There is much joy to be found here, amidst many a question mark, but the compiling of a 49 track album with seven themes and this ratio of hit>miss is an achievement in itself - which says a lot for Cook’s skillset.

Amidst the sanded-corner tunes and taut, buffed percussion, the five-piece have a lot of valuable ruminations on being young and hopeless and helpless in modern Britain.

If Midlake seemed to have lost their sense of fun on The Courage of Others, though, they’ve certainly rediscovered it on Antiphon. Even in its flatter moments, at least the band themselves sound like they’re enjoying it.

For the majority of its running time, Crosses is a slow, steady and comforting listen, very rarely raising above anything more than a laid back ebb and flow.

The surrounding album excels when it approaches that sort of cinematics, and falters when it all but requires whatever accompaniment you might bring to it--say a good book perhaps.

The only possible complaint is that some cuts flow by a bit too smoothly; another dose of the urgency and turbulence "Älgen" and "NFB" wouldn't have gone amiss on this otherwise flawless record.

Hardly earth-shifting, there’s little to scoff at on Different Days but, most importantly, plenty to smile about.

If you aren’t into skits and novelty voice acting then you might struggle with the twenty five-high track listing. If you are though, you’re in for a treat.

Not as mourning as the drunken howls of Iceage and more biting than Shame’s riling observations, Nihilistic Glamour Shots is a disturbing and wholly invigorating release. It's a testament to a fascination with the corrupt and the abnormal.

The flow of the album makes it feel effortless, and not as if it was crafted periodically and with every detail mapped out. And as Sultana welcomes us into their very own Garden of Eden and we absorb further into the grooves, their honed craft is revealed.

Lovato’s move to heavier music is by no means a mistake, but this reimagining of her old music feels artificial. Generic pop music is turned into formulaic rock music, lacking the substance and authenticity of her previous album.

All in all, Almost Free is a FIDLAR album - brash, unhinged, wild, a tad nonsensical, but most of all, a testament to their nature.

For his fifth long player as White Fence, things have remained very much the same musically.

It at least proves that Trail of Dead are by no means a spent creative force, but they’re going to have to try harder to recapture the genuinely visceral energy of their classic records if they’re ever going to reach beyond their own fanbase again.

Whereas her blockbuster debut Invasion of Privacy used every minute of its runtime, AM I THE DRAMA? wavers and meanders around tracks that are fine at best and miserable at worst.

Leave Me Alone is flawed, but its flaws are what makes it so beguiling.

Minor refinements are enough for a group so fully formed from the start, and Dusk is Ultimate Painting’s fullest record yet.

While Tove Lo is confident in her music, she reveals a lot about how she feels and how she deals with problems. There is a level of vulnerability that leaves the listeners feeling like they are experiencing the highs and lows of a party lifestyle right along with her.

While it might lack the chaotic charm of Nights Out, or the lush, well-rounded sound of The English Riviera, it makes up for that by simply being fun.

The formative spiral of ideas dabbled with on previous albums recedes, giving way to a pearl of accumulated wisdom - a new beginning for the three-piece that proves reflective, ambitious and openly confessional.

It’s sharp, the beats are punchier, and by utilising similar methods to production as techno, he's made his best album yet.

Wondrous Bughouse is a delicious collage: provocative, allusive and consistently engaging.

Mellow Waves is the sound of an artist reaching a conclusion, one that is content with its place in music history as it is hopeful of the future.

There’s little to get excited about here--there’s no wheel reinventing, no formula shake-up, no scrawling outside any boxes... it’s just pleasant, familiar indie-rock that verges on wishy-washy.

Savage Hills Ballroom is confounding: an album about new life and new directions loaded with references to death and dead ends; an album about disillusionment in the glossiest package Powers has ever produced.

It’s reassuring to hear her in this state of mind after the unrelenting heaviness of Head Above Water. Even if Love Sux isn’t a perfect album, it’s certainly a well-deserved victory lap from someone with little left to prove.

For what is a hugely bold manoeuvre, he has carried it out with much aplomb.

Rare Birds is practically bulging with strong material. It’s telling that the album’s strongest moment--the desolately soaring closer “Mulholland Queen”--is also its least densely ornamented: on this form, Wilson’s songs require no extra polish or decorations to compel. Despite its flaws, Rare Birds is a rare find.

Buckner’s record is a vague reflection of something remarkably powerful, a beautiful mirror image of dreams, of dusty reminiscences and pleas that come too late.

As If, with its foot shuffling inducing melodies and rhythms, is an album that will delight both hardcore and casual fans, and will undoubtedly put a wide Cheshire cat style smile on anyone that comes into contact with it.

Though Sick Scenes is unlikely to win the band legions of new fans, it’s a record that sits comfortably alongside the rest of their canon while acting as an affirmation as to why, in 2017, a decade after their debut, Los Campesinos! are just as important now as they were ten years ago.

With their third album, Twin Peaks have become not just one of the most exciting young bands in the Chicago music scene, but in the entire rock landscape.

Rest assured, young worrier, Chiaroscuro is triumphant.

For existing fans this is a tonally varied addition to his substantial oeuvre, but the record will likely prove too oblique, even passé, for more virgin ears.

