They demonstrate a knack for so many areas it’s hard to predict where they may go in the next few years, although it’s a bit incoherent at times as the band schlep from one genre to another while still trying to hoist in their innate pop flair. This record’s a crossroads.

“Vibrant Beast” is an entirely apt term to describe the complete album, as well as serving as its rowdy closing track, with Marijuana Deathsquads emphatically proving once again that there is indeed beauty to be found in electronic dissonance, as well as plenty of original artistry in the band’s boundless creative exploration.

The end result is an album sure to be a curiosity for fans but likely to be lost on everyone else.

Choir of Echoes is largely a retread of old ground. It’s perfectly lovely ground all the same.

There’s nary a misstep, and yet, it still sounds as raw as a carcass in a butcher’s window.

Through all its globe-trotting nuances and outlandish statements of grandeur, it’s a striking pop record.

A welcome comeback.

Ggood voice is nothing without good songs, and Rateliff comes with plenty of ammunition on Falling Faster Than You Can Run.

Haze and her production team have creative ideas and the means to realise them on record. They simply distract themselves trying to turn a rapper into a pop star.

Rest assured, young worrier, Chiaroscuro is triumphant.

The best album of their career thus far.

Waking Lines is an ambitious premiere, but one that’s not had all it’s misshapen foibles ironed out. Patterns have, however, ensured that they’ll remain inside people’s heads for a considerable time to come.

Simultaneously concerned with uncomplicated nostalgia, yet quietly indulging in the slightly-less-conventional. It makes for an intriguing introduction, and a much needed reprieve for supergroups everywhere.

With the good comes the average and with it the great.

Age and time haven’t withered the power of Thee Silver Mt. Zion; if anything, this five-piece incarnation of the band has distilled all that free-jazz/post-rock/orchestral/folk/punk/metal influence into a record that’s the best work the Canadians have produced to date.

Painted Palms’ firm grasp on hooky songwriting and Pet Sounds-levels of vicarious whimsy makes for a rather interesting edifice of introspection for a debut LP, despite its cluttered arrangement.

What it lacks in crowd-pleasing polish is gained in atmosphere. Intimate doesn’t begin to cover it.

Thematically, it can seem like a little bit of a kitchen sink job in places, but there’s certainly no shortage of crushingly safe folk songwriters at present; in fact, Jurado’s disregard for convention and appetite for reinvention stick out like a sore thumb amongst the output of many of his contemporaries.

It’s a different sound on Warpaint, that’s for sure, and though it’s friskier and more malevolent in nature--possibly even more damaged and/or emotionally ruptured--they’re far more open. There’s an accessibility, an empathy for kindred feelings.

It is a powerful and dark narrative that fits the explosive attitude of the Big Ups and makes this record relevant on so many different levels.

Rave Tapes doesn’t quite reach the euphoric heights of Hardcore Will Never Die, but it is an elaborate and intelligent album from a group that isn’t interested in grabbing their listeners by the scruff of their collective neck anymore; instead, today’s Mogwai are purveyors of nuance and subtlety, and fine ones at that.

They still unleash stunning music on Origins without always seeking to shock.

Grassed Inn anchors itself with sturdy, rhythmic melodies, which is the biggest testament to Blank Realm’s mission of increasing focus and tightening up their ship.

Post Tropical has lots of vivid imagery, much drawn from the great outdoors, but throughout the LP’s duration, there’s always a strident theme of strength.

By turns infuriating and intoxicating, but swaying strongly in favour of the latter, Little Sand Box ultimately suggests that maybe those promoters were in the wrong after all back in 1991.

Has God Seen My Shadow? seems similarly poised to wipe out Lanegan’s reputation as a perennial sideman: on this showing, he must count amongst the most compelling voices currently in circulation.

Total Strife Forever is breathtaking. It might get tough sometimes, lonely and desolate even, but Doyle’s catharsis will hoist you by the bootstraps into lusher pastures.

Like the tightrope act of love itself, Love’s Crushing Diamond perseveres through calculated effort never to offend or betray the trust of its betrothed listener.