On balance, Music For Dogs kind of ends up resembling a bag of chocolate misshapes: weird-looking and questionable, but still somehow oddly loveable.

Like all great Country records, Romano’s is cathartic--your heart aches for him and with him--and it is this emotive sway that makes the record a success.

At times it makes the album feel like a compilation of great lost No Wave acts, but when it all clicks together like on the blistering, agit-hardcore blast "They Know", Deaf Wish are a mighty force.

All in all, Imaginary Man is a bit like an early afternoon festival set: a perfectly pleasant, though ultimately forgettable, prelude to something better best enjoyed while lubricating for the headliners with beer.

Any record containing tracks of this quality, as well as 24 others of a similarly high standard, is always worth releasing, whether or not it feels academically or artistically necessary.

If you like this sort of thing, then you’ll like it; if you’re indifferent toward it, then you’ll easily move on unaffected; if this isn’t your bag, it still won’t be.

One never gets the impression that she's battling against or drowning within her riptides; instead the vocals and guitars assume a kind of subservient relationship, the voice somehow calling, from out of the void, the raging whorl.

The Chronic and 2001 were simply collections of great songs and the order didn't matter much; Compton, conversely, is one giant song presented as a specifically sequenced album. While it succeeds as such--a lush, expensive-sounding art rap song-cycle--it fits the Doctor about as well as a baggy t-shirt. Dre makes great songs, not great albums.

They've crafted a debut album together that proves both emotive and enchanting.

Of course The Most Lamentable Tragedy is ridiculous. It's also dumb, intelligent, heartbreaking and life-affirming.

HEALTH have diligently crafted an astounding pop record...one which could be enjoyed for the next six years, if necessary.

Unhealthy though it may be, the pain expressed certainly produced a great debut.

Georgia is an album that speaks of youth in urban landscapes, and scenarios familiar to anyone who has hung around South London long enough. It's an area that's culturally thriving, and it might have a new hero.

Thank You for Stickin' with Twig is a riotous mess of electronic alterity. Press play and take the trip.

Burhenn’s remarkable vocal dexterity that allowed her to jump tempos and genres so easily there is still alive and well on Lovers Know, yet embedded here in a dense synthpop milieu.

Yellen’s vision is ambitious and expansive, but not always easy to digest.

Green Lanes is rooted in it's own moment, passing without much incident, shining brief, but bright, and remaining charming.

Another One feels like some kind of sonic intermediary--showcasing the breezy, lo-fi approach that made 2 and Salad Days critical successes, while also offering a sample of what’s to come on future full-length releases.

It would have been great to hear the Fox and Millions show without the extra instruments to let the drummers truly shine. Nevertheless, their fury on the A side and their ability to tread the line between hypnotic and sleepy on the flip side creates a joyous, technically astute performance that rewards a patient listener.

Y Dydd Olaf is a marvellously magical mixture of elation, anger and sorrow and is very lovely indeed.

Even in busier moments, there is sufficient enough breathing room to catch each sound and instrument’s subtle exhalations.

In excelling at hoping to convey music--or in this case, a suite--with a deliberate emotional arc, Pearce has re-established himself as an auteur to be reckoned with, delivering one of the very best albums of the year in the process.

All the component parts seem present, but they don’t quite add up to a greater whole.

Much like an architect, C Duncan is an artist of creative design, and what he's produced is positively palatial.

Their best work yet--there isn’t a weak track among the 11.

DS2 is a uniformly awesome album, remarkable for the singularity of its vision, and it comes at absolutely the right time, when all eyes are on Future.

It’s the same but slightly more so. Solid and satisfying.

Much like their self-titled EP, ...Does It Again has ear-worm songwriting paired with fuzzed out production, making for an overall engaging, if one-track, listen.

Not everything on Peacers works, but when it does, it’s the sonic equivalent of driving along a beach with a summer breeze rushing right through you.

For now though, things are still at the experimental stage.

For those who are familiar with Souleyman’s work, there may be nothing particularly new sonically on Bahdeni Nami. Regardless, it still remains a dizzying and exhilarating affair, preserving Souleyman’s power as an artist and performer.

Pale Horses stands as a testament that it will be a good while before brothers Weiss and co. are long gone.

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.

Born In The Echoes continues their fusing of psychedelic head music with the dancefloor, and while it doesn’t break new ground, it’s a timely smack on the nose to the pretenders to their throne.

