The resulting project is weirdly disappointing; a bold creative decision ends up splitting the collaborators’ contributions down the middle, and BBNG bring surprisingly little vigour or experimentation to the table.

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

Green's lyrics are a 140 character pop song. They are hyper-condensed. This can make them seem lazy and tropey--but she knows what she's doing.

It doesn’t necessarily stay in your head all day but when the drawling rhymes cut in there is attitude and thought provocation in buckets.

In a live arena the sinister power that Restarter wields will thrill, but as a static piece it's dense beyond reason.

It's an aesthetically immaculate, existential, emotionally intense experience. Listening to this album is an emotionally draining exercise--but believe me, it's worth it.

It's a noisy little beast that will leave you feeling somewhat battered, disorientated, but actually, the stink of the corpse of rock has never sounded so good. Just have some paracetamol to hand.

They have always effortlessly switched registers, blurred genre boundaries and smattered their lyrics with eclectic cultural references. Citizen Zombie does all of these things, without loosing its political edge.

As inspired as the band's sounding, it's the three cuts from Houck's solo show that really stun.

Sean Carey could really do with pushing himself further than he does at any point on this laurel-resting stopgap release.

Full Bleed reveals a complete lack of understanding of the dynamics of black metal. It doesn’t sound like a black metal record and never gets close to sounding like it.

Hexadic works best when Chasny dials down the guitar squall and channels his energies towards more nuanced fare.

So, it seems that band that once loved us all like madmen have mellowed and become more self-assured with age. But they've definitely not lost their spark.

Picture You is most certainly amongst 2015's most remarkable releases. Drink it in, and be careful not to judge it too soon.

Mourn is a hearty, eye-popping reminder just how far we have swayed from rock music’s embryo nowadays and how awfully contrived the revivalist stabs have been.

Ibeyi is an ambitious debut record from the twosome, and one that deserves to be heard by as many people as possible.

With Transfixiation, they’ve provided a compelling rebuke to their detractors; once again, there’s no shortage of consideration behind the chaos.

What makes this album stand out from other synth pop albums is how they can switch from being overtly synthetic.

This is a fan’s album, made for, helped by and a testament to Idlewild’s worshippers’ passion and patience. For some, the changes will be welcomed with flung-open arms like an old friend; for others, it might just be a little too much to handle.

That Shadows In The Night is almost as convincing is a welcome reminder that for all his understandable plaudits as a poet and songwriter, the latter-day Dylan is primarily a protector and reviver of arcane American music traditions--and, above all, a genuine vocal stylist.

Boxed In is an album that's hard to pin down, but it hits hard enough in places to get the party started and holds just enough back to make you want to return to it again and again.

The intensity may curtail towards the end, but the band more than make up for it with an album that has a core of bulldozer guitar lines and assaulting drums, all of which carry with them the promise of the best house party you’ve ever been to.

If nothing else, Messier Objects is a proper reminder of the beneath-the-surface merits of The Notwist's compositional talents.

It's the strange mix of disconnection, anxiety and gender trouble that makes this album a record made by Gen Y, for Gen Y.

Richard D James still manages to be one of electronic music’s most captivating producers, and even if this does not have quite the same effect on the listener as much of his other work, it still feels far more engaging and accomplished than a simple genre exercise.

A messy, extravagant, astonishing, beguiling and honest experience: that’s love, and that’s also what I Love You, Honeybear is. Just magnificent.

Another Billy Childish record--freewheelin', unhinged, intellectual, intense, mustachioed. It was ever thus.

Modern Nature likely won’t ripple the upper reaches of the album charts or critic lists, nor will it rouse any new fans, but it’s an undeniable a pleasure to those who already are and proof The Charlatans tank is plenty full.

There are some dazzling moments here.

Superficially, Sauna is possibly the easiest, most accessible way into Elverum’s world he has released since he ditched The Microphones moniker, yet the concepts and themes explored remain undiluted, and the album’s complexities have as much to give as you are willing to work to take away.

Twerps couch enough of a dark streak beneath their mostly sunny exterior to promise future explorations outside their current box.

It feels like a debut record in the sense that they’re trying to do so many new things without 100% confidence, but also like a good debut record, it makes you massively excited for the future.

Individ is deeply nestled in The Dodos' shadow, gathering patterns of the past to construct their future without shying away from tried and true habits.

Vulnicura is humanity at its most volatilely sublime.

Despite strong results in the past, this time these elements have ultimately combined to make a sort of erratic psychedelic porridge; boring in more than a few places, and a bit much for anyone other than the genre's keenest fans.

It’s dreamy without being a sonic sedative; vaguely psychedelic and hypnotic without zapping energy levels.

It’s nice to hear the pair experimenting with their sound and trying to do something new, but it’s unfortunate that the quality of the song writing has seemed to suffer as a result.

