No tracks on the record could really be said to be ‘stand out’ but they create, on the whole, something that experiments with psych’s current face, paying homage to the ‘far out’ creators who originated it.

Dry The River have here proven that they hold their own distinct niche in our record collections, and are settling in to it nicely.

Joy, recorded with Ty Segall and released last year, was a cocksure, psychedelia-tinged swirl of sex and limbs and thumping rhythms. I Have To Feed Larry’s Hawk exhibits little of this exuberance and is in large part a more gentle work of perspective and introspection, aided by a curatorial production that treats each element of the music, electronic or acoustic, like a moving part of a clockwork diorama, Presley’s breathy vocals condensing on the glass of the bell jar as he watches them all tick and turn.

Standouts like “The Sun Also Rises,” “Car into the Sea” and the title track are also just as groovy as anything from that era, but never does the album sound stuck in it. The Modern Age is a very welcome return.

At the very least, it’s an admirable first step into something far more profound.

For his fifth long player as White Fence, things have remained very much the same musically.

An orchestral score for a remembered expanse, it casts vivid shadows but avoids rigid form.

Where things get truly interesting, though, is watching Joey’s flow adapt to the song.

Yours Conditionally is much more fun when you allow yourself to dive headfirst into its strife and inhale its sarcasm rather than floating along its serene surface.

Silent Earthling is clearly an experiment in how to expand on a sound that is already protean and expansive by nature. It’s a difficult job, and that’s clear from listening to the record, but such is the breathtaking nature of Three Trapped Tigers that it is highly doubtful many will mind.

By virtue of its accessibility, Black Bubblegum presents itself as the most singular album Copeland has produced to date and who knows, maybe some pop bangers will be coming our way after all.

The mystery of Alex Cameron continues to be unsolved, but after Forced Witness, his identity and place in the indie world seems to be much clearer, and at times, all the more impressive.

Sensitive production brings out the best of DeCicca’s imaginative style, with effective touches here and there of gospel choir and a few intelligently-restrained jazz bass rhythms on an album of self-effacing quality.

Spooky Action is as dense and detailed as his former band’s best known work, but song for song he picks one mode and more or less sticks to it, setting up a more reasonable barrier to entry.

Our Nature is a seriously accomplished pop record, and a perfect progression.

Fleeting is, in sum, an art in the sweet and wholesome worship of nature, it's comforting highs and dark, confusing depths encompassing all the brief human relationships it gives birth to and provides a stage for.

The album is so much more than a set of rough drafts of more considered compositions. These 1998 offerings succeed in their own right.

There’s an exuberance to the entire record that feels genuine and fresh, like it was captured unexpectedly.

In a scene over-stuffed with ‘80s-throwback melancholia, it is Byczkowski’s ambition, scope, and keen sense of melodrama that set Something to Lose apart.

Same As You isn’t going to be the most exciting release from Polar Bear you’ll hear, but it is a solid and entirely welcomd release from a band who rarely put a foot wrong.

Unhealthy though it may be, the pain expressed certainly produced a great debut.

For the majority of Woman, Justice are acting out their pop dreams through machinery. Where in the past they’ve allowed to let the equipment do the talking, here, they show that they too are human after all.

The result is a lengthy cinematic suite of songs.... and in the rest; a record’s worth of epic, towering soundscapes built on sturdy prog and indie rock foundations.

Dark elements permeate the menacing corners of Crawling Up The Stairs, and while it may have been a long, grueling journey to get through, it seems that by the end of this bumpy road, Pure X have reached a positive creative terrain that suggests their long climb up the from the bottom was worth all the effort and pain it took to get there.

Though not quite as compositionally adventurous as Shields, these demos and bonus tracks are equally emotionally resonant--it’s an insight into what Shields could have been--and what we might have to look forward to in the future.

Abrasive but not completely inaccessible, it’s The Fall very nearly at their best.

What makes Manipulator one of Segall’s strongest releases to date is less to do with the energy he brings to proceedings, though, and more about just how evident his keenness to experiment is, from start to finish.

The Great Dismal, thankfully, is everything it promised to be – it sounds huge, and it sounds miserable.