Krai will never be for everyone, but then it was never intended as so; instead it gives forgotten stretches of Russian land a name for themselves, and in that regard this inventive and progressive release from an exceptionally talented young musician is a success.

It grows immediately after every listen. Its effects have some kind of exponential growth in your head, where you can find yourself humming melodies that appear once or twice in one track. His songwriting is that infectious.

Dream Nails are their best when their lyrics feel like an arm around your shoulder.

This is a band still keen to experiment – a flourishing ensemble ahead of the alternative music curve.

Creatures of the Late Afternoon is a significant evolution since his seminal work Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, showcasing an impressive restraint of oversaturating us with dizzying samples and flashy turntablism and instead focusing on letting the music speak for itself.

No matter how disorganised Olivia Dean proclaims this album to be, she doesn’t miss a beat – and instead generates a record with just about everything to deem itself ‘perfect’.

Oceanside Countryside provides a snapshot of Young in the middle of his 1970s winning streak, possibly the most creatively fertile run that any songwriter has ever had the good fortune to find themselves in.

This is a seductive and beguiling record.

The substance to his music however means Anthropocene is consistently listenable, and at times immensely enjoyable. Exploring one of the most dismal subjects we as a race can face, it’s nonetheless a joy.

Alicia offers its listeners with the ultimate microcosm of the singer’s discography thus far, re-positioning Keys as a force to be reckoned in today’s musical landscape.

For all its fury and fragmentation, Never Exhale is remarkably cohesive, a testament to DITZ’s ability to harness chaos into something purposeful.

Braindrops is as cerebral and gut-level as its name implies, high-minded and high volume, a grand mess that isn’t really a mess at all.

Royal Blood’s debut is an easily digestible, unfortunately thin-sounding, slightly disappointing rock record and an exciting, fresh, invigorating pop record both at the same time.

Pinkshinyultrablast isn’t so much offering something new to or pushing shoegaze anywhere it hasn’t already been. They are flat out transcending it, offering a sound all their own that is frighteningly powerful and overwhelmingly beautiful.

Ending the album with a couple of more easily accessible songs – closer “Price of a Man”, despite being groovier and addressing toxic masculinity, is also quite conventional by their standards – may be the band’s attempt to attract a wider audience. And they do deserve a wider audience. It’s just that you hope they can get it without having to lose the spark and spirit that makes Again such a thrilling ride.

Ö is a raw, natural celebration of that trust. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s exactly what’s needed heading into summer.

It could be argued that you need to put in some effort yourself to fully enjoy music like this that demands activity from your brain, but with a catalyst like The Phoenix, all you need to do is listen and let your mind wander into a galaxy far, far away.

The last installment of the KICK cycle is much more tame, less experimental, less intricate than the three others. It’s almost hollow in comparison to its counterparts, paradoxically harder to make sense of than the more frantic entries released at the same time. Arca adds a new dimension to the mix with kiCK iiiii’s insistence on centering silence within the music.

Scalping’s world-creation on Void is engaging and welcoming while being both ecstatic and unnerving. What gives this record cohesion is its ability to freely blend sounds and be bold while maintaining its heart as a rhythmic electronic record that’s audibly bursting to be let loose on a live audience.

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.

[This record] showcases a band capable of innovating, pushing themselves and experimenting eight albums deep to come up with an album more than worthy of praise.

On their dense, careworn new LP (their fifteenth studio effort), indie stalwarts/college rock heavyweights Yo La Tengo have shown that can still bring fresh ideas to the table, despite the album being fifteen tracks long, and it being over thirty years since their first album.

This demonstration of versatility provides a hint of what could happen if the yin and yang find a little peace. As it is, on Silver Tongue, their occasional struggle leaves us with a worthy album with definite highlights, but some unfulfilled potential.

At its best, Process is an album that makes a virtue of its own patterns of gray art-punk surfaces slashed with caterwauling bursts, like a roller coaster you’ve ridden enough times to feel the ups and downs in your muscle memory. In both cases, the thrill remains, adrenal peaks and false-calm valleys.

It’s Real displays the same exuberance and professionalism--not to be taken as a dirty word here, but as testament to the band’s seemingly effortless knack for arrangement and execution--as its predecessor but adds a handful of different moods and textures.

It might not be all we'd hoped for, and could certainly benefit from some variety, but there are just about enough standouts here to keep admirers interested.

Daniel shows potential for Real Estate to take their music to the next level and in a way, that’s both its biggest plus and greatest minus.

With nary a crack across the entire album, Bonar’s weaving of multiple indie rock subgenres--alt-country, dream pop, punk--is tight as it gets, yet she and her band consistently retain an air of restlessness across the album.