With 1989 she has succeeded in leveraging the most cordial and familiar of pop music outpourings to something that feels like a statement, a work of note and the sinew of some kind of emotional connective tissue–binding tastemakers, rock critics, guys I work with and my 12 year old cousin; irrevocably and unexpectedly.

He lacks the humour, more explicit angst and emotional confidence of John Grant and lacks Garneau's devotion to melodrama and pop. He is hardly Stephin Merritt. He exists independently as a cultural explorer as well as simply a very fine, very sensitive songwriter.

Nothing Important is a remarkable record--at times deeply, painfully intimate, but also witty, bawdy, surreal, disquieting, nostalgic, brash and fearlessly individual.

The Silver Globe is arguably her most sonically adventurous work to date.

Seeds is the most streamlined, most polished, most sharp-edged album of their career. And yet it manages to retain their trademark schizophrenia.

The passive listener will find 11 slices of instant utter serenity on Sea Island, while a deeper listen reveals a starkly depicted, and often dramatic ocean voyage, haunted by memories from back on dry land.

[Stott's] sound is so much more finely honed, well defined, better executed, yet left frayed around all the right edges.

Ypres is an eloquent meditation on such complacency, on valour and its misuse, as well as a memorial to the battles, and war, that was meant to end them all.

Where the album is most successful though, is in its achievement of capturing the raucous, unhinged live sound that the band create when they set upon the stage with a whirlwind of noise.

[Wyatt's guitar work and his synths] manage to coalesce with his guitar on the album's strongest moments: as one becomes indistinguishable from the other. It is this coherency which arguably marks Lets… out as Wyatt's strongest work to date. He has created a rewarding sonic landscape that is consistently poignant, without ever being cloying.

Give this album time and an open heart, and you'll get an album that initially seems slate grey blooming into colour. In The Seams is Saint Saviour's best yet.

Ratcheting up the glimpses of honesty found on The Redeemer, it is his most transparent collection to date.

Clark is an album of unsettling beauty and exceptional skill.

Which is the thing all the way through DSU, the parts that you recognise, that feel familiar (or rather Alex G's creation of a comforting sense of familiarity) make everything else seem richer for happening around it.

Harris deploys silence and sound artfully and masterfully throughout Ruins. And the closer you listen, the more intimate it becomes.

Ultimately, The Endless River is another Floyd album about the inability to communicate--it doesn't "say anything" or "go anywhere", but maybe that's the point. While it's unlikely to win the band many new admirers, the casual Floyd fan will find much to enjoy here.

Not interested in following in anyone's footsteps, Arca borrows back the skeletal remains he made to West and creates new albeit strange life. Gorgeous and ghastly, Xen is no clone, but it may too resonate through generations.

Run The Jewels 2 is a great listen because of the artistry on display, but it's the pent-up frustration that takes it into the stratosphere, that makes you want to hug your loved ones and thank god for each breath while you set fire to the neighborhood.

Gone are the solemnly brooding Knife-like synthscapes and the ethereal soprano. In their place are sickly synths, wobbling queasily around the mix; relentlessly shuddering beats hammering at your skull from the inside; crunching electronic distortion and sinister skittering rhythms.

There's something very satisfying about listening to a woman whose career has been marked by deeply ambivalent encounters with the machinery of the music industry--who was briefly being touted as the next Marianne Faithful under Loog Oldham, and whose work was later forced into a folk mould on Diamond Day--finally seize the means of music production and create an album on her own terms.

In the early 1980s Swans and Einstürzende Neubauten broke new ground in their obsession with the body as a site of painful affliction, and traces of both can certainly be found in the grinding, reverberant noise that stalks Bestial Burden. Yet the album easily transcends its influences, forming a bleak, distressing narrative of a self on the brink of collapse.

ATOMOS is certainly a sensitive and thoughtful piece of work on its own, but the ultimate success of the listening experience is in its ability to stir an emotional reaction, and impose a state of thoughtfulness on the listener--and presumably on the dancer too.

