The album’s great triumph--The Antlers’ great triumph--is the intelligence with which Silberman’s masterful lyricism is matched to its backdrops.

It’s an album of such focus and dedication to its oddness and brilliance that you can tell just how much work has been put in.

Running Out Of Love isn’t the sound of hectoring; it’s The Radio Dept. getting on with the business of making important records, being one of the most challenging, uncompromising and rewarding bands we have and proving that political music is as vital as ever.

Experimental works like this aren’t typically held up for their broad appeal, but the waves of static peace and disorienting swells that wash back and forth over Cruel Optimism communicate on an open plane where specific meaning is obscured but state of mind is apparent to anyone.

Its 11 tracks taking listeners on an rollercoaster of emotional peaks and troughs, and by the time the closing moments of final track "The Ocean Grew Hands To Hold Me" ring out, you can’t help but feel bruised, beaten and above all cleansed.

Like My Bloody Valentine with m b v, they’ve listened and they’ve learnt and they’ve adapted their sound for a new generation without losing what made them names in the first place. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk, sure, but Slowdive have walked it deftly and returned with an album that doesn’t disappoint.

Allow a while for these songs to seep in, and The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania will leave you deeply moved, and desperate for more.

The narrative is unsettling, but the music leaps and soars with a boundless energy that could only be made by two people with the utmost faith in each other. It helps that the album’s production sounds rough and homespun.

If you listen to this album with your head, it is a politically charged rally to the people, but if you listen with your body, it is an album designed to make you dance--the hallmark of any release bearing the Kuti name.

When it’s not a really scary record, it’s a really fun one, and most of the time, it’s both.

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.

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.

Me is both a fabulous anthology of boisterous pop songs, and a timely, revelatory album for a lot of people to live vicariously through.

Big Bad feels like the perfect distillation of the raw energy and menace that Giggs has brought to UK music, only this time it's been taken to a whole new level.

Bubba has a subtle confidence that beds in after each listen. Welcome back mate, we missed you.

s Adams raises her voice and coats her guitar in discordant fuzz, it hints at potentially thornier and more abrasive (yet still intimately majestic) future directions that could address the one and only possible flaw with Metal Bird, the album’s uniformly first-gear pace.

Every listen yields new life oozing from each beat - above all, Anywhere But Here feels like an album that will weather excellently as Sorry go onwards.

It’s a fantastic example of how artists can still come to a project with tonnes of contextual flavour that they want to include and not have it overpower the entire dish.

The presence of a full band in the studio and the proverbial writer’s room gives Raspberry Moon the dynamic presence previous records swapped for a consistent, syrupy atmosphere. While plenty of radiated sunbeam ragers populate the tracklist, acoustic ballads and delicacy are the real calling cards of this album.

Fratti’s arrangements tiptoe around Orcutt’s jagged idiosyncrasies, creating a melodically rich, soothing yet robustly physical sound that often resembles chamber music that happens to have a healthy lining of dirt under its nails, and which manages to sound simultaneously unvarnished in its uncluttered directness and nuanced in its alluring detail.

What the other releases do so well is that they either hit the spot hard or deliberately miss for effect, but this time round the result seems to be somewhere in between.

Ultimately, while Grey Tickles, Black Pressure should be a career-definiting opus, it just seems unfocussed and uncertain; Grant's barbs aren't as sharp, which means too few of the songs stick like they should.

If there’s any justice at all, the future ahead after the release of this deeply moving, often mesmerising, sparse yet still richly nuanced album will see Chapman conclude his much-overdue journey to wider renown from the shadows he’s operated in for far too long.

A wonderful, accomplished return.

It is a vital addition to an impressive catalogue from a group who deserve your attention.

From its overall sound down to its finer details, Gavin, Maskin and McPherson have hit the mark completely. It’s amazing to see a band that are so unapologetically queer excel at their craft and create an album that is quite possibly, if not certainly, their masterpiece.

From the sharp synth stabs of “Bit Of Rain” to the distorted reflections of album closer “Awful”, all led by Rodriguez’s fantastic vocals, I’m Your Empress Of is a funky, generous and vibrant record.

Callahan is particularly unsentimental. His lyrics often bring to mind lab or field notes. His signature deadpan delivery is consistently elusive. The instrumentation sounds unscripted, largely improvised. In this way, 58 captures Callahan at his most unguarded and unrehearsed.