Metal, Meat & Bone manages to be both a hypnotic and focussed listen, despite its length. For all its otherworldliness this is certainly one of their most powerful efforts and, for my money, up there with early classics such as Meet The Residents or Third Reich ‘N’ Roll, other brilliant subversions of sacred cows and taboos.

Although occasionally straying a bit too close to generic Afro-rock, the group still manage to keep it all on the right side of the classic sungura sound before mixing it up a bit on the final track.

The album is at its best when the margins are jammed full--tinny tambourine here, guitar feedback there, a wash of cellos dipping into the mix.

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.

Belle And Sebastian fans have long ago learned to take the rough with the smooth and the quality control on The Third Eye Centre is all over the shop. The odd flashes of wonder within show they're still not a lost cause though.

Inter Alia is a disappointing return to the saddle, expressed with awkward confidence and bravado by the band seemingly misremembering itself.

A marvelous record packed with charm.

When It Comes is a very balanced record that shows the artist standing on solid ground, in comfort with herself, and ready for a further creative take-off. A soothing and pleasant listen.

Overall, Madonna’s fourteenth album Madame X feels as if Mirwais had mostly completed a decent run-of-the-mill modern pop record, albeit with a cool hotch-potch global feel; hip nods in place to fado, dub and other micro-genres dunked amongst the trap and retro disco. But then just before sign-off, Herself went through the top-lines with a sharpie. ... None of these carefully curated flourishes feel as if they truly live inside the ‘whole’ of this music. Instead it all feels plonked on top of a template.

Herrema and her group are obviously having a blast, and the fact that they have managed to blend so many disparate ingredients into a surprisingly potent brew is far more important than the supposition that they might not be taking themselves too seriously.

Porpora has managed an album that is at points a tiny bit distressing, yet it offers sweet refuge from the uneasiness he himself creates.

Noctunes repeatedly feels like a homecoming of sorts. It isn't, however, without its shortcomings: it's a tad prolonged (three tracks here could easily go) and there's a tendency for Beal to get comfortable in his compositions.

With a discipline perhaps learnt from his extensive soundtrack work, Harvey has trimmed away the fat, so that every rhythmic or melodic touch serves a purpose.

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 not even sprawling and directionless but just painstakingly mediocre throughout.

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.

Wolf is Tyler's album through and through, a mostly diverting document of juvenile delinquency that defines him better than any prior musical effort.

Lantern still shows clear signs of the producer attempting to find his feet, if at times faltering.

This is a cautious yet dignified return that allows the Reids and their associates to spend even more time together than they’d have expected to create something positive rather than engaging in an orgy of self-destruction.

More richly-nuanced than Mastermind and far trippier than 4-Way Diablo, Last Patrol sees the elder statesmen of stoner rock back at the very top of their game.

The guys at the centre of Dirtmusic have produced a lot of excellent tracks when making this album, and very successfully fused their own music with Malian styles, and truly collaborated rather than merely sampled or copied from native Malian traditions--but there's still the nagging feeling that it might have been even better had they left themselves out of the equation entirely.

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

This is not as viscerally thrilling as many of his other releases; it is warm, it is something to quietly contemplate.

‘‘Feet’ is probably the set highlight, a real mutant groover, whilst ‘Bobby’s Boyfriend’ actually becomes creepier for its more skeletal arrangements. .... However, straightened up versions of live favourites ‘Whitest Boy On The Beach’ and ‘Tinfoil Deathstar’ suffer for lack of mania and a flatness that doesn’t tally with the memories of incendiary live shows.

Anything In Return feels again like the work of an artist still exploring his sound and yet to pin it down to something concrete.

Coming Out Of The Fog is an album of light and shade and one that benefits more from what's not in it than is.

What it proves to be is an exhilarating, uneven, thought-provoking, over-egged, over-long, lucid, barnstorming, soul-infused hip-hop album of a type that, as I may have mentioned once or twice or five times, you just don't get any more. Except, of course, you do, and here it is.

Welcome to Condale is a refreshingly ambitious, variegated take on the 80s both conceptually and in its execution.

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.

In the end, the accompanying audiovisual film probably captures the album’s possible reception: numbers of people dance happily around Harle, while others stand still, looking slightly underwhelmed.

It is gloss and fluff masquerading as euphoric heartbreak. It makes Savage Garden sound like Leonard Cohen.

Across the album, Csihar proves himself a top-tier metal vocalist operating between growling, shrieking, operatic wailing and other inhuman vocalisations. Necrobutcher’s presence on bass is equally notable. In a genre where the instrument is often buried, his lines remain audible and forceful, contributing to the chaos, rather than disappearing into it.

