[This is an] excellent, playful and moving album as a whole: the closer you examine Glynnaestra, the deeper and stranger the rabbit hole goes.

An often fairly classicist pop record which nods heavily towards naggingly familiar influences, yet doesn't feel like it could exist at any other time than now.

Iceage’s efforts to expand their sound not only permeate this record, but make it their finest work to date. They have always been a more-than-capable band, but this album suggests they could one day be a great one.

On Death Mask, Fearless lifts the lid on what lies beneath and exposes his true self in ways that he’s always been reluctant to entertain. Fearless honesty suits him.

This is a rare Morrissey record in which the music matters as much as the words. Mercifully, this reissue does what no Moz re-package has yet managed, and respects the integrity of the original.

For all the scrapes and judders, it’s these elements that elevate Osmium’s work beyond the merely curious and propel it into the downright compelling: the ability to corral these strange mechanical sounds and wring from them something primally, achingly human.

Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO has lofty ambitions of space on one hand, and a great deal of heart and soul to keep it simultaneously grounded on the other.

Senyawa have consistently and carefully focused on ways to play and record their two sound sources to arrive at a fusion whose weight belies their minimal sonic elements; with Sujud they have made one of the heaviest and most seductive albums of the year.

Excellently crafted beats emerge throughout the album in tracks like ‘Neon Pattern Drum’, ‘Emerald Rush’--also released as a single--and most notably in the hefty ‘Everything Connected’, which Hopkins describes as a “massive techno bastard”.

The sheer ebullience, the devil-may-care attitude taken in the construction of these songs, makes it an album to treasure.

Throughout, Tobias balances the baroque, saturating instincts of chamber pop with urgent, to-the-point rock segments, the romantic swells of plucked and bowed strings on ‘Political Solution’ or ‘The Scam’ tempered by the almost post-punk gestures of ‘I Feel Hated’ that hug Tobias’s soulful cadence with hard-driven indietronica à la Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Deaths is particularly, brazenly haphazard: it was written and recorded briskly, around full-time jobs, and the results are thrillingly erratic without ever feeling rushed.

In this transition from experimental noise that revels in randomness and discomfort, the album layers sound into intense, hypnotic rhythms that reveal compositional prowess.

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.

Throughout the album, Allen’s lyrics remain devastatingly frank. ... No Shame might sound more mellow than her earlier razor-sharp sass, but beneath the surface lies a gloom, one I’m glad Lily lets us see.

Once again, the results are even richer and more rewarding than on their last outing. There are subtle evolutions and tweaks to their tried-and-true formula, sure, but it’s hard to say what makes one Acid Arab record better than the one before it (and, to be sure, this one is their best so far.)

Sama’a is the sound of a band at the peak of their powers, their spontaneous interplay, invention and commitment undimmed. In the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik they’ve found an infinite universe.

In this time when dank edgelords across techno and industrial music are still flogging the dead SS cavalry charger of suspect aesthetics and prissy growling, it's refreshing to listen to a record where you've never a doubt that the sturm-und-drang is in aid of righteous causes. May the Test Dept cogs keep on grinding.

On Samba he has returned to uphold the majestic grace that made his father’s music so compelling. Within the traditions of the music he is playing Touré continues to develop his own sound world.

It's quite fair to say that whatever is lost here in interesting experimental moments is made up for by enveloping production details which, when combined with his often unconventional musical choices, propel the record into an accomplishment that stands on its own.

Originally conceived as a mixtape, Trap Lord rightfully exists as a proper album, with thirteen tracks totalling fifty-one marvelous and misanthropic minutes.

Crucially, this is a record that deserves to be approached, consumed and judged on its own merits. And merits there are aplenty.

Wide Awake still sounds like Parquet Courts, but it’s a far more colourful, warmer and bolder version of the band.

Missteps matter little on an album that proves a minimal tour de force, home to some of the most simply enjoyable music in Hood’s 20-plus-year production history.

If age and the rigours of the road can start to tell as a result, the energy level is still there, whether on a strong version of the Gore-sung late 90s highlight ‘Home’ or a lovely turn through Memento Mori’s striking lead single ‘Ghosts Again’. There’s a bit of a bonus this time out. Following the live cuts, four songs from the Memento Mori sessions are included. It’s understandable why they didn’t make the cut, feeling more like good enough album tracks at most.

Le jour et la nuit du réel proves something else entirely: that these hunks of wood and wire and circuitry still have the potential to surprise. And to delight us with those surprises.

Fans certainly won't be bowled over by the innovation on offer, but as a refinement of their sound it is the ne plus ultra Autechre album, honed and executed to perfection with only a few drifty moments that suggest it could have been cut down to a single LP.

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