As the album's outlook nosedives towards irreversible melancholy, Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave becomes increasingly hypnotic.

Flatland feels perfectly formed out of the clay of a multitude of styles, and, with rhythms this tight, it's something of a triumph, even if it reflects nothing back but strobe lights.

Much has been made of these vocals, and they certainly do stand out on the recording. That said, any serious listener has heard both precedents and antecedents (Leon Thomas, AMM, about half of both the Nonesuch Explorer and ESP-Disk catalogs) for Coltrane's approach.

All in all, there's enough to see and hear to make this one museum worth queuing up for.

Though it's not masterpiece by any means, the fifth installment in Slipknot career is praiseworthy overall, especially given the circumstances surrounding its creation.

TOD are, miraculously given their longevity, still managing to remain interesting.

This is an album totally devoid of filler and maxed out with instantly memorable hooks, melodies and riffs that will move into your head and take up residence for quite some time to come.

It's hardly that nearly everything else completely clones itself song for song, but you can almost pick any song and get the same feeling from it, making it a little hard for individual moments to stand out. But they're there.

In A Dream is certainly not going to alienate those who adored The Future Will Come, yet it should be said there are notable points of evolution--most importantly Whang's prominence and the diversity of Maclean's songwriting. But it is difficult to place this above The Future Will Come, as despite the brilliance that Whang radiates throughout, there are up to three songs that sap momentum with their lack of vim.

Whilst Sun Ra's enormous back catalogue will always mean that certain aspects of his music may be deemed unrepresented on any given compilation, this collection has huge appeal for both newcomers and obsessive fans alike.

As ever with Yorke's solo work, it's at its best when the loveable tyke is going with the flow instead of deliberately trying to sabotage his own ear for melody, or trying to bugger up a voice that should just make peace with the fact it's quite pretty.

Taken on their individual merits there's nothing particularly 'wrong' with the 11 songs that form DFA 1979's long-awaited second album, but altogether there's few standout moments and the tight, self-imposed confines of DFA 1979's sound shackles them to the floor.

Way Out Weather's lines and contours are beautifully rendered. But there are times when Gunn's songs don't benefit from the extra exposure, when one misses Time Off's murkier, more forgiving production.

Moreso than 2011's Tomorrow's World, The Violet Flame is an accessible blessing for longtime fans and curious newcomers alike.

Our Love isn't an explosion of delight so much as it is an affirmation of the moment, in many different forms.

Time To Die is not perfect, but it's a nastier, hungrier album that stands with their best work.

It's SMD's overstated attempt to take the listener on a journey that is the album's drawback. In the end Whorl feels overlong, and the excitement and variation of the first two thirds of the album eventually dissipates into a somnolent slog.

The result is a beautifully eerie song cycle whose pulsing analogue heart is even darker than the penumbral territories the band usually inhabit.

Although it feels they've truly thrown the kitchen sink and their full repertoire of synth syncopation at it this time, it's truly a thrilling and spine chilling ride, one that leaves your bones shaken to the core.

Despite the Orchestra's evident liking for full-on collective freakouts, there are hooks and melodies aplenty here that drive the group's mighty impulse to communicate.

Fans of the band will find a lot to applaud on Dude Incredible and it's one of their more efficient, immediate LPs.

This is not his best record. It's about sixth or seventh. But it's still a triumph of sorts--a curious, meandering journey that needs to be made a good few times.

It's not wholly convincing, but underneath it all, the melodies sound nostalgic, and enlightened--a contrarian whiplash reaction only a band like Interpol could get away with.

Primitive And Deadly is imbued with an energy of its own: a bold, if flawed update on the Earth model.

What they're doing with their new wave affectations and post-punk sheen is absolutely creative and often subversive.

Gainsborough seems to be testing not only what his crude instrumentation can withstand, but also his listeners. For all the physical exertion though, the album sounds surprisingly sexless and apathetic at times.