The pacing of the album is questionable, and silly lines like “we got motherfucking internet” and proclamations of Southern living do get old by the record’s end. But these are nitpicking complaints of an otherwise fine rock record straight from Alabama.

Florence is another excellent addition to Darren Hayman’s sterling oeuvre.

There are some gambles that don’t entirely pay off, like the 808 drums on “Sentence”, but Weaves mostly holds to its own internal logic, so it’s up to you about whether you’re going to buy in. Overall, it’s an enjoyable outing with a band clearly brimming with talent and a physical need to get their ideas out to the world.

The last memory of How To Be A Human Being is pure brilliance, and you're forced to revisit the record every chance you get. Each listen reveals more, scrapes back another layer. You'll get more and feel more each time you hit play.

Sillion will leave you feeling drained, but also enriched. It's a piece of art.

Wiry but not without weight, The Nothing They Need conveys an increasingly efficient model of Dead Meadow, saying its piece in eight unhurried, hash-hued visions.

Where Care lived up to its title with its balm-like electronics, The Anteroom is often a challenging listen. Its constantly adapting sonic landscapes are fitting for an urgent political and ecological moment: its song-like identifying features perpetually breaking down like a dying star, or planet, or human.

It’s brash, bold, and sometimes a little cliiché, but it’s clear they aren’t done speaking up yet.

We are never out of surprises on Windflowers, as it has that gift to reconnect you to the essential, with the help of sweet pop as contagious, varied and comfortable.

With shades of their influences Neil Young, Weyes Blood, and Sonic Youth — as well as the attitude of contemporary New York art-punks Bodega - Silverbacks’ Archive Material is a record that makes the best of a truly bizarre, banal, and jarring time.

Foals manage to delight with invigorating innovation while simultaneously keeping their unique identity deeply engrained in a style that is as fresh as it is warm.

While the signature style they have debuted with is admirable, some time to experiment and push the boundaries just a little further will make NewDad a true force to be reckoned with.

If you’re willing to spend some time in Widowspeak’s headspace, chances are you’ll find yourself wanting to roam Almanac’s enchantingly surreal landscapes a little longer each time you visit.

Finn has created a great album here, horn-drenched and hazy in its instrumentation, precise, prescient and poetic in its words.

Problem is, this is essentially the same stuff they released in 2008, and since there are 77 minutes of it, it's entirely too much of the same stuff.

Derivative 180 might be, but it’s also rammed full with jangly, addictive melodies that burst into life and disappear almost as quickly.

The songwriting is there, as are great performances. But with a band like Horse Thief, the difference between in studio and on stage is a distraction that’s as unfortunate as it is glaring.

Long Way Home is a vindication of all that time spent slowly learning her craft and doing almost everything herself. As a result, she has finally delivered what all those early tracks promised; a bedroom record conceived in the club that drags confessional pop music further into the future.

None of the tracks are bad per se. But they lack something that the first tastes promised, and so pieced together it feels like the debut is not worth more than the sum of its parts.

Whether its hiding tragedy behind comedy for his own purpose, or simply making it easier for us to digest what Purdy preaches when he gets to the truth, either way, ISTHISFORREAL? is a special balance.

Though melodically not as rich as his previous offerings, Boo Boo is just as considered and stylistically coherent as you would expect from a Toro Y Moi record, which, given that it was born out of an identity crisis, is a continued testament to its creator.

Across the record it’s clear that Pillow Queens have truly hit their stride as a band. Leave The Light On strikes the balance between the excitement of an early career and the deliberate precision of seasoned musicians.

By maneuvering their psychedelia to one side, the band has crafted their most clearly defined record to date. For those in love with bar italia for their uncanny qualities, there’s still something here, but the verdict on intention is up.

Touching on Northern European chamber, opera, and folk traditions as they steer through a minefield of club-ready moments, Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt have created a sonic topography that thrives on paradox - it’s a disorienting pleasure to navigate.

As a whole, Anti might not be as provocative of a statement as Rihanna hopes for it to be, but it’s still fascinating to see an artist in the midst of a metamorphosis.

A complete throwback to everything that’s been missing for over twenty years, INHEAVEN have blown the cobwebs off and are ready to kick some life back into a stale scene.

Consistency may still be a struggle, but when they get it right, Audiobooks’ unsettling brand of musical chaos makes for an impressive sophomore album that is every bit as effervescent as their debut.

Fans of Field Music will be absolutely overjoyed with this set, and of course, fans of '80s art rock will be in their element. Those put off by the unwieldy concept ultimately have nothing to fear – the WWI themes are completely ignorable, and so disparately connected that the only reason you’d ever know they were there was if somebody told you in advance.

Sitting comfortably alongside high water marks like El Camino, it’s clear on Let’s Rock that the boys’ batteries are fully charged and ready to giddy up and hit the ground running once again.

What a solo album with all of his own bars over all of his own beats would have sounded like, we’ll never know; The Diary does more than enough to fire all of our imaginations, though.

Themes and aims aside, Sub Verses is simply an example of Akron/Family’s continued good run of form, and undoubted confidence.