This is Parker's strongest bunch of songs yet.

The key problem with Sing Into My Mouth, though, is that this willingness to go against the grain of the cosy sonic identity that the pair have carved out for themselves is all too rare, and inevitably, more often than not the covers sound uninspiring in that form at best and plain wrong at worst.

On first time listen, Star Wars feels neither utterly victorious nor rushed, vapid or misjudged. Whilst moments of majesty and bona fide alt-rock wizardry snake in and out of the occasionally throwaway, the overriding feeling here is one of huge relief and pleasant surprise.

They haven't really taken a new direction with regards to the songwriting on Decency.

This latest collection pairs Isbell’s keen ear for catchy melodies with fuller, bouncier arrangements and more optimistic subject matter. The result is a record spattered with songs capable of bridging the gap between “alt” and accessible.

It is such a thorough conglomeration of influences that it mostly manages to avoid sounding derivative.

Williamson is so quick and witty with his references that it's not until two or three plays that you actually spot the humour in what he's expressing. It's got a way of making each track funnier, and more prescient, with every spin.

With Distractions, Sauna Youth showcase their ability to infuse a classic punk aesthetic with skilful artistry.

There are a few duds in there where the dynamism and the delicacy clash ineffectively, but they are outnumbered by the surprising number of triumphs.

the New York duo have shown that they indeed own that genre because well, it’s their own genre. Thankfully, the same feelings are still mustered with new offering Magnifique--and then some.

Communion is brimming with razor-sharp summer pop anthems that succeed in bringing a smile to your face time and time again.

Glider is an album for all seasons, from star-gazing on a humid summer’s night to blanketed winter evenings beside the fire. And, come the short days and long nights later this year, we’ll look back on it as one of 2015’s best.

Tied To The Moon is a beautiful record, so full of intricacies that it continues to reward with every listen, allowing you to lose yourself in its stories.

An album clearly made by a mercurial talent, but who still sounds at his best quietly knocking out unassuming dancefloor gold.

Twelve Reasons to Die II suggests that breaking new ground might be a futile undertaking if there's this much juice left in the good old tricks.

Despite Furman’s own insecurities and wanderlust, Perpetual Motion People sounds like home.

The variety of genres synthesised to generate this finished record show that they have absorbed life's lessons and reconstituted them to suit a unique outlook. The effect is a strangely familiar, yet singularly arranged thread of consciousness.

It’s beautifully crafted, and you’ve really not heard anything like it before.

verall it feels like a real thrift shop of curiosities with a few gems to be found if you go looking. And if you do, be prepared for a fair amount of sifting.

It’s clear that Morning/Evening has been inspired by, and tailored for, its respective times of day and this works well. But it feels like the majority of Hebden’s attention has gone into the first side resulting in an enjoyable, if front-loaded album.

Miguel writes nothing but memorable melodies and his songwriting is the engine that makes Wildheart all work, that takes his affinity for funk, psychedelia and Prince, and turns them an album that feels totally of the moment.

The cocksure quality of My Love Is Cool represents some majority of its charm.

Rather than rushing into something, Inji is a complex compilation of his finest material.

On The Sovereign Self, they combine to remarkable effect. This is not an easy record, but it needs to be heard. Again and again.

Despite these downbeat descriptions, the beauty is evident from start to finish.

This is not a terrible record, just a bland and misguided one.

There’s plenty to suggest that she is still developing and searching for her true self, but there's more evidence that Flo is a captivating and striking new voice.

The Monsanto Years is another inessential and underpowered Neil Young album to file alongside the likes of 2003's ecological garage rock opera Greendale: good ideas and inspiring ideals grounded by half-baked presentation and paucity of substantial songcraft.

Good things do come with time, and this LP is no doubt a stopping point on Active Child's journey to uncharted, challenging places.

They’re sounds we’ve all heard before but done spectacularly.

This is pop music with complex narratives, and if the masses are willing to listen, they could be the band that recharges the UK charts with genuinely meaningful music.

Expecting Moroder to reach the heights of "I Feel Love" is, of course, futile, and yes, after a few repeated plays you may find the odd track or two that stand out from the rest, but there’s little you’ll love to love here.

Even if seems a touch outdated at points, though, there’s not likely to be another punk album this year that unleashes its ire with such precision--and it’s proof again, too, that Oberst remains a master of switching through the gears.

Bones is a remarkable, chameleonic entity.

