Delivering on both slow-burn emotional complexity and quick-hit thrills, Sir is a welcome return for an underrated group whose influence on contemporary pop music is often overlooked.

Thanks to the fact that Car Seat Headrest is now a band rather than a solo recording project, there’s more spit and polish to the songs, a level of gloss that Twin Fantasy really benefits from.

Beautifully-measured collaboration between two venerable avant garde artists.

Although he may be the keystone that holds this record together, Russell seems more comfortable behind the boards, letting the talents of his collaborators take centre stage. His tight, percussive productions lay the perfect foundations for the all-star cast to take flight, filling in the gaps with trickling melodies and expertly picked samples.

Jansch's future Pentangle bandmate John Renbourn guests on second guitar and the guitarists' mainly instrumental, jazz- and blues-influenced duo album Bert & John (also from 1966) closes this hugely impressive set on another high note.

It’s not as instantly accessible an album as the band’s relatively recent classics Majesty Shredding (2010) and I Hate Music (2013), but in many ways it’s a more important one. It’s the sound of an essentially middle-aged band firing out a clutch of missile missives directed at the dark heart of modern America (in the absence of many younger bands fulfilling that role) and carrying it off majestically.

There’s still something fun and interesting to be found in what the band do and Little Dark Age is proof that they’re nowhere near done with inter dimensional meddling.

Their third album, Room Inside The World, seems far too safe compared to their past efforts.

The album is undoubtedly going to end up on many writers’ end-of-year lists, and it’s only February. Remy and her co-conspirators have truly set the bar for great records in 2018, by drawing from the best elements of nocturnal power from bygone eras. It’s all here--just wait and see.

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.

Last Night... is an album that you can look to as a fitting memoriam of what made Wild Beasts truly great: fearlessness to be who they are, and do it all on their own terms. Even their retirement.

For the most part, Go Dig My Grave shows an appreciation that steers clear of sober reverence; these are well-worn and world-weary songs to be enjoyed, not artefacts to be handled in a sterile environment with special gloves. Sometimes, however, these reworkings miss the mark.

Romantically confused, Wasser has drawn strength, inspiration and guidance from people through music to better understand relationships on this album. Damned Devotion is a brilliant self-help resource.

With Always Ascending’s sharp menace and mad genius, Franz have rescaled the mountain and made it back to the top.

It is characteristic of the Brewis’ distinct methods that Open Here can feel so cumulative yet still reinventive.

In Criminal, Luis Vasquez has constructed an album dark and bleak in nature, an exploration that sees him turn his attention to creating hard hitting industrial rock in order to deal with all he's lived through. It's a record of which he can be proud.

The songs that work best as standalone statements outside of the album’s narrative still have themes of resilience.

If you buy into Brian Fallon’s rock classicist worldview, Sleepwalkers is an enjoyable record. Just don’t ask for much beyond that.

The themes tackled on BLOOD have been tackled a million times, so the album is much more reliant on how it tells the story than what the story is. Luckily, how it tells the story more than makes up for the story itself. Milosh’s vocals are as beautiful as ever, and the lush tones that paint the album wash over you like a silk bedsheet.

It's the beginning of the 2018 and talk of albums of the year right now is obviously churlish, but on Microshift we're hearing a band hitting their sweet spot with such an effortless swagger that we're sure this is a contender.

Con Todo el Mundo feels like a record to be enjoyed in transit, towards somewhere sunny, optimistic, exciting.

Along with the help of his session-artist buddies, Ty Segall has rebirthed himself on an album of both biblical proportions and grand artistry. Segall’s voice has never sounded so necessary.

Overall, this is an impressively diverse set of tracks, Evelyn has demonstrated his capability of working in a myriad of genres with a number of collaborators, yet in its entirety, the record feels slightly lost.

Knowing What You Know feels like a journey, one that’s filled with mountainous climbs and treacherous lows, each to be consumed with reckless abandon, because that’s exactly what Marmozets are--a force to be reckoned with.

It’s astounding stuff from a modern master.

Semicircle is enthusiastic and a little rough around the edges, although this is absolutely intentional.

Dream Wife is a fierce finger to the patriarchy for a fresh and socially aware generation.

Could It Be Different? carries on exactly where they left off. In their songwriting, The Spook School have always merged transformational politics with an anthemic quality, and the LP's opener is no exception.