Taylor is also creating epic pop from this mess, and the soundworld she has built with her producer, Johan Kalberg, is her lyrical support system. ... The uneasy stuff is louder this time around – beefier, darker – but Taylor has twisted it to become a solid component of her strength.

This is a progressive, accessible album that could take Tame Impala to the next level, or the mainstream, whichever comes first. Not bad work for a directionless layabout.

It’d be easy to assume the reason Every Bad sounds so vital is because its raw, agitated songs are the perfect soundtrack for these blighted times, built to be played while the world’s never-ending dumpster fire burns hotter and hotter. But it’s also got a slicker, more muscular sound than 2016’s home-recorded Rice, Pasta And Other Fillers.

The Gamble is an engaging opening salvo, which one hopes will become the first statement of an ongoing narrative.

The ground covered on Black to the Future is immense. The visceral passages really slash deep, the moments of unbridled energy are exhilarating, and the meditative moments reach crescendos of total beauty.

An album on which Underworld reestablish themselves as supreme dance music architects.

Over time, I found the album to be stickier than its first impression. The pensiveness of its approach is, after all, an effective rendering of the sense of crippling stillness which awaits in grief; periods of deep paralysis stirred only by sudden anguish or unexpected joy. Essex Honey isn’t about England, it’s about the mourning Hynes experienced there.

Compared to 2013's Innocence Is Kinky, Apocalypse, Girl is less noisy and more thematically united.

The overall impression is of a lamp shone directly into the darkened corners of Shackleton's music, casting all its hidden detail in sharp relief.

Alexander Tucker may not make folk music, but he can weave a magic spell.

Ignoring the slight imperfections in the music itself – it strays into self-indulgence at times, as on ‘Honour’, which spends the second half needlessly stumbling around a relatively uninteresting rhythmic motif – Klein’s motivation for the record is deeply original, a fascinating example of what can happen when you shun precedent and subvert expectations. The result is truly compelling.

Although it doesn't quite live up to the greatness of Smoke Ring, it is a beautiful progression and subtle change in style and subject matter.

While Poison Season sounded like the kind of late-career ‘mature’ album that Bejar could be content to make for the rest of his life, ken shows that he is still full of the potential to surprise--and long may he continue to do so.

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.

A shining, distorted, expertly constructed, open-ended record, that might be Xiