In boxing up their inner fire, The Souljazz Orchestra have starved it of oxygen, so only the embers remain.

[Endless and Blond(e)] are great--but they require time and, realistically, a step-back from the extraordinary (and sometimes ludicrous) hype that necessitates Ocean’s new works be either masterpieces or a complete let-down.

A stunning example of the intermingling of bodies, both sonic and artistic.

It’s Alright Between Us As It Is is an album of variation. ‘But Isn’t It’ and ‘Shinin’ are weak, but this is a miscalculation in production and uninspired lyric writing, as opposed to anything which puts any lasting worry in our mind about Lindstrøm’s abilities. The work is not his most creative, he’s not redrawing any of the lines of genre which he himself first traced with previous works.

The album is a lovingly crafted ode to Judge Dredd, urban alienation, the cinematic sci-fi masterpieces of the late 70s and early 80s, electronic music of both the past and present, and it all hits with the weight of a cadmium steak tenderizer.

At under forty minutes, an album of groove-based music in a foreign language doesn't have much time to make an impact, but it certainly does leave you wanting more.

On Change, Cindy Wilson finally shares her formidable pop intelligence, unmediated.

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.

The results just feel like a watering down of his vision, leaving the listener in a strange hinterland which doesn’t leave much of an impression either way.

Sequenced like a mixtape, each track slips easily into the next.

What makes The Moths Are Real such a well, lovely listen is just how unforced this all is--not out of twee naivety, but by a brilliant sense that these songs are their own worlds, telling their own stories, with a bit of a twist.

II mostly succeeds on its own terms, rather than as a refined package of each act's moodier moments, precisely because it does keep you guessing.

The High Frontier is a vibrant and thoughtful album that avoids the trap of naff that this genre can so easily fall into. If I have one gripe, it’s that it sometimes sounds too much like music made 200 light years out from Earth on a journey without any specific destination, neither capturing the thrill of first ignition or the discovery of exotic new worlds.

An album that is constantly surprising, occasionally unsettling, frequently beautiful and always mysterious.

It’s smart, angry, and visceral folksong, and perhaps exactly what we need just now as the trappings of our hypermodern culture fail us and the world starts to burn. A record that shows us our errors and pulls us back to the land makes for a fruitful medicine.

While Queendom isn't the most impactful musical project of the year, it is definitely enjoyable - a light song sequence that follows the classical traits of the 90s and 00s western pop, when celebrating yourself and talking about mellow love through R&B-pop compositions (like 'Hello, Sunset') were part of the playbook. And it is full of simple, catchy and relatable lyrics with well-thought-out hooks.

Dilloway, Gordon, and Nace stick in a precarious balancing act, a taut zone between form and formlessness. Like Mac Low, it doesn’t seem about recklessly pulling something asunder, but poking at the glue that holds the parts together. Delving into errs and stumbles and finding the poignancy that resides within.

The songs are actually seven suites (on what is their seventh release) of kaleidoscopic, expansionist flailing and freedo(o)m, the only throughline being that they remain inherently odd and pleasurable.

While songs like '5AM' and 'Aaliyah' are very much made with mainstream dancefloors in their peripheral vision, much of the album, particularly some of the supplementary tracks, are still steeped very much in underground dance culture, and its in these moments that the album really excels.

In other hands an album as disparate and scattershot as this would fall flat, its moments of brilliance muddied by misfires. This is not one of those records.

In a character-defying move he has left his crowbar at home and cockney references serve as little more than a backdrop for his usual lyrical capers. What glorious capers they are too.

While each of these tracks runs together almost seamlessly, the record is almost in danger of becoming a background presence. But there is a refreshing honesty to this consistency, prioritising texture and narrative over conventional structure or dancefloor impact. Long invites us to tune in and be moved, or to drop out and continue on as ever.

One of Strut's best compilations to date.

What Do We Now is a record of beautifully put-together songs played on an acoustic guitar then beefed up by a band (mostly Mascis himself on overdubs, plus a little piano from The B52s’ Ken Mauri and some slide guitar played by Toronto musician Matthew “Doc” Dunn).

While still destined to divide his audience, with the excruciating and brilliant NYC Hell, 3:00AM, James Ferraro has quietly and calmly made some of the most affecting and intoxicating music of his career.