A New Nature does retain elements of the brooding intelligent gothic pop of their earlier work but this time around, Esben And The Witch's predilection for post and progressive rock is thrust to the fore.

It is largely an album that, despite finding acmes in doing what Rustie does best, has more troughs than peaks, and lacks the impish, distinctive touches that made Glass Swords such a striking listen.

Crush Songs certainly has the consistency of intention to draw in new listeners, but for those who love the pace and grittiness of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the end result might leave them crushing hard for the band's next record and the indefatigable side of Karen O.

Despite the apparent lack of new ideas here, the undeniable success of this work lies in Goat's deepening and development of the musical and spiritual themes presented on in World Music.

Fans of Nick's previous work should feel right at home; it's livelier and more overtly catchy than anything in his catalogue, but at its core, much of Anchor is a refinement of the things he's done well in the past.

Even the most hardcore of Yes fans may forget that this exists in a couple months.

Wand's resultant mixture of the frenetic and the smooth is intoxicating.

An album that's otherwise remarkably deft at uniting the many aspects of Kevin Martin's musical output to date.

Robyn Hitchcock's latest release, The Man Upstairs, stands amongst his all-time best albums. His finest work in years, the opening three songs are stunning, mesmerising even, in their intimate beauty.

If we were picking holes here, you might gently suggest Tied To A Star is not altogether captivating, but for serious fans of J Mascis' acoustic incline--it does deliver. His lack of clear narrative, comically dull song titles like 'And Then', 'Drifter', 'Heal The Star' and 'Come Down', still leaves J Mascis as something of a stranger to us.

Ultimately, this is an astonishingly consistent album, particularly given Segall's work rate.

At times a song can simultaneously be baroque and noise, harsh and beautiful, and the contradictions aren't evident because their voices are one--but there are also times when the record is triumphant, precisely because they're torn away from one another.

Opeth's Pale Communion is confirmation of artistic success borne from purity of vision--it is a sublime album of impeccable scope and execution, created by an extremely important band who have finally reached the pinnacle of self-actualisation through music.

There was always a worry that Gamel might be too self-consciously studious and challenging for its own arty sake, but as it transpires, it's an unnecessary and unfounded thought.

By embracing its influences with as much lithe confidence as it embraces the idea of endings, Woman's Hour avoid sounding derivative by making pop music that looks you in the eye. If you meet their gaze, you won't find any tears, but you will find understanding.

Rather than carry a casket loaded down with the fast-tiring tropes of the doom genre, with Foundations Of Burden Pallbearer choose to breathe thrilling new life into them.

Thrillingly, LP1 gives any record you might find us covering elsewhere on The Quietus a run for its money in terms of oddness.

It's both texturally ravishing and textually fascinating.

The World We Left Behind is, on a purely artistic level, the worst album released under the Nachtmystium banner. The major issue is that it lacks the creativity, the devilish glint, and the poisonous confidence that Judd previously injected (no pun intended) into Nachtmystium, his personal vehicle for experimentation and excess.

Throughout its ten years as a label, Hyperdub has managed to establish and uphold a reputation for consistently on-point and challenging releases that has seen it become one of the most vital UK independent labels, and the range of sounds present on 10.2 is testament to that.

They Want My Soul is focused, tight and impeccably produced. The songwriting is crisp and tight, Daniel's ear for a catchy and upbeat riff have resurfaced.

Unlike most things that labour under an impression of being overly, scarily brainy, it is anything but difficult to love Lese Majesty.

Whether acknowledging unfaithfulness, fretting over her advancing years or giddily professing undying love, Lewis creates songs and characters as compelling as they come. A couple of duds and some overzealous production aside, that is still very much the case on The Voyager.

All too often the album lacks the requisite light and shade to make for a consistently enjoyable listen.

Dissed And Dismissed is basically all gold, as long as you're not so jaded by years of inane indie chirruping that any combo of upbeat guitar melody and sad-lad lyrics induces a visceral reaction.