By dispensing with score and allowing the musicians of Bamako to interpret de Ridder’s violin notations as they saw fit, Africa Express’ In C Mali retains the spirit of minimalism but imbues it with a heart and soul that’s rare in the compositional world.

You, Whom I Have Always Hated is a remarkably coherent and singular piece of work, which, due to its economy and pacing, never stumbles across an ill-fitting moment in which you can hear the seam that joins two different creative forces.

Between the dated indie dance and the ballads and the auto-crooned, electronic pop, there are promising, soulful, twinkling instances of intelligent sampling and singing and interesting instrumental interludes.

The most wonderful, positive ending, a paean to the power of song and the song that closes this modern classic of an album.

The four tracks that make up S are infectious and delivered with a well placed tongue-in-cheek, and each one certainly feels like an exercise in Moss' own musical exploration.

Minor misstep aside this is a kaleidoscopic album, dazzling in it’s detail, impressive in it’s intricacies and, best of all, one drawn from so many disparate styles, forms and functions that you could spend months digging through the cultural and musical references to satisfy the kind of musical curiosity it sparks.

The best albums allow us to ruminate on life’s big questions, giving insight not only into the mind of the artist but reflecting the sentiments of the beholder, and Viet Cong does exactly that.

Matador is a great record, the sound of an artist following his own singular path--an artist who becomes more interesting with each release.

Pratt sings of trying to trust in love once more, and with On Your Own Love Again we need not look far for proof that her music is a sign of a wonderful, maturing talent that we can believe in.

No Cities to Love confirms that whatever alchemy seems to occur whenever the three sit down to make music together remains untouched by the passage of time. To put it simply, Sleater-Kinney have now made eight records, and they are all very, very good

In Restriction, Archive have created an album that does a fine job of representing their eclectic ethos, but this eclecticism also leads the album to occasionally touch on the edge of incoherence.

This is comfortably the most sonically-pristine album that Belle & Sebastian have made.

Playful yet profound, baffling but very beautiful, sticking with Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper until it reveals its full dizzying array of riches most certainly is [worthwhile].

Ghost Culture is a house fan's Alice in Wonderland experience--everything is curious, and nothing is quite what it appears to be. But everything is delightful.

Terrible/Beautiful has some wonderful songs and does emit glints of growth, even if it is a tad long and flabbier than previous outings.

As brief as it is, and as unadventurous as the remixes are, Music Industry 3 Fitness Industry 1 may just be the mouthful of Mogwai nourishment needed by those left wanting more after Rave Tapes.

Yes, fourteen years is a long time to wait between records. But, when the end product is this good, it might just be worth the wait.

With all of their untameable if bizarre likeability, Shonen Knife are clearly a band that can just keep on giving.

In the end it is a work crippled by its own indecision, and perhaps bowed by the weight of expectation: a shame, for sure, but hardly a reason to lose faith.

Although this is hardly an essential release--few live albums ever are--it’s no victory lap or self-indulgent unit shifter. Its true value lies in its function as a worthy addition to the latter-day Cohen canon, as a reminder that he is still an active, relevant artist and performer, rather than a self-aggrandising nostalgia act.

It's a thrilling, if occasionally nauseating, sojourn into the spontaneous world of freeform performance.

Power is a rampaging success at being theatrical, dramatic, grandiose and, simultaneously, tasteful.

With the lows and highs out of the way, the three other mixes sit somewhere on the fence.

Throughout the album, there’s a sense they’re just playing around.

This is a record you need to keep listening to and finding new nuances. The sheer scope of material here will keep you entertained, thrilled and occasionally a little bit freaked out for years to come.

As is so often the case with albums like Creation--records that find bands daring to tear up old moves and comfortable registers--the album only stalls when it lapses into familiarity.

It’s a bunch of great dance tracks that should preserve their live sound in its natural habitat.

Pink continues down his path of willful eccentricity on pom pom, then, with little more to add to his reputation (which sadly now appears to be growing more for his haphazard attempts to be an internet-famous ‘figure’ than his musical output), yet there are moments of atmospheric and emotive brilliance that will make you wonder what kind of excellence he could achieve if he weren’t quite so in debt to the R Stevie Moore’s legend.

Antony commands a stadium with his vocals and tone, or in this case the Barbican in London, while the fragile live air has not failed to be captured in the final product of Turning.

Painful carries immense weight at all times, distorted or not. Cunningly titled Extra Painful, this reissue marks the 30th Anniversary of the band and offers futher insights into the Painfull sessions with acoutic, instrumental and unreleased gems on offer.

I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is a peculiar delight; one which you should indulge in at least once, if only just to try it. It may just leave you wanting another taste.

jUSt is by no means a catastrophe, it's just too empty an artefact to recommend to fans of a band who once infuriated, teased, scalded, intoxicated and destroyed their listeners with effortless aplomb.

