Seeds is a very strong album, even if it may alienate fans of their older synth-led doom-gaze sound. Their loss--this is a triumph that has risen from tragedy, a glittering testament to a fallen band mate who has been done proud.

For the most part The Curse of Love doesn’t offer any of the pop hooks that made early Coral albums so enjoyable.

Never a note wasted, nothing done without a reason, they were, and will always be Bedhead as good a guitar band as you’ll ever hear.

It’s deeply personal, plaintive and emotional, and a very lovely thing.

This time round, despite still being pretty transparent with their influences, they are not totally overcome by them, and it results in The Voyeurs making a collection of songs more than worthy of a surreptitious peek.

It's a fully-formed debut that demonstrates Giannascoli's talent for a variety of genres, pop bedrock and his own idiosyncratic experiments. As non-debuts go, they don't come much stronger.

The Hum is a shattering, all-encompassing experience; there's climactic rage, broken organs and blank-eyed trance outs. At times it’s like listening to war, but there are also moments of beauty, musical tantrums and periods of bummed out weirdness. The result of all this? Total exhilaration.

The music itself is, in truth, not all that much of a departure from the trademark spiky, speedy post-punk that found a home on Light Up Gold and Sunbathing Animal. But the album’s covers, something hitherto avoided, offer a little respite from the repetition.

This is a stunning record, principally because of its narrative arc and complete cohesion--it's easy to see why they're leaving the traditional format if they've perfected it.

Alix is not a perfect album--Widmer and Joyner’s vocals still prove an acquired taste and while better balanced than previous efforts, the duo could still use a wider dynamic. However, it does arguably prove that Generationals’ bread and butter lies on the poppy side of the fence, this perhaps their most cohesive statement to date, and their yellow brick road’s poppy fields appear to serve only to revitalize.

It’s not their most nuanced piece of work to date, but it does boil down many of the key components of the band’s sound to something that feels universally accessible; you get the feeling that this is a rarities compilation that’s actually been put together intelligently, and there’s no overstating just how rare that is.

At its worst, Red Hot + Arthur Russell shows up the limitations of the cover-album-as-form, but at its best, it's a thrilling tribute to a none-more-singular artist.

Either through reticence or reverence for the music, this approach feels half-hearted and only partially realised. If the group wants to keep pushing the limits of Mariachi El Bronx, it may need to look elsewhere.

Marigolden is a quiet exclamatory statement hearkening toward what’s gone missing from America’s roots.

The rare misstep aside ("Mind Blues" churns along restlessly to little obvious resolution), the extremely aptly titled Rhythm must belong amongst the year's more impressive releases.

This new LP doesn't really break new ground in the same way. It does flesh out his personality and provide substance behind the flashy pop showmanship though, and that's not something to be undervalued.

It's an instrumental record, as probably is to be expected, and those looking for the kind of emotional depth (beyond primal urges and base fear) or commentary might be a bit disappointed. Nonetheless, that minor point will probably be a non-issue, totally overshadowed the devastation in play.

If Michael is Chaz Bundick's guided tour of dance music, then he takes you to some unexpected but seriously interesting places.

This is aural nutrition if ever there was such a thing.

Songs is the sound of a talented man with a little too much focus on trends and on a too-wide cache of influences, to the point where even he sounds unconvinced by his own music.

Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, Travis Barker, Diane Coffee, the filthy-mouthed Gangsta Boo...they all contribute to the depth of RTJ2 but never outshine the stars of Render and Meline, despite all giving the best performances of their careers in some time.

Almost inevitably, the result is something that makes most commercial music look like a palid, indistinct, homogenous mass.

There are certainly traces of the band's past traits, except this time they err more on the side of being endearing quirks than being the slightly off-putting extras they once were.

There's evolution with purpose in every fibre of 1989, and far from jettisoning her integrity in this drastic lunge, she's proved in her bold, risky decision that she's got courage in her convictions to pull it off and faith in her fans to accept the new direction.

It’s not just that all seven albums are of serious musical worth; together, as the Sleater-Kinney back catalogue, they feel like they have some genuine historical value, too.

It stands as both a fascinating new direction, and a heartbreaking memoir of a period now sinking into the past.

It's not a perfect album by any means, but it is a worthy cover of a nigh-on perfect album, capturing the joie de vivre of the original and dousing it in some serious lunacy for good measure. And that's no mean feat.

Although by no means an instant classic, Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave shows an integrity to The Twilight Sad which cements their position as one of the more creatively important bands operating today.