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.

The result is something of a mixed bag: moments of tender and enduring beauty broken up by landfill indie pop with a French accent.

The arrangements are simple, often pretty ... but mostly they serve to support the delivery of some of Finn's most evocative and well observed lyrics.

Padding the album with ambient interstitials would be a forgivable peccadillo were the other songs seriously weighty--after all, even Kid A had 'Treefingers'--but the remaining seven tracks can themselves come off as a little half-baked.

His vision continues to be as expansive and eccentric as usual.

Trimming back their signature embellishments leaves an album that strangely is more focused sonically, but somehow aimless in intention.

As a whole Pre-Language appears a little unfulfilled--a whole lot of build up, with minimal release

TUTTI feels retrospective in the sense that Cosey Fanni Tutti doesn't introduce anything strikingly unfamiliar to her sonic palette here, with its ambient closing tracks a retread back to Time To Tell. TUTTI though is essential in that it marks Cosey Fanni Tutti as the auteur of her own sound world, as well as being a strong facilitator, artist and collaborator.

An enticing, at times uncomfortable and intoxicating record.

Overall, this is a rewarding and captivating body of work. The Waves Pt.1 is a testament to Kele Okereke’s adaptability as an artist.

As well as command of the overall mood, Lipstate always demonstrates a steely command of her influences. But these mini homages don't swamp her sound--quite the reverse.

On The House, Maine is vulnerable, honest and strong--he soars on this, his best album yet.

This album's great strength lies in the rearguard action its brittleness mounts against kitsch accounts of authenticity.

Part of the potency in this music comes from the confusion it induces, the fascination only intensified by bewilderment. But it's extraordinarily elegant, too.

These songs will do very nicely, thanks, as reassurance that Gallagher can still deliver evocative and memorable tunes.

What all the songs on News From Nowhere have in common is a baffling, mystical elegance, both independently and, to an even greater extent, within the flow of the record.

Make no mistake, this record sounds amazing... But in choosing to stick to classic song structures rather than utilise their incredible sound technology to explore the experimental avant-garde, or to make killer dance tracks, A Place To Bury Strangers run the risk of all their songs sounding pretty much the same.

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.

Musique de France isn’t an indiscriminate smash and grab of appropriation, it’s a wonderfully organic and experimental and occasionally psychedelic record that will take you to interesting places if you’ll let it.

Although Last Night On The Planet isn’t likely to find itself on any end of year lists, it’s a welcome addition to the Letherette oeuvre, despite being intermittently overwrought with retrospect.

It's a pretty indulgent affair (Halstead has acknowledged this) with most songs clocking in close to or exceeding the five minute mark; the last couple of tracks are disposable.

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.

They don’t sound like a band trying to tap into an otherworldly and infinite negation, they sound like a band trying to recreate their early power and glory.

This is music that transcends the detached nature of its making.

Interestingly, the tracks that fail to scale the same heights as those mentioned above don't take away from the general value of Dystopia, as there is enough underlying merit to be found.

For the most part, Unpatterns is slightly sinister, stretched out, anxious, fidgety house.

There are worse barbs to chuck at an album than that it would make a beautiful accompaniment to some breathtaking scenery.

Given to the Wild is resolutely The Maccabees best.

Labyrinth is strong, but dwarfed by connections to work which have made an indelible mark upon popular culture in a way this album likely won’t. There is still substance to these compositions however: it’s an electronic, neo-gothic record which brims with strangeness and decay.

Mind Of Mine is an impressive enough debut, with excellent, laidback production and assured vocals. It's lyrically stunted, it's too long, and the overall sound is not starkly original, but the subtle elements of South Asian sounds set a promising tone of fusion.

Nadav Eisenman of Herrema’s post-Trux bands RTX and Black Bananas does a commendable job without distilling any of the band’s indomitable spirit or underlying power. ... The careful sequencing of the album, with the vinyl pressing clearly in mind, reminds me of the potent placing of tracks on Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges.

It's a cavalcade, certainly, but a thrilling one which feels like the proper realisation of Adebimpe, Drucker and Patton's quixotic talents combined.

The question of whether BRAIDS will return or not melts away in this deeply personal insight into Blue Hawaii's emotional and physical connections with one another.

The tenacity and productivity of the Melvins is admirable, as is their ability to continue to push music into some of its darkest and most intriguing corners. What would be really interesting, though, is if the Melvins made fewer Melvins records and tried more projects like the one on the second half of A Walk With Love & Death. After 34 years, their output is at times just a little too breathless.