Beyond Bugbears' supplementary nature, it's a coherent collection of songs, a window to a period closer in time and temperament to our own than we imagine.

Wizard Bloody Wizard still rocks hard enough to justify the occasional rebellious upward glance from the existential trudge down the long spiral into nothingness that they evoke so bleakly, and so well.

For the most part, Jarre has effectively dovetailed repetitive drum patterns, slow-rising, siren-like synths and processed voice on Oxymore – making this a pretty dancefloor friendly record. However, tracks like ‘Synthy Sisters’ and ‘Epica’ are not devoid of their monotonous moments that seem to tune out in comparison with his penchant for the agile textures of musique concrète.

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

This is the sound of a band once again setting a course for personal creative development and revelling in its every ambitious step.

While it’s a formula they work to, it never sounds formulaic.

Powerhouse, is not solely a political statement. Instead, it is simply a story of queer existence. From childhood to present day, the album floats between chanting expressions of self-certainty, to intimate biographical snippets. Rather than looking for approval, Planningtorock, is laying out their experience and listeners can take it or leave it.

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.

Cornelius’s mastery of the mix is still evident, but the album as a whole comes strangely across as a throwback to former glories rather than an expansion of an idiosyncratic universe.

As If contains more dizzying peaks and valleys than a Zorb ride through Derbyshire (and leaves you twice as exhausted). Possibly the most fun you'll ever have once before throwing in the towel and doing something valuable with your life.

Where Bridges felt like extensions of his legendary freeform live set, Reeling Skullways is far tighter in focus and execution.

These marvellous tracks aren't marked by much in the way of bustle--not much necessarily changes over their elegant stretches. But that isn't to say that not much happens.

Tiersen is a master of the evocative, music you can see, and here he has succeeded in bringing to the fore the landscapes he sought out in the making of the album.

Remember Terry is deliriously memorable. Most albums of this ilk from the Australian underground will have a couple of standout tracks; this album is full of them.

Especially during this first cut, there are glimpses of rawness in the playing of the group, moments when they seem unsure of which direction to take. But it’s exactly this unpredictability that makes the quartet’s evocative sounds thoroughly captivating.

There’s so much passion under the surface that Blumberg presents that some form of purging is not only needed, it’s inevitable.

With Archive Material, Silverbacks bring so much fun, personality, and excellent musicianship across their songs. It’s a record that, once again, confirms a bright future ahead.

Heavily drenched in the pursuit of nostalgia, Prismatics is hypnagogic pop at its most loyally rendered, the pixelated synthscapes encapsulating a temporal exploration of an envisioned utopia that has since been lost.

There is so much to be enjoyed on 'Evolve Or Be Extinct' though - such fluid virtuosity - that the occasional blip does not cloud the overall picture.

Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, on the other hand, is a tired and somewhat cynical album that’s simply responding to market demand. It’s kind of like when your dad busts out his old-school skate board—cool for a bit, but, after day three of him “getting back into it” (he also refuses to change out of his old Pink Floyd shirt), you just want him to stop.

I think of this band as one of the most consistently interesting musical projects of the last ten years, and this new material hasn't proven me otherwise.

If you’re so inclined, you can certainly make a better and more concentrated version of MUSIC simply by firing up the streaming platform of your choice and playlisting all of its standout cuts. There sure are enough on offer to make it worth your while, and you can also sidestep the ungainly sequencing that disrupts the record’s progression in the process.

It's not a perfect record, but then you wouldn't want it to be--the charm is the energy and room to grow here.

There’s a distracted short-attention-span looseness going on that feels artificial and I hope it is, because otherwise it’s just thick. Shallowness worn proudly. Where some lines technically work, overall it gets so disjointed and almost comedically dumb-arse, it becomes less than the sum of its parts.

More or less everything here sounds anaemic, lacking in body, squashed, diminutive, like it could be pushed over by a strong breeze--or, worse, drowned out by light conversation on the dancefloor.

In its explicit references towards woozy psych, soul and even glam, Tripper is better, and marks Johnson as being a songwriter and rock auteur deserving of comparison with the likes of Mercer, Andy Cabic and Jim James.

Clearly, this is the sound of an artist having fun, but one who avoids the trappings of self-indulgence.