Slowness is not as instantly catchy as Outfit’s previous releases, but this should not deter listening from beginning to end; on the contrary, the record demands it.

The opener and closer are a real treat, and it's a shame that they weren't packaged together where they would have made a shorter but more satisfying whole.

There’s moments where creeping doubt, and a little bit of self-awareness, begin to set in--mainly on Franz’s part--but those aside, this is going to challenge Ezra Furman’s Perpetual Motion People for the title of the year’s finest pop oddball.

Floaty angst in abundance, Gengahr have produced an all encompassing soundtrack to this year’s briefest romances and most curelly broken hearts.

Their second album is ultimately the sound of the band exploring the myriad influences that make up their sonics, in doing so realising who they are and focusing bloody-mindedly on driving the point home.

Jaga Jazzist's music has never been shy on the intellectual front, and for those willing to take the plunge, Starfire's innate intricacies leave as much to be discovered as the skies themselves.

Put simply, Alternative Light Source manages to sound both fresh and exciting, and like old Leftfield all at once.

Jem is an auspicious debut, a worthy volley from a city whose popular music reputation has been built on genre splicing and boundary pushing that’s sat a bit quiet as of late.

Faulty Superheroes, simply put, is faultless.

By the time it’s over, you’re wondering how a record so precise, so considered, can sound so gloriously laid-back, and quite how they’ve managed to convey so many different ideas so efficiently.

This is an album that sits somewhere between Lynch and Lucifer, ethereal in its softer moments and utterly savage at its loudest.

All Your Favorite Bands is plenty polished, but scratch the surface and there’s close to zero going on beneath it; it’s the kind of record that you’re in danger of forgetting before it’s even finished playing.

How Big How Blue How Beautiful is a cathartic, devastatingly honest personal diary set to music.

The moments when the singers get braver with stamping their own personality on the material prove much more memorable.

It’s tempting to see it being one day considered an “essential listen”: compiling and collating the first half of the decade’s tastes, trends, aesthetics and politics into a cohesive and inoffensive whole.

The lyrics are tighter, more poetic and speak volumes of a band that have something quite specific to express.

There simply is no contemporary songwriter that speaks so plainly, yet so devastatingly, to the darker matters of the heart as Sharon Van Etten. Her intimacy is so palpable that the silence in the room once the record stops is jarring.

The Shakes is a record with raw energy.

The emotional gravity carried by its brevity and simplicity, a quantum leap from last year's self-titled EP, is nothing less than astounding.

This isn’t dewy eyed nostalgia all weighed down with rose tinted reverence, though: he makes a respectful nod to the past by rifling through jungle and garage and so on, but each track feels like a poignant and yet propulsive reflection of Jamie’s personality and experiences.

Before We Forgot How To Dream is subtly uplifting, astute and speaks in the diction of a youth that may be tired of being talked at, rather than to.

Sometimes weighty and serious, sometimes dissolute and light, Grimes’ interaction with the piano on The Clearing is the sound of a musician who knows how to extract every emotion and feeling from what they are playing.

English Graffiti is a record full of ideas that has much to commend it, neither a triumphant or disastrous third album, just not a great one.

Nielson and Unknown Mortal Orchestra have created a genuinely psychedelic pop gem in the sense that it has virtually zero on in common with what psych-pop is supposed to sound like. What's more, the results are easily infectious enough for us to join them without hesitation on this richly rewarding ride into the unknown.

Throwing in references to various Farrow and Ball paint colours, Asos, estate agents, and thoroughly unsavoury characters such as Heroin Stan (stabbed his mam), this is middle-aged angst set to music. Both World of Twist and Earl Brutus have a classic album to their name, and now, so do The Pre New.

In terms of coherence, it’s quite possibly their best LP since Imperial Wax Solvent.

Much like Black Messiah, a slightly more heralded return of another long-absent polymath, it rewards repeated listens, even if they’ll barely bring you closer to actually understanding it.

Shamir is unquestionably the star, but the interplay between artist and producer is palpable; it’s a musical match made in heaven (or, perhaps, hell: Sylvester has likened his role to the relationship between the poet Virgil and his protagonist Dante), and the finest moments here have Sylvester providing the trampoline for Shamir to bounce on.

A short album of promise and potential stretched too thin by its stifled delivery.

From Kinshasa is a distorted transmission of a sound of a city, but it's not the neatly paved, orderly and predominantly functioning type of town most of us are used to.