That remarkable square for detail is pedantic verging on obnoxious (charmingly so), but makes this his most captivating effort yet.

Live albums are inevitably products of a particular time and place, and Live At The Orpheum sometimes sounds like a band still testing its limits, pleasingly proficient rather than definitively awesome. But it's hard to think of any other group of their vintage that still sounds so vital and forward-looking.

II tweaks the Metz formula just enough to stand as an improvement over the band's excellent 2012 self-titled debut.

Now everything is dark and obscure, ghostly, as if moving in slow motion, bursting here and there in a few powerful and desperate explosions, mainly when Soko and Argento get to sing.

For all that it created and shaped, of course, nothing entirely feels like it's simply planned out and fully structured--elements emerge in the mix, parts quietly but directly drop in, emphases shift from beats to swirling, quiet loops or the reverse.

Here the instruments muddle together foggily and somewhat awkwardly. Fortunately, the songs themselves are strong enough to be of great comfort to those who felt lost twenty years ago and found some degree of solace in Troublegum.

Insides mostly works pretty damn well, and will certainly appeal to fans yearning for the good times hinted at all those years ago.

The demand for our awe at an accomplished--yet unfinished--triumph is confusing. The feeling each song inspires is indeed that of a religious service, one in which the endless standing up and sitting down leaves one a little exasperated. And fatigued.

Ba Power was recorded in short, raw sessions. It hits hard, yet ingrained in every track is the sense that Kouyaté is letting loose of his previous restraints. This, is surely Ngoni Ba as he always wanted them to sound.

While not quite the gang of four of old, they are all pulling in the same direction and, even for the most casual Blur fan, that is a glorious thing.

In its breadth of ambition and stunningly realised sounds, Dark Energy delivers more than just a new twist on an established style. Remaining tightly linked to the music of Jlin's forebears and contemporaries, it nonetheless maps out an inspiring and tantalising glimpse of electronic music's future.

In short, a solid enough second effort with some promise for a more expansive third.

His vocal style might be somewhat polarising when not backed by a dense barrage of noise--and at times This World is a challenging listen--but there is no doubt that broadening his scope has added new strings to his bow; namely the ability to adopt breezier sounds without losing any of his emotional clout.

Suuns And Jerusalem In My Heart is more than just a stopgap or indulgence, and with those first three tracks in particular, it pulls off a convincing and vital meld of contrasting cultural and sonic palettes. And if not all of these experiments work, it's nevertheless proof once again of the myriad musical possibilities out there in the world just waiting to be brought into existence.

Dream A Garden is an album full of admirable ideas and clearly coloured by his past, but as a step towards his future, it falls in between its own ambition and true excellence.

This album flips that fail-state on its head courtesy of being 39 minutes of utterly triumphant fusion pop. Everyone should hear this.

'Blogging' opens the album on a high, with Graham Lewis' instantly recognisable bass guitar locking into a four-to-the-floor disco groove between Robert Grey's drums and squelchy synth stabs, rewriting the Bible using a contemporary, internet-generation terminology of "Google style maps", "Amazon Wishlist" and "Blackberry Hedgefunds." 'Shifting' similarly applies the language of espionage and global politics to the end of a relationship, over a melodic, summery sway that nevertheless maintains the band's customary sense of distance.

Of course such is the collage gonzoid splatter-gun style of the Blues Explosion and their huge canon of songs its almost inevitable that they might inadvertently chance on something shiny from their own back catalogue and contort it.

This is an album that sounds massive, pompous, threatening, druggy, psychically hollow, a mirror turned against the daily noise... and is all the better for it.

It may not be as immediately sonically challenging as her earlier, more austere work, but it is no less valiant and genre-defying. In fact, it probably pushes the envelope quite a bit further.

It's full of memorable lines and nagging hooks, but also the sense of something ungraspable, resistant to easy interpretation.

The power of Wand may not be pleasant, but its pandemic of virulent noise may well become the itch you can't scratch.

The sense of real guts that was missing on Zeroes is here all too present, on a record that feels messy, desperate and at the end of its tether--yet also ironically accomplished, impeccably crafted and resolutely forward-looking.

This is a record that reveals something new on each listen, a record that will secure Errors' place in the pack--part of a greater fraternity but with a formula distinctly their own.

