Ungodly Hour boffs along with sexy aplomb. But this is carefully collated product with its eyes on all the prizes, rather than a space for vivid artistic expression.

This album strays towards monotony at times, but a plum guitar solo or a sweet-sharp lyric will always hook you back in. Shannon & The Clams are a band of cult status, and this album should expand that cult--it is their most powerful and poignant work to date.

The study of Fohr’s internal world is cosmic in scope. That could make for an imposing listen, so it’s impressive that the record also stands as her most instantly loveable collection of songs.

An antidote to the corporate pop that forces us to be joyful, Rooting For Love offers a genuine alternative without being militant or hideously self aware.

The Arctic Monkeys have comprehensively slaked off their PG-13 pretensions and gone full-on X-rated.

The only thing Settle succeeds at is repurposing generic late 90s funky house into a sound that people seem to have been brainwashed into thinking is new and exciting.

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

Scar Sighted is still focused on conveying the noir duality found when the ugliness of atonality tries to devour moments of beautiful ill-quiet and creepy melody. This sonic ideology is perfectly produced and engineered by Billy Anderson (Pallbearer, Swans) who, along with Whitehead, captures the chaos in all of its multi-dimensional forms.

IV, doesn't really vary the template. They have nothing to prove; from the onset the record is a guided tour into the myriad depths of aural destruction. ... As always it’s the plodders, the pounders, the punishers that stand head and shoulders above the rest.

With Play What They Like Colpitts and Man Forever have crafted something truly unique: a spiritual jazz album for agnostics.

The majority of the tracks on the album are put together in such a way as to make you want to dance as well as take you on a journey, and by the third listen in you really begin to find yourself immersed.

In the years to come we might turn to Plumb or Measure before Open Here to remind ourselves of the essential Field Music, yet this, their seventh record, is nevertheless a thing of immense songwriting charm and ideological strength, defined by its sardonic judgement of various seismic social shifts.

This Behavior jitters with energy and swells with smart touches, and if Kuperus and Miller are still as dedicated as this album indicates, then maybe they don’t need you rubes anyhow.

This is her strongest album to date and one where “noise” is but a tool towards a much more expansive expression of music.

Melt Yourself Down combine a pan-global cannon of jazz, afrobeat, and western pop to arrive at a truly thrilling kind of party music. Some parts may be garish, others recall the Klaxons a tad too potently, and some moments are more forgettable than others, but in essence 100% YES is the purest of escapist experiences. The most fun you can have without taking your daily exercise.

A draining, breath-snatching release, nature morte satisfies on an intellectual level as much as one that is viscerally primal.

A terrific follow-up Mogwai’s No.1 smash.

I was hoping for a leap forward, but Morning Phase just feels like a very pretty place to sit and wait for one.

Clocking in at over 75 minutes, The Inheritors is an exhausting, complex and disorientating listen, but one that will stay with you.

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.

Abandon is quite short for a full-length album, but its physicality and intensity leaves the listener exhausted in a way that doesn't require further expansion.

Musically, UK Grim is stark and austere and without embellishment, but combines the melodic reach of their last album with the pulsing minimalism of the Austerity Dogs era. It angrily counters the corporate pop that forces us to be joyful, but it’s not without its own brand of optimism.

Upbeat, curious, and inquisitive, Cloudward makes for a great city walking album. It strikes the perfect balance between being jazz that’s not too impenetrable, while also being full of interesting surprises (primarily in terms of the language of Halvorson’s own playing).

Despite the inevitable ending, Amelia is an unexpectedly soothing record. This is largely down to Anderson having a calm, meditative quality to her voice that holds steady whether the arrangement is minimalist or intense. But much of the relaxing quality of the album is also related to Anderson’s ability to look at a figure frequently only cast in tragedy and mystery as a whole person.

Their fifteenth album Nonetheless doesn’t measure up to the friskier mid-’10 releases Electric and Super – the melodies are often wan and Neil Tennant’s delivery is uncharacteristically stilted – but the Boys are old friends. They amuse and move us. Their foibles are familiar.

On paper, then, the concept of an album that comes so consummately out of this context may not be the most appealing. In reality, Herndon's second full-length proper, Platform, which does just that, is one of the best records you'll hear this year.

Tyler's latest album remains ambiguous and uncertain, however.

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.