums.

Donker Mag is unashamedly synthetic in its make-up--a carefully constructed affectation of hooks, melodies and outlandish braggadocio.

The resulting effort is a complete mess of an already insipid project yelling to be accepted as otherwise.

The reality of A Pill For Loneliness is that it gets carried away with flights of fancy that are, more often than not, boring. In the past 14 years City and Colour has released some vital albums, and while this certainly alludes to them, it isn’t quite on a par.

Blanket Waves asks for your attention, and suggests you try soundtracking your own life with its echoes of joy and terror. It's not a cop-out to say that this is music which needs to be infused with human experience.

A Better Tomorrow doesn't quite hit the heights of The W, but it's a considerable improvement on 2007's 8 Diagrams, making it a stellar body of work for a group celebrating their twentieth anniversary.

Unfocused in places, it only comes together as a whole in fleeting moments... but those moments are really rather lovely, so there's enough here to say that Lia Ices remains a talented artist and one to keep watch over.

While Tangerine Reef inspires as a pseudo-political statement regarding the deteriorating environment at the hands of mankind, Animal Collective ultimately disappoints with this record--it’s yet another forgettable checkpoint within the band’s recent run.

There is a little too much grace and not enough diss.

The majority of the track list is made up of songs that run far too long, have beyond cringe worthy concepts and lyrics (see: the attempt at love struck club banger, complete with Beyoncé, on 'Hymn For The Weekend') or simply sound too unoriginal to stand out from the others.

While there are hours of discussions to be had about whether "electronic/classical" hybrids can consistently sound good in a pop context, New Eyes provides ample evidence for erring on the electronic side of that split.

Grasque sometimes manages to make average pizza from excellent ingredients. When COYB are tenacious enough to boil a track down to a workable size, the result is a triumph. Often it can resemble unleavened music, stripped of the necessary rise and fall.

This is a scribble to go up on the fridge alongside other much-loved items, even if those items are photographs which remind you what real life looks like. Stick a magnet on it. It's done.

NASIR is the weakest of the recent Kanye output, though perhaps more consistent than ye it fails to put a dent in the current hip hop conversation, feeling especially limp in comparison to the sudden arrival of a one-time nemesis and his wife.

On the whole, it feels like this is an album we've heard before. In all fairness, they rise well above mediocrity in certain areas.

Songs in the Key of Animals lacks the focus of A Love Extreme, but then again, we're talking about an album that was supposedly written on the fly.

Khalifa’s persona isn’t nearly ready to hoist up what’s essentially a double album, and, yet, this is largely the most focused and invested he’s sounded since Taylor Allderdice.