A bleakly beautiful collection of compelling brevity, and while it exercises several demons across its ten tracks, it remains very much possessed by a singular spirit: that of an artist continuing to rise, even if he has to dig down uncommonly deep before springing past his peers.

The occasional soppiness of post-rock, which ultimately rendered it a dirty word in certain circles, has all but disappeared from the work of its godparents. Godspeed You! Black Emperor are now truly playing the music they were destined to play, and in its purest, weightiest possible form.

It's not certain whether the acre to the desert forest has been crossed, but the feeling that abides is one of compassionate admiration for Stevens, not only for making this beautiful album of unfaltering rawness (and one which may even provide a crutch, a brutal one, for others), but for all of his work that has preceded it, music which frequently transcended the hurt of a life so wounded at its root.

Its monomaniacal refinement might sometimes challenge you to commit to its worldview, but it's an album that both demands and rewards deep listening.

There are some astonishing moments on At Least For Now. Clementine's voice is a force to be reckoned with--throaty, powerful, and theatrical to the point of histrionic – and his piano-playing bears all the hallmarks of unorthodoxy you would expect from a successful autodidact.

It's not the spartan techno of the early SCB records by any means, but the never-quite-convincing progressive window dressing has mostly been thankfully thrown out said window in favour of an approach that maintains big room impact without pandering to its more simplistic tropes.

Hinterland is playful--a vibrant and urgent combination of genealogy and vision--and it is this that truly makes it a masterpiece. Not only does Campbell have the creative chops to create such richly evocative music, but she does it with a wink and a smile.

A 2015 update of Model 500 with a dark, industrial overcoat would be as unbearable as similarly ill-considered evolutions from other artists, and in sticking to his ground Atkins resolutely retains his strengths.

Without sacrificing any of the solidity, astringency or brutality akin to their previous blood-lettings, Zu spit out their most astral of recordings.

At brief points Lamar does err on the side of self-indulgence, but for the most part his grandiosity is matched by his talent. A worthy follow up to its platinum-selling predecessor, To Pimp A Butterfly stands as a fearless and uncompromising manifestation of Lamar's desire to push the culture of rap forwards--a crusade that's as much in his blood as the city of Compton.

The best Hey Colossus album to date. But to fully enjoy Black And Gold's many delights, it should be understood that this is a journey with a beginning, middle and end, and one to be taken in a single sitting.

It's not exactly pushing these MCs towards a new rap revolution, tapping the past and present but skipping predicting tomorrow, but it's consistently engaging without overpowering the stars of the show.

Like Untitled, Excerpts is slow-paced (for the most part), grainy and sombre, with crumbling synth textures clustered around skeletal rhythmic shuffles and most human interjections rendered opaque, like ghostly shades mewling in the dark.

'Green's Leaves' is perhaps the most florid of all the tracks--in a good way--and it actually breaks down at one point into what could almost be described as a hoedown, but not quite. Like most of the tracks here, it's quite lovely and never outstays its welcome.

Experimental music inevitably engenders pretentious music writing, yet when it's as good as Behold it creates a listening experience that altogether dwarfs any linguistic rationalisation. This is a record of light and shade, and one that demands your fullest immersion.

On Late Night Endless, Pinch and Sherwood come close, but coming from two of the most influential figures working in these areas today, there's a greater expectation here that isn't always met. When it does, it shines.

At turns subtle, delicate, naked, brutal, and deeply affecting in a way rarely managed by contemporary dance producers, and it's both a continuation of his previous work and a departure further than ever before from the DJ weapons that made his reputation.

In 2013, a Pearson Sound album would have been a great event and certainly a major step in a career already full of them, but waiting two years effectively sapped the urgency.

Whilst the album sounds confident and assured, its lyrical themes are built around questions, without ever proposing answers.

Short Movie stretches its cohesive motifs through all thirteen tracks, without sticking to a plot or forced narrative structure. Instead, the themes of self-reflection and search for belonging and identity move you wantonly through the album.

Wild Strawberries is an enjoyable record and there are some interesting moments, it's just that the overall sound sort of politely hangs in the background with not much cutting through the haze.

All in all, there is freshness and intrigue for those that need it--and for those that don't, a reliable consistency with their 90s incarnation.

By showing so much of themselves in all their imperfect glory they clearly don't give two hoots what anyone else thinks. Love and monsters is all well and good, but self-indulgence and punk spirit is the true and unlikely dichotomy at the ever breaking heart of Half Japanese.

