Malamore is an album full of standouts, and a step in the direction of greatness.

This is an album that knows just how toxically repellent it is and it's this self-assured ferocity that makes for such an enjoyable whirlwind of a listen.

Dead Channel Sky doesn’t introduce any radical new ideas and rather stays with the source material. However, in times when Gibson’s futures have already aged and some of his villains shape politics, Clipping revoke cyberpunk’s countercultural charge with extraordinary energy.

So what you have is an album that's very recognisably Ed; the Steve Gullick photography, the tipsy melancholy and romance, the ballads... but without the need for too many frills it sounds complete, nine gorgeous songs that sit beautifully together.

The result of this apparent simplicity far exceeds expectation: The pop-informed songwriting of Quasi oozes among creepy, distorted noises, feedback and hypnotising pulses in long, composite songs, at times made of two different parts.

It's the great triumph of this collection, one that goes beyond whether it hangs together as a body of work. In bringing together artists from around the world Shirley Inspired should help to ensure that these tales are not forgotten.

Some might feel that at 55 minutes and 17 tracks and with so much going on, Shook is perhaps a little long. Yet to these ears it never feels bloated and it’s hard to see what might be pruned without losing some of the record’s impact.

Crash Recoil is as taut and sinewy as anything he’s done, yet there’s a certain looseness here too, a contemporary, accessible feel that suggests that by trying new things to break out of a creative rut, Surgeon is once again pushing the genre forward.

As the album progresses, new textures arise in contrast with the previous tracks, keeping the sprawling 80-minute runtime unpredictable and intense.

Though a double album of 80 minutes, Reflektor feels shorter than The Suburbs, and better paced.

Of Desire is the duo's most widescreen statement to date and one that blends cinematic sweeps with the post-punk sensibilities of Joy Division at their most glacial and The Cure at the height of their early 80s lysergic anguish.

Building Something Beautiful For Me is a gentler listen by comparison [to 2019's For You and I], with some anger still there – just distilled into something more gleaming and triumphant.

Comradely Objects is, in Horse Lords’ telling, a more studio-assembled record than late-2020 predecessor The Common Task, but the result is less ‘digital’ in sound. ... Horse Lords’ interest in “rural American guitar and banjo styles” is a matter of record, but this deployment of them is a fine new horizon.

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

If you've grown tired of the retro-metal sound of recent years, The Night Creeper is a good place to re-engage. Uncle Acid might not be sonic visionaries, but they're masters of their craft.

As a whole, Viewfinder is Eisenberg’s most ambitious statement yet, and a testament to their range as an artist.

A History Of Every One deposits its listener right up close, and seemingly the improvisations are adapted to take that into account.

Evidence is an impressive addition to their existing body of work.

Even if fans of Pere Ubu take Pere Ubu seriously, it is clear that Pere Ubu aren't entirely serious about Pere Ubu. The quartet of LPs contained on Architecture Of Language highlight this more so than perhaps The Modern Dance and for this reason should not be left aside.

Though Phillips' lyrics are often chilly, abounding with images of freezing water and fallow fields, there's a genuine warmth here remarkably absent of pretense or the weepy e-bow heroics that post-rock has grown so fond of.

For all their compositional and audible dissimilarities, each group of tracks represents a strident argument for the place of the human and the instinctive even amid finished pieces which, at first exposure, may read as more electronic than organic. .... Throughout each EP there’s audible glimpses of the rooms the live performances took place in: shouts and applause being the obvious ones, the sense of space and warmth more felt than heard.

Sonic Citadel is Lightning Bolt at their most poppy and accessible.

While in lockdown, Bad Bunny decided to step out of the box and explore new music to mix with Latin trap, coming up with fresh sound narratives and reaffirming his ‘lawbreaker’ reputation in an otherwise rather boring reggaeton scene.

With Plainly Mistaken, Nathan Bowles has stepped out of the Black Twig Pickers’ shadow and demonstrated his vitality in forging new routes through old-timey music.

Luckily, the balance of ideas and effort that run throughout Surrender show a band back in top form after long spell off, perhaps the best of their decade plus existence.

Lyrically, Stumpwork triumphs over anything produced by their contemporaries, but that might have been to the detriment of the music, which bravely evades the instrumental vitality of their debut. But it is an album rooted in grief – specifically the grief that comes from losing a loved one – and with that knowledge, Stumpwork suddenly makes a lot more sense.

While it’s so clearly a record about loss, it’s not one that reverberates with grief. In fact there’s a joy in the bold, restless exploration – messing with the machines until something human came out. And there’s also a joy in treasuring Parker’s memory.

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