An album both more mature and more realised than anything Hop Along have realised previously, Bark Your Head Off, Dog is a deft balance of quiet, folky meanderings and rousing slabs of indie rock, the two combining in to an amalgam that on paper, shouldn’t really work, but in practice cements Hop Along as far more than another quirky indie pop band, and elevates them in to another realm entirely.

What I Don’t Run does do is that it takes the already colourful palette that the group used for Leave Me Alone and expands on every aspect of it, imbuing it with the sort of fizz and crackle that you can’t fake--it’s only ever the product of a thriving live outfit. Hinds are approaching full bloom.

Geography has much that appeals, not least that it’s one of those rare records that doesn’t fit neatly in to one genre. With it, Misch has cemented his place as one of the UK’s top independent producers of the moment, and looks set to only grow in confidence.

Wye Oak’s forward-thinking approach proves they’re miles ahead of their peers in more ways than one, and if they can keep on moving, things are likely to stay that way for some time.

It results in a pleasant, but mostly quite forgettable listen.

At its best the record is a playful, pulse-raising thrill-ride; and you can see that musical dexterity on display here will be staggeringly impressive or bewilderingly inconsistent, depending on your taste. I guess Yesterday Was Forever, but tomorrow is where we’ll see the best from Kate Nash: this feels like the last step before greatness.

Wiry but not without weight, The Nothing They Need conveys an increasingly efficient model of Dead Meadow, saying its piece in eight unhurried, hash-hued visions.

Sex and Love is best when self-assured but not arrogant, and when Nielson offers up confidently subdued melodies which give space for his production to ring out.

What emerges from Cinema is an image of a musician who remained resistant to such categorisations to the end: experimental, curious and explorative, Czukay clearly didn't want to master just one style of music. He preferred to have a go at them all. Even when the results are messy (some of the light-hearted late 80's material hasn't dated well), Cinema proves the wisdom of this open-eared approach.

The richness of the source material and the deftness of interplay of each member of the band ensures that Your Queen is a Reptile leaves you with a sense of having been a part of something truly special.

Funny, raging, unpredictable and electric, this is a record that feels alive.

The bleak landscape around Dungeness can provoke contrasting responses, and both the sense of malevolence (it’s the site of a nuclear power station) and stark beauty are well reflected on this masterly recording.

It falls into a very similar trap to the band’s last album, which started with a track that sounded promisingly fresh (“The Singer Addresses His Audience”) before immediately lapsing into Decemberists-by-numbers (“Cavalry Captain”).

Castles moves from darkness to hope, and ends not with a conclusion, but possibilities.

Combat Sports reaffirms The Vaccines as one of the most exciting British bands around--and one absolutely still worth pestering friends about.

While certain songs definitively outshine others, they all contain their own character and energy resulting in something not only haunting and enigmatic, but something rather stunning.

Modest means and humble ends shape the character of No Fool Like An Old Fool.

Mr. Dynamite's expansive instrumental interludes sometimes disrupt the pacing and punch of the record, defying coherence, but this never seems like anything less than deliberate mischief. It’s merely a performance of the group’s own self-discovery, proudly extending and flexing their new cyborg limbs.

Though a record of torn emotions, veering from elation to desolation even with a single track, Reiði is far from directionless. Resolute in its delivery and steadfast in its ambition, Black Foxxes have delivered an album that’s both hauntingly fragile, aggressively unapologetic and arguably one of the strongest releases of the year.

Though much is often said about Sunflower Bean’s sounds of the past, Twenty Two In Blue is an impressive reflection of their formative years and a place to start talking about their future.

Delivered with a passion that feels like it could at any time escalate to a frenzy, Rosenstock laments the USA’s current situation in true punk style with his heart on his sleeve.

A record that feels so familiar but with just enough surprises to make it exciting too. The three year wait, then, seems entirely worth it; that scrappy Brighton foursome have grown into a bonafide anthem factory with plenty more still to come.

I Don’t Think I Can Do This Any More won't win over any of Moose Blood’s detractors, but despite those tracks featuring early in the album erring on the wrong side of over-familiarity, the band have clearly made a solid effort in developing their sound and maturing as an outfit. And though by no means a perfect album, it’s far less two-dimensional than cursory listens would have one believe.

Hot Snakes are as dry, dented and slightly demented as ever.

For die hard Reich fans, these recordings may not reveal anything wildly different than what has preceded in a vast corpus. Reich is a composer whose work contains great nuance, and it is certainly the case for Pulse / Quartet. These are recordings that demand a few listens, they are worth it. Allow yourself to get lost in them.

As well as some (comparatively speaking; nothing here is entirely unrewarding) misses, the instrumental cuts also provide the EP's highpoint in the form of the soaring, Can-inspired propulsive hypnotics of "Loop".

Boarding House Reach's overall flow--conceptually and creatively--is at times unsure and brilliant at once. This is no album of the year contender, nor will it rank too highly on White's saggish discography. Instead, it's thirteen songs of creative madness.

Imagination is what makes this record. There’s something about each one of these tracks that lulls out a scenario from the recesses of your brain, with each different sonic motif working around the others to complete a narrative, which fades out of your mind immediately as the song melts into itself at the end, like the disintegrating dawn reverie we all experience on attempting to remember a dream.