After a slight misstep with Audio, Visual Disco, they’ve only gone and created a masterpiece with Woman.

Oczy Mlody re-presents Flaming Lips as a band to be taken seriously once again, despite how much fun they’re clearly having doing it.

If Mostly No lacks genuine innovation, the album more than compensates with a radiating glow of veneration.

Not that The Messenger solely ransacks the past, though: conversely, it's the clunkier, more ham-fisted retro fodder that constitute the main misfires, especially lyrically.... But when he pushes things forward, everything begins to glitter.

It's menacing, calming, earthy and completely otherworldly. And an appropriately unnerving conclusion to a project that, for all its bruises and emotional scarring, find a way to be flawless. And which confirms Lorde as continuing to inhabit a space-time continuum entirely of her own devising.

It is not boring. It is not that good. It is simply meh. The epitomeh of meh.

While in a way this record sums up everything the Cribs are about, it fails to foreground their most exciting aspects.

Despite the warts, This Machine Kills Artists is a solid outing. And, perhaps because of the all acoustic setting, it may be the most consistently accessible thing Buzzo has ever done.

The purely aural aspects of his intimacy remain completely intact, another perfected headphone aesthetic, but when it comes to the rather more difficult task of conveying human content, Carey has rolled his trouser legs up and waded out to knee-height. Label it wimpy escapism at your peril: he knows exactly what he's doing.

For a fan it's fascinating stuff, a parallel universe of unfulfilled potential.

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.

In many ways Sub-Lingual Tablet is, like any Fall album will be, a stranger and superior record than most released in any given year. But by The Fall's own standards, this time that's just not good enough.

This record is perhaps the first time we see Drenge exploiting the additions that were initially made to their live band, and exploring the expanded instrumentation to its full potential.

An album where just enough business-as-usual is sacrificed for genuine growth.

It would take a hell of a reinvention to pull back Primal Scream from this stinking brink. Come Ahead is a record that fails, fatally, to recognise that Bobby Gillespie was always Primal Scream’s least compelling element.

Quarters! is also the band's most accessible album to date.... This in an album that caters to the listeners' self-indulgence rather than arresting their attention, which is a shame. But is what you've really been seeking all these years is Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain on wax, look no further.

As illustrated by Kunk, the band is a breath of originality in the often-hackneyed worlds of punk and hardcore. Play this album the next time you want your dance party to devolve into a cannibalistic orgy.

Exemplifying the work of Joe Boyd (and of Gabrielle Drake, who has been rigorously loyal to her brother's legacy) it's a fascinating and charming example of creative curatorship.

'Someone's Gonna Break Your Heart' goes some way to harking back to their former glories but moments like these are in all too short supply.

A dark heart beats at the core of this album, much as it did with all of the influential bands mentioned in this review, but its creators have proved themselves to be dabber hands at good time rock’n’roll than most of their previous ventures indicated.

There are nods throughout to progressive soul superstars like Isaac Hayes, and the slide guitar outro on ‘Never Know’ suggests George is in fact Sam’s favourite Beatle – though the album always strikes the right balance between vintage and cutting edge, never unduly nostalgic or pastiche-y, with sax breaks, searing synth solos and simulated Stax horns that never feel indulgent or showy.

Re-recording one's old songs in an older style isn't a revolutionary manoeuvre.... Kylie's addition to the tradition is also a fairly mixed bag.

This is body music, sure, but not for crowds of people eager to move--this is music to spend the night in to.

Black Is Beautiful is a still more refined musical iteration of displaced and replaced citizens: slow sirens and distant voices, as if urgently broadcast in foreign languages over distorted subway intercoms, soundtracked by free jazz and hip-hop, lover's rock and electro, j-pop and dub - themselves diasporic, oppidan genres.

That Four is laced with some of the band's hands-down strongest work, then, makes its weaker moments and occasional in-your-face insistence all the more grating.

A ghostly and passionate debut.

The combination of Eno's obsession with stasis and his attachment to novelty for its own sake does the album in.

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.

This LP's strength is as a document of change rather than a retrospective.

Basses Loaded is excellent. Like every other Melvins record it holds its own identity while oozing the same sweet black guitar sludge they have re-perfected many times over the years.

Wrangler sounds neither like a Mallinder solo project (which of course they don't want to be) nor like your average electronic jam band (which they are pretending to not want to be either). If White Glue is a dance album, it only succeeds half of the time. If it is something else, it is not clear what exactly.

The album requires the exact right mood and setting and even then it fails to become much more than pleasant background music.