What really works in Dilate's favour is that this is very much an album, an experience that's designed through its pacing and mastering to be taken in a single sitting. That's a bold ask in a digital age of playlists and single track downloads but the rewards in acquiescing to their request are manifold.

It's not really until tremolo laden third track, 'Love High' that the band starts to feel familiar. But once we've gotten into familiar territory, it's clear that what's at fault is not the songs, but the recording and mixing.

There's a sense of fun on Shadow Of The Sun--an almost giddy joy at music-making – that earlier records lacked. The band's songwriting, however, remains as straightforward as ever.

Carter Tutti has never seemed crippled into one genre, and now there's an authenticity tied to a gravitas that sounds instantly advanced.

Seasonal Hire offers no grand statements and reveals no great mysteries. Ultimately, this is not a particularly ambitious record; no musician is stretched wildly beyond his or her limits. And yet, largely because of its off-hand quality and ease of execution, Seasonal Hire offers moments of intoxicating strangeness and beauty.

Gliss Riffer is a magnifying glass held to that opening in one hand and an opium pill twirling between his index and ring fingers in the other, egging on the impending lucid dream that's been in the works for years. He's only now offering an audacious embrace.

The flawless tracks on Gandadiko roll together with the ease of a musician at his best. The resilient message of Samba's lyrics in the face of adversity is ably backed up by the sonic power of the music with a confident hypnotic flow throughout.

The core remains. It is a worthless task to try and work out exactly what exactly it is Sundfør practices, beyond an extreme form of uncompromising pop.

Despite the undercurrent of anger and frustration in some songs, the album is rich with the triumph of black womanhood. The overall result feels positive.

Restarter, the band's fourth full-length, sees a return to form for Torche that even in its unabashed nods to frontman Steve Brooks's other musical endeavors, retains the pop sensibilities that have continually been the point of distinction between the two.

Transfer Of Energy [Feelings Of Power] serves as an experiment more than anything else, and one that's a thrill to boot. Still, it remains an experiment and without a thorough understanding of the technical jargon, our field of vision is very limited.

The band have delivered a wonderfully cohesive set of songs, and in the process have ensured that Modern Nature is their best release in many a moon.

Fashion Week is the most vibrant and least menacing collection of tracks Death Grips have released.

From Out Here is another beautifully crafted voyage into electronic music's substrata.

The conceit of Bishop's new album, Tangier Sessions, is some serious guitar-dork lore that would make any bedroom noodler salivate.

When we hear that scratch of pick on acoustic, we're trained to expect some diary-entry-type emoting. Pratt plays against that expectation beautifully, leaving us just enough breadcrumbs to get us lost.

Ultimately, Hexadic is more compelling as a concept than a piece of music, and few folks are likely to follow Chasny deep into the record's blistering hot core more than a couple times.

With Heavy Love Garwood has created not so much an album as a sonic dream. While you're in it, it's visceral and poignant, but once you're awake it's hard to recall the details, the lyrics, or one song from another (except perhaps the title track).

It's an enjoyable, occasionally frustrating ride, and one that takes a few listens to sink in, even if its just to unburden yourself of your expectations.

Everything Ever Written is a welcome return for a band that's long been held in high regard.

Man, It Feels Like Space Again is grandiose in the delivery, quixotic in the extreme, but, most of all, it's a helluva lot of fun to listen to.

Alasdair Roberts is not quite the equal of Spoils in terms of songwriting and is hardly as colourful as A Wonder Working Stone, but it is perhaps his most relaxed and effortless album to date.

Unfortunately, Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance is the net effect of an effort that goes nowhere at all; and this deviation appears furtive, as if they're trying to hide their beloved quirks from an expanded audience.

Xe's slippery moves might not set Zs on a path to your average teen or idiot Howard Stern fan's iPod, but it is a deft and focused work, demanding its rightful place on college radio and the blogosphere.

Setting banjos and bonfires aside, the folk roots are now replaced by a rich baroque pop accompanying a dark ride inside Huebert's mind.

As a whole, Shackles' Gift is more obviously tuneful and considered than its predecessor and, as established, thematically watertight. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that it works outside of this context.

There's very little to be found within From The Very Depths to warrant repeat plays, and it's safe to say when the dusk mercifully settles on Venom (or on 2015, for that matter), this clumsy attempt at modern metal will not be remembered.