Hard Rain is not a bad album. It will very amiably sit, out of focus, in your field of vision as you do other things. It doesn’t, however, have whatever special something it needs to transcend the sense of a backwards referent.

It’s a spun-out, pastoral journey that attempts to unbox and contextualise the ‘now’ within the history of twentieth century Britain, after the end of the First World War. And yes, be warned, it only folds out to reveal itself at a careful walking pace. So you’ll need to buy in and have patience to get rewarded by its – real and significant – qualities.

Cohen brings to mind the far out, oddball eccentricity of Robert Wyatt, patted down and smoothed over by Colin Blunstone's suavity, adding to the canon of otherworldly, offbeat artists who resist definition.

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

Usually such an album would never be the place to start for a newcomer to the act in question, yet so comprehensively does this explore McCombs' multiple directions, there is a case to be made that A Folk Set Apart could be a suitable primer.

Tender and defiant, it pays respect to its history while resolutely facing the future.

If you're a fan of Peer Amid, this might not quite be the album you were expecting, but on its own terms, they'll be few better channellings this year of rock as a primordial force, promising liberation through obliteration.

It opens with a piano motif that could’ve come straight from Chris Martin’s candle-scented fingers. The matching vocals are so annoyingly whispered, they practically qualify as ASMR. Halfway through, the song changes tack and starts courting the modern market for anxiety pop. ... More specifically, it makes you think, “Does this sound like a needy Mercury Rev, a ham-fisted Grandaddy, or Wings without the easy-going self-awareness?

Built around harmonies that only siblings seem to muster, there is a neat balance struck between angry noise from self-enforced isolation and a pastoral quality that strikes into the heart of America in a direct bloodline from CSNY and The Band.

At its heart 45 is a fun album with a serious message. At times it feels like the album Prince might have made after watching too much Veep. The downside to 45, as with Trump’s whole administration, is that after a while the joke starts to wear a bit thin and you just need a break from it all.

Although Souvenirs is a daring record, there is a feeling that the Pale Blue Eyes’ fantastic spacecraft is suspended in the air before the real take-off. Perhaps, they are about to define the direction for the creative journey. Would be great to see them reaching for upper regions of space.

From the unidentifiable and minimalist object on the cover to the track titles referencing interior design and architecture, via the very makeup of each track, Body Complex feels like a journey through a space both public and internalised.

Going Blank Again was the sound of Ride discovering the sort of band they wanted to be, turning on the afterburners and leaving their contemporaries behind. Weather Diaries picks up the story from there. The forecast is bright--expect sunshine and the odd hurricane.

Frightening though some of these passages are, the effect is not all hard going. The power of space is writ large everywhere on Burnt Up On Re-Entry, the giddy weight of infinity, the feeling of soaring transcendent journey and ego death--it's all rather exhilarating stuff, especially on a cold January evening.

While their evolution in favour of modern soul perhaps won’t fill as many dancefloors as their earlier releases, Closer Apart is one of the most life-affirming and addictive records of the year, from a collaboration that truly justifies its existence.

Minus is a statement of intent from an artist who has found his voice and shaken off his past.

Musically, it’s a travesty. .... Little glimmers of Mike Patton’s personality do, accidentally, seep in. His campy performance during ‘Heaven’s Breath’ lands somewhere between Alice Cooper and Nick Cave.

It's a boldly contemporary record whose wily 70s spirit isn't lost amid the fuzz.

The artists on C-ORE complement one another in that they share a certain darkness and an interest in digital experimentation, but their voices and methods are distinct, ensuring the album is defiantly unpredictable.

Algiers will always be big, bold and unapologetically earnest and while you’d stop short of saying something like they’re a vital band for our times, it’s good to have someone around who cares for them as much as they do.

The burst of creativity and songwriting that came out of the reunion has its plus side, but it's by no means the necessary listening the band once was.

With little meat on the bones, it's difficult wrap your jaws around and as those occasional deep-filled prog wig-outs keep slipping away, they provide a glimmer of hope, but the doses are far too small and far too measured to have any real effect.

Love Over Will offers a techno release beyond the noise, one that wrestles with vocal placement and layers chaos into algorithms and filtered metrics strung out in evolving time.