A tiny marvel, this record. A tiny, exquisitely-tooled marvel.

This album will certainly tick a lot of boxes for Super Furry acolytes, but for those who couldn't take to the SFA brand of avant-pop, Gulp should provide you with a nerdgasm or ten. Library electronics, jangly loftiness and enough in the way of melodies and choruses to soundtrack your summer.

It is a crystallised definition of "record collection rock".

Their arrangements are accomplished, and even the constant falsetto vocals are tempered enough to be pleasant throughout the album, but it's difficult to discern what exactly--if anything--Jungle actually stand for.

If Par Avion wasn't so clearly aiming for the cheap seats with its ideas, it would be easier to forgive its flaws and just appreciate how great these synthesisers sound, how stunningly they're utilised.

What's changed here is that the Weavers are now more than just writers of music; they are now enablers of specific atmospheres, able to handhold a listener through incredibly dense forest in very low light.

Texturally, Forgetting The Present is gorgeous, a deep field of beautiful orchestration to explore.

The very best moments of World Peace... allow a rare slip of a perpetually teenage mask. It's the revenge of Morrissey the artist over Morrissey the cartoon character, and he's caught me completely off guard, the bastard.

HEAL sounds as gorgeous as a vulnerable folk rock record, but as defiant and powerful as arena rock.

Once More 'Round The Sun's many positives are consistently seen in the best possible light.

After such an imposing start, the rest of My Love Is A Bulldozer was bound to struggle to keep the standards up, but even with this in mind, it's a confusing and muddled album.

Mantras build and collapse on themselves, choruses rise and fall, and enveloping you with a rich seam of guitar pop.

A fantastic set of songs approached with a reverence that is never stifling, and one in which fans of either act will find plenty to love.

Until Silence is as brilliant a fusion of electronics and symphonics as those Bedroom Community projects, and yet it's also a far more user-friendly one.

Neon Icon is that rare product of a rapper in the modern world--an album that perfectly encompasses everything they became loved for on their come up, amplified to the glorious maximum, aiming confidently into the future.

In moving beyond their avant-garde origins, the 'technopop' which comprises the latter half of this compilation has often been viewed as a descent into the lightweight, and a commercial sell-out. On the contrary, #7885 (Electropunk to Technopop 1978 - 1985) proves a mastery of superficially conflicting musical spaces.

It's a fine and enjoyable listen, and it's certainly Lone's most consistent album to date, but at times it can't help but feel slight.

This is an album that resists being the Other, but also resists even entering into a discourse that would consider that the only position. It is music innately of itself, and a privilege to hear, even at a considerable distance.

This panoply of styles is both the most impressive and the most frustrating thing about Noise, the result being that only at select moments do they approach the majesty, the fists-pounding-the-ground righteousness that many have come to associate them with.

Playing like a combination of its two predecessors that vividly incorporates the production expertise Martyn has accumulated over his decade-long career, The Air Between Words may be short on surprises, but it is rich in finesse and detail.

Although there's not much here to blow you away, it does seem that the Lay Llamas have stumbled upon a useful synthesis of those fashionable psych touchstones--repetitious afro, spacey synth kraut and churning fuzz guitar--which earns a rightful place amongst the rest of the crop.

Though they are very different albums, one way that Love carries on where Through Donkey Jaw left off is that it is deeply hypnotic.

Glass Animals sound like they are on the cusp of everything. There's a gap between their vocabulary and their sound, their choruses and their intros, their obvious intelligence and what they've produced.

A crescendo of electronic drums and stirring strings draws Distant Satellites to a close, and leaves you with the impression that, while inconsistent and desperately overwrought on occasion, Anathema deserve to be heard out with the private members' club that is prog rock in 2014.

While Beauty & Ruin contains some of the most vital music of Mould's solo career, it'd be great to see him properly stretched again as an artist and player. And maybe that requires an even bigger rapprochement with the past.