Though I can’t help but crave a return to the more dark and experimental avenue in the future, the execution here is indisputable, and album is a cohesive and worthwhile effort deserving of a wider audience’s attention.

The Ridge continuously strikes a fine balance between the heady grandeur of classical music and the restless creative exploration of the current indie scene, striking a similar resonant chord with music fans who either came across the album due to their interest in Arcade Fire or Mozart.

Even with their most straight-ahead record to date, GBV still show that they’re capable of surprises, and no matter how much more they release in the next [insert arbitrary period of time here], will always be worth following.

MICHELLE will always be a pop group, but the tension in this slate of songs gives a different air to the other flowery elements in the production. It’s a product of six people developing individually and collectively.

These songs are indubitably vigorous and youthful. Moreover, there’s also a fleck of Slowdive's nostalgia and urgency spattered on them, like the golden sky at sunset, whose warm-coloured canvas quickly loses its treasured vibrance to nightly darkness.

Elegantly blurring the lines between post-rock, metal and post-classical once again, As The Moon Rests is a dramatic, urgent, poetic return to form for A.A. Williams.

And I Have Been glides like a meticulous record full of cryptic, meaningful occurrences. Even if it’s unadorned, it still clicks.

There are plenty of small discoveries to be found within each of With Love‘s intricate sound trips, but there is enough mystery and intrigue injected into each textured layer to keep you wanting to find new ways to get lost.

Once again, the band finds healing and beauty in their own chaotic vortex, and once again they invite everyone listening to do the same, joining them on their most exploratory and cathartic ride yet.

Marking their rangiest and most integrated foray, Not Here Not Gone is a doom, 'gaze, and stoner speedball. There’s an existential space here we all know.

The product of constant playing and musical experimentation between tour duties, Armageddon In A Summer Dress marks the point where the nominally folkie Ward goes electric. The effect is frequently electrifying.

With tongues remaining cemented firmly in cheeks, Venom is a rip-roaring effort from Wargasm and a testament to their prowess as being “not just any metal band”.

Freakout/Release features many moments of quintessential Hot Chip fun, but explores other exciting avenues as well. What’s clearly still at the centre though is the heart and love for creativity that this band still have, and it’s a testament to their talent that through all the music they create between them they can still turn out interesting hits in new ways.

He is a true, wonderful artist that seems – on this evidence – to be on a one-man mission to take country out farther into the wilderness that its ever been. Make sure you’re along for the ride.

As cynical as it is whimsical, with their fifth album Arcade Fire have bridged the gap between actuality and aspiration.

The songs are beautifully crafted, shimmering with an alluring magic and aura, existing in their own time and space.

M:FANS is certainly a fair deal more interesting than yet another note-for-note trek down memory lane.

[A] fine album. If melancholy had a soundtrack, it would be Mint Field’s De Las Luces.

Despite moments of variance, Firepower still finds Priest as focused as ever. Although they don’t break the mould on every track, it’s important to remember that it’s a mould that they set, and Firepower fulfills as some of this year’s most prospering and ferocious heavy metal.

It feels like a fitting release for the duo who’ve been going for so long. The search for new ideas is always on, and with this one, they’ve found a winner that offers something a bit different, while not alienating.

Foxing have crafted an album that expertly balances what drew in old fans in the first place – the borderline-unhinged emotional highs of their early math sound – with fresh, indie rock that is very likely to perk up the ears of new listeners.

All things considered, there are far more winners than losers here, and that's nothing if not a pleasant surprise.

It has the angst and energy we have come to expect, but refined through a miscellany of new sounds and influences while challenging what a Black Honey record can be, shifting away from their punk and grunge roots and cementing their growing reputation.

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.

Shelley’s on Zenn-La is renewed proof of Coates’ gift for flexing considerable technological and musical muscle without ever becoming alienating. For all talk of its complexity and Coates’ varied background this is, simply, a generous and fascinating album that’s difficult to stay away from.

Take Control colourfully, and often cartoonishly, blazes with a refusal to accept the monotonies of everyday life.

The band have always been wonderfully, discordantly rowdy, and this genre of guitar-driven country-park encapsulates their chaos perfectly. The Georgia band fully embrace their roots on their ninth studio offering, a delightful sheen of old-school Americana coating the album.

Dyer and Sanchez’s synthesis of the familiar with the new, however, revels in a disparate identity that both challenges and lulls. While not to be crudely termed genre-defying, it would be difficult to argue that the idiosyncratic sound of Buke and Gase can be easily defined.