The album is full of high-energy, highly-infectious dance numbers--in a way that demands frequently radio play, big-budget festival spots, distasteful Kesha collaborations, and another five year break between this and album #3.

Fourteen years have passed since they arose, and while so much has changed in the world, Art Brut are a welcome constant. Wham! Bang! Pow! Art Brut are back, and better than ever!

On her third, La Roux shows that she can write a melody like few others in the business today, but it’s hard to look past how similar each song really is.

The tone of the album is almost suffocating. Just as Cuco’s vocals submerge under the cloying, bolero sensibilities of “Far Away From Home” – as do we, with this all-encompassing misery.

If you like your summer pop to keep you on your toes then this is definitely for you. Otherwise this is an impressively ambitious if somewhat misguided debut from a band well worth keeping tabs on.

At just over an hour, Eucalyptus is a bit too sprawling, and could have probably been pruned comfortably in half. This may have made it a little bit more accessible and coherent, but given Avey Tare’s boundary pushing mindset, this probably would have missed the point.

The arrangements and execution have finely coalesced, but the anything-goes spirit that sparked Blitzen Trapper’s late ‘00s renaissance seems to have moved on. The wild mountain nation has been tamed.

Tellier’s Confection is an experimental anthology. It’s not entirely what you might expect, and there’s no doubt it won’t be to everyone’s taste.

The quality of the tracks are enough to keep the most hardened of critics occupied and the depth of the album, both musically and lyrically, should hold your attention, whatever month it is.

The simple moments are offset by grander, more exciting ones.

Pop’s going through a renaissance of sorts lately, or more accurately, the chart-dominating pop is, and alongside the aforementioned, La Grange is leading the charge of the nu-pop brigade. Avoid at your peril; the record’s not for missing.

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.

Ultimately, it may not dramatically change their fortunes, but it remaina an album that’ll help further cement Cold Pumas as being one of the UK’s most underrated bands.

Language is satisfyingly expansive, exploring the connection between communication and physicality in contemporary queer relationships.

There’s are threads of heritage strung through Emerald Valley, not just in the vintage ‘70s/’80s guitar pop pedigree of the riffs and rhythms (“One Flew East,” “Break Me” and “Last Chance County” all from the second half particularly stand out), but also in Tucker’s lyrics and delivery, which are earnest and earthy without curtailing her natural dynamic.

The Districts have evolved into something bigger and brighter with their fifth release. Turns out Great American Painting is pretty great.

Sorry I'm Late is certainly a belated arrival but it shows signs of positive momentum for Mae Muller and will have an emotional impact upon listeners whose path intertwines with hers – it’s just a shame that any sense of sonic bravery wasn’t given the opportunity to carry that influence further.

The powerful, FIFA-ready indie rock is good and often great, but these spare, vulnerable songs are the record’s most powerful. Bakar is becoming one of the most distinct personalities in UK pop, and the more of him he shows us, the better he becomes.

This certainly won’t be the most original album you’ll hear this year, but it will be one of the most charming, and the rate at which Jones is managing to churn out quality pop songs bodes well for the future, and means you can forgive him Sob Story‘s occasional misstep.

It’s half magical, lush, and wholesome, and half redundant. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in repetitive cycles, not knowing when to quit. That moment has finally arrived for Titus Andronicus.

This time out, they do a far better job injecting their own original spirit into their stirring music and impassioned songs, while taking these familiar musical sounds and styles of the past in a modern new direction.

TV En Francais isn’t less successful than its predecessors, but the tracks that show a band evolving naturally offer a more welcomed take on the band in 2014.

Skip track one though, leave it to simmer a while, and Apocalypse Soon should inevitably be soundtracking at least some of the summer of 2014.

Scandinavian pop clearly plays an influence alongside contrasting splashes of psych-rock and raw, grungy punk, and the unique little fantasy worlds they create with it are a great form of escapism.

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

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.

Although the urge for transformation is commendable, sometimes a change isn’t quite as good as a rest.

There are certainly high points to be found here, but the feeling that vital cogs in the Rustie machinery are missing never quite subsides.