Acoustic Dust is for those who, at a bare minimum, enjoyed Ranaldo’s latest solo efforts and are interested enough to hear what some of them might sound like in a different setting.

$ingle$ 2 acts as a highlights reel for the past five years, and its subtle shifts leave it feeling less like a compilation and more like an album on shuffle.

The studio cuts from this era on What's Your 20? provide a reminder of the huge contribution that the late multi-instrumentalist (and Tweedy's occasional co-writer) Jay Bennett made to Wilco's gradual shift from sour-breathed earthiness to more experimental, sophisticated and unsettled sounds.

A reflection on the band's past achievements and the clearing of the rarities cupboards: cut out a handful of one-laugh oddities tossed aside with punky abandon, and Alpha Mike Foxtrot beats most bands official catalogue.

Embracing crippling fear has never sounded so bracing.

Fantastically frantic and multilayered, Uurop VIII-XII Places in Sun & Winter, Son appropriately captures a live Fall experience in 2014, and reiterates just how durable the current line up is.

he Basement Tapes are an integral part of music history. Here they are, warts and all, the reality for once a near-match for the bloated myth.

A master-class display in unimaginable skill employed in the service of a greater good: the groove. Add this to a uniformly strong set of tunes and it’s clear that at 74, Allen has created one of his defining statements.

First Demo reinforces the impression that this particular band never really set a foot wrong; they sound more assured here, with just ten performances under their collective belt, than many bands longer in the tooth do in a lifetime.

The Other I is a confident collection of tunes decent enough to warrant keeping an eye on 2:54's future movements.

There are no 'sound-

Seeds is a very strong album, even if it may alienate fans of their older synth-led doom-gaze sound. Their loss--this is a triumph that has risen from tragedy, a glittering testament to a fallen band mate who has been done proud.

For the most part The Curse of Love doesn’t offer any of the pop hooks that made early Coral albums so enjoyable.

Never a note wasted, nothing done without a reason, they were, and will always be Bedhead as good a guitar band as you’ll ever hear.

It’s deeply personal, plaintive and emotional, and a very lovely thing.

This time round, despite still being pretty transparent with their influences, they are not totally overcome by them, and it results in The Voyeurs making a collection of songs more than worthy of a surreptitious peek.

It's a fully-formed debut that demonstrates Giannascoli's talent for a variety of genres, pop bedrock and his own idiosyncratic experiments. As non-debuts go, they don't come much stronger.

The Hum is a shattering, all-encompassing experience; there's climactic rage, broken organs and blank-eyed trance outs. At times it’s like listening to war, but there are also moments of beauty, musical tantrums and periods of bummed out weirdness. The result of all this? Total exhilaration.

The music itself is, in truth, not all that much of a departure from the trademark spiky, speedy post-punk that found a home on Light Up Gold and Sunbathing Animal. But the album’s covers, something hitherto avoided, offer a little respite from the repetition.

This is a stunning record, principally because of its narrative arc and complete cohesion--it's easy to see why they're leaving the traditional format if they've perfected it.

Alix is not a perfect album--Widmer and Joyner’s vocals still prove an acquired taste and while better balanced than previous efforts, the duo could still use a wider dynamic. However, it does arguably prove that Generationals’ bread and butter lies on the poppy side of the fence, this perhaps their most cohesive statement to date, and their yellow brick road’s poppy fields appear to serve only to revitalize.

It’s not their most nuanced piece of work to date, but it does boil down many of the key components of the band’s sound to something that feels universally accessible; you get the feeling that this is a rarities compilation that’s actually been put together intelligently, and there’s no overstating just how rare that is.

At its worst, Red Hot + Arthur Russell shows up the limitations of the cover-album-as-form, but at its best, it's a thrilling tribute to a none-more-singular artist.

Either through reticence or reverence for the music, this approach feels half-hearted and only partially realised. If the group wants to keep pushing the limits of Mariachi El Bronx, it may need to look elsewhere.

Marigolden is a quiet exclamatory statement hearkening toward what’s gone missing from America’s roots.

The rare misstep aside ("Mind Blues" churns along restlessly to little obvious resolution), the extremely aptly titled Rhythm must belong amongst the year's more impressive releases.

This new LP doesn't really break new ground in the same way. It does flesh out his personality and provide substance behind the flashy pop showmanship though, and that's not something to be undervalued.

It's an instrumental record, as probably is to be expected, and those looking for the kind of emotional depth (beyond primal urges and base fear) or commentary might be a bit disappointed. Nonetheless, that minor point will probably be a non-issue, totally overshadowed the devastation in play.

If Michael is Chaz Bundick's guided tour of dance music, then he takes you to some unexpected but seriously interesting places.