They might need to be a little more consistent to make that one stick, but if they're up for it, One Day All Of This Won't Matter Anymore is a decent launch pad, proving they've the confidence to mix it up.

Their sound now possesses a withering, caustic wit instead of a joyous, ostentatious cackle, and the suspicion is that it's only the start of an enticing middle chapter. We'll see better still from them as they develop.

Despite the forcefulness of its concept, Brute thus often feels less like music of protest than music of exhaustion, confusion, and diffuse rage. This can make for an oppressive and tiring listen, but at best its effect is unsettling, and suggestive of traumatised detachment--a familiar enough reaction to the barrage of grim reports that make up the daily online news churn.

Paracosm deserves to be praised and enjoyed now, not in 20 years' time. He's not quite cracked it, but it's a big step in the right direction.

This is not the Manics’ best album, but it is one of their most charming. As a document of where they stand it is endlessly fascinating.

West of Eden is a flawed album, a patchy album, and an album with some really bad lyrics in it. But nonetheless a very fun record. It might lose its magic quickly, as most of the thrill comes from the band’s willingness to skip from genre to genre, but every so often you can forget the flaws and get lost in the many worlds it tries to create.

I feel as if it’s mostly the gathering of pieces for a record that was being constructed prior to a tragedy, with the grief itself manifesting in the abandonment of that work and this half-complete thing we get instead. Tricky is a shadow of his former self, playing the role of a shadow of his former self, which was always a selfhood in shadow.

TFCF is undoubtedly a record for recalibrating Andrew's personal and sonic compass but, rather thrillingly, suggests that despite the realignment, great things lie in the future.

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

Though Plant and Jones kept their ears to the ground with what was happening on the musical landscape, some of the efforts on the album have dated horribly.... But there are documents of true greatness contained here.

I’m all set to say that Good Mood Fool is my favourite Temple-related record since the HWGM debut.

Shulamith is by all means not a bad album, providing just enough thrills and spills to warrant repeated plays. But by expanding and deepening their sound palette, Poliça lose out on some of the original charm that helped make them unique.

The album--an immaculately drawn piece of jazz-inflected pop--is loaded with such originality that Mvula's carved out a niche of her own in 2013's musical landscape.

On Romaplasm, Wiesenfeld seems to have finally made something that could pass as a pop record, exuberant in both its content and execution.

What Cale has done here is not only intriguing in its own right, it also manages to beat artists half the maker's age and younger at their own game and also has more to say.

As the f-bombs scatter and sloppy seconds diss tracks land hard, Kesha’s integrity and emotional depth leans in too. She may be a Malcolm Tucker of chart pop but there is so much symbolism – and often raw courage – in Kesha’s creative reclamation of her self, it can be dizzying.

The first Shjips album to be recorded in a proper studio, with an engineer, West is Wooden Shjips' fullest exploration of these tensions to date, and sees the band stepping up their game in every aspect.

The Family Sign commits a few of hip hop's cardinal sins and doesn't provide nearly enough justification for doing so.

It is impossible to separate the synthetic from the organic here. ... At points I find myself asking if some of the sounds that I am hearing are even really there or if my brain is just filling in the gaps. Each time I listen through an alternative medium, different textures emerge.

Watch It Die will likely comfort those already on side, but it leaves you wondering whether well-intentioned decency is enough when the world they’re responding to demands more than sanitised anger and familiar sounds.

There may be no dramatic leaps in style from No Age, yet there also doesn't seem to be any requirement for them. An Object is the refining of a formula that remains open to play and experiment, without adopting a slash-and-burn policy to all previous outings.

No Lube So Rude is an album of alacritous beats and riotous self-expression with moments, like ‘Watcha Gonna Do About It’, that are oddly redolent of Madonna’s electronic-focused albums from throughout the 10s. In truth, at times it can start to feel a bit one-note. .... Nevertheless, that famous quote so often misattributed to Voltaire stands, as do the words of Peaches herself: “Now more than ever, there are so many forces that just want you to give up and be quiet. If this album can help you resist that, then that’s what it’s for.”

While its episodic narrative veers off into realms of absurdity akin to standalone send-ups, it proves--especially after a repeated listen--a fun, texturally dense celebration of the possible, a showcase of real daring that has been the payoff of countless prog odysseys of yore, the perfectly bonkers lineage of which it so clearly stems.