Yes, B-sides and rarities are sort of supposed to feel rough or incomplete, but A Folk Set Apart seems to be characterised far more by its misguided decisions than by its lack of polish or perfection.

TEXIS delivers everything that one could hope to find on a Sleigh Bells record: dance worthy beats, angelic vocals, and satisfying boisterousness. While TEXIS could have afforded more variability, it remains a testament to the act’s ability to express a range of emotions without killing the tempo.

With this album, Palace have offered a spiritual voyage through the fluctuations of life, and the uncertainty that holds its hand. If Shoals is anything to go by, Palace will be filling stadiums before too long.

If your faith in the concept album is failing, The Grand Tour will restore it. And if you have any long, trans-national train journeys coming up, this album will be great for those, too.

Whilst there aren’t as many obvious hits on this record as 2009’s chart-bothering Only Revolutions, Ellipsis is an album that will undoubtedly keep Biffy Clyro right at the top of British rock’s hierarchy.

This band are masters of their craft, and Dances in Dreams of the Known and Unknown is simply more evidence to attest to that assertion.

Heartache, healing, clandestine make-ups and complicated feelings have saturated pretty much all her discography to date, and the same broken heart bleeds well into the first half of her Girl Of My Dreams.

In fact, far from feeling like a tired riff on an established formula, Turbines might just be the most definitive Tunng record yet.

Though taken as a whole, YU is a wonderful record. Okumu and Lowe are a dream partnership, and along with the rest of London’s modern soul players present on YU and hiding amongst other projects, have way more to give us over the next few years.

An ouroboros-like reawakening that finds them at their acerbic and celebratory best.

It’s an ambitious enterprise--and one that Stewart tackles in a number of remarkable ways.

For the most part, a palpable sense of uncertainty permeates the lower-key proceedings, with the eerie strings of the title track proving a winsome kick down the rabbit hole into a place populated by unease and confusion.

This is a band that isn’t odd for odds sake. Every single crash, bleep, smack and ring (insert other onomatopoeias here) is carefully placed with love, care and attention. In short, it’s a fascinating debut from a band that want to the push the boundaries of what pop can be.

Innocence is saved by the urgent innovation that courses through its emphatic high points, with Pontiak once again proving that they are taking rock ‘n roll in a thrilling new direction while also giving a knowing nod to its unruly past.

This is a lovely, beautiful and reflective record, the music is intelligent, has depth and sounds gorgeous.

Ultimately, We Slept At Last is an impressive debut that showcases an enchanting and fully fleshed-out sonic vision.

Even rushing through the time between songs so as to maintain momentum, the endless energy and refusal to stay still is admirable of Dumb. Unfortunately, the pace results in some items ultimately being left undone.

Souvenirs is the creation of a band who have to make music and like all great debuts it’s both a culmination of their beginnings as well as a pointer to the wide open road ahead.

This isn’t a bad album by any means, and so surely deserves recognition as the work of a completely separate entity to Real Estate. Yet, too often, Ducktails actually sound like a side-project.

A subdued record tied to no one setting. No matter where it is, Somewhere is a place of subtle beauty to find solace in.

For Ride to produce such a strong album is a wonderful thing. To compare this to their first two albums is silly--bands and entire genres were formed off the back of those records--but does Weather Diaries sit up there with them? Absolutely.

He has not made a classic here, but he may have made an album which allows him to do so again in the future.

With There Existed An Addiction To Blood, Clipping have artfully seized upon the viscera of the horrorcore genre, creating an album which is both disheartening and sonically intriguing. It is yet another successful experiment for the group and one of the eeriest examples of modern hip-hop to date.

In fully owning their anguish and collective past, present and future, HEALTH have yet another essential record to their name - one which fully and flawlessly embraces savagery and sincerity in equal measure.

LP5 is an album which simply affords itself space to breathe. Whether it be in Ring’s confidence in allowing a guest artist to fill the immediate musical landscape or the deference paid to the traditions of both electronic and acoustic music alike it all works together to create one of Sascha Ring’s most comprehensive releases to date.

Last Night... is an album that you can look to as a fitting memoriam of what made Wild Beasts truly great: fearlessness to be who they are, and do it all on their own terms. Even their retirement.

Unreal is a labyrinthine effort you’ll find almost impossible to not get lost in.

Elliott’s latest body of work, the fittingly titled ICONOLOGY, is a taut collection of slinky, self-assured hip-hop that fuses throwback sensibilities with the rapper’s trademark futurism.

The songs are much more complex and nuanced than one might expect on first listen and, like most good music, it is an album that deserves deeper comprehension.

As a whole, it’s just a shame that on Means, FEWS’ originality seems far between.

The closer Perhacs stays to her original organic vision, the better The Soul of All Natural Things sounds.

Love Is Free sits strangely in the canon of Robyn. It’s euphoric, and like every great Robyn anthem, there’s a cry-while-you-party type sound on the mini-LP that’s intensely emotional but wields an undeniable kinetic streak.

Algiers really fucking mean every note, and their radical politics soak through each track like petrol through a rag. If they overdo it from time to time, so be it – how nice it is to hear a band giving a little too much of a fuck, rather than not enough.