This is a bold confessional and one made all the stronger by music that's creative and daring without ever once straying into disco dad territory.

The album is distinguished, therefore, not only by impressive vocal athleticism but also by an astonishing extra-human tenderness.

The Body and Thou's collaboration, though at times coalescing into a perfect rumble (See: 'Lurking Free'), with its reverberations capable of rattling chest cavities (See: the pretentiously titled 'Beyond The Realms Of Dreams, That Fleeting Shade Under The Corpus Of Vanity'), lacks the desired cohesion from beginning to end to impart the feeling of a complete album.

Apex Predator - Easy Meat retains the hyperactive energy and deadly pacing of its recent predecessors, and as a result, it gives their fans a diverse and devastating listening experience during what is a quintessential, zeitgeist-destroying grindcore album.

Certainly, Pinkshinyultrablast have their sonic template firmly in place but it's difficult to shake the feeling that without a greater focus on melody and sharper songwriting there remains a very real danger of their efforts vanishing into the haze like so many decaying chords fed through a series of delay pedals.

The really great thing about this heavy, intense album, as punishing as it is beautiful in its resolve, is that it shakes to the core the philosophies that Björk laid out so methodically on Biophilia, but she still finds a dark difficult way back to hope and love.

The demos themselves, while manna for nerds like oneself, are for the most part hardly revelatory.... a singular album in both intent and execution, and the most satisfying expression of Dulli's dark, dark heart. The grunge era's answer to Millie Jackson's Caught Up, it remains a triumph, an album whose impact is no less powerfully felt 21 years on.

While the tightly managed polish and control perhaps doesn't grab the heart in the visceral way of older Sleater-Kinney, an emotional urgency remains on this album, albeit conveyed with greater sophistication.

Disappears are intent on creating rhythms and atmospheres that are endlessly claustrophobic, and Irreal proves to be an exercise that is as gruelling and exact on its audience as it is on the participants--an aural dystopia of shifting, unfathomable paradigms that seem to exist merely to paralyse, to captivate, to control--but the reward is hugely cathartic.

While it may not be the most musically adventurous or frightening albums you'll hear this year, when it comes to writing memorable, mature songs full of devilishly addictive hooks without trying to relive the past, The Pale Emperor breathes new life into Marilyn Manson's previously ailing music career.

The heartening, splendid news is that this first album, a self-titled, seven-track whirlwind, is full-on brilliant all the way through.

There's such a beautiful combination of elegance and exploration in this debut--Greenwood has created one of the best and most confident debuts in years, and you'd do well to bend your ears around it's intricate and delightfully planned out wonder.

LV are remarkably adroit tunesmiths, able to navigate the fine lines between minimalism and melodicism without ever descending into dry formalism or familiar clichés. Josh Idehen has a voice that is just as expressive and powerful.

Just 16 exceptional tracks full of glowing wordplay, instinctively catchy intonation, and effortless genre whisking.

We might have heard these tropes a thousand times before, but on Kykeon, Rhyton use them to make something richer and more nimble than the flabby freak-out-by-numbers psych that's currently clogging up rock's bandwidth.

Lament proves itself to be a remarkably effective listen because it is an utterly egoless record; a record that, in binding many stories from all sides, creates a feeling that is ultimately sans-patrie.

There's lots of good guitar playing, but no flashy riffs and absolutely nothing you'd call a solo. It gives Monuments its greatest strength: a self contained identity.

It is a huge pleasure and a relief that this comeback is so good, so strong.

It's a fun slab of obnoxious rock-gone-mad, and sometimes that's all you need of an evening.

Adrift is a simultaneously relaxing and arresting experience. It's headphone music that rewards encapsulated ears and enclosed eyes.

RZA does his fair share of huffing and puffing on A Better Tomorrow (see hooks to 'Hold The Heater' and 'Crushed Egos'), but the widescreen production lacks the intensity to motivate a jaded clan.

In more ways than one Hound is the kind of album one sees described as an artist’s masterpiece, but with an already extensive discography covering everything from blues to beats to his name, it’s quite likely Slim’s best is yet to come.

The album is sparse and its minimalism is round-edged the whole way through, yet the plethora of moods it induces--brooding to bittersweet--and its constantly meandering cadence are awe-inspiring.

Wyatt has sustained and continues to sustain himself with quality, idiosyncrasy, and integrity over so long a time, as these eight sides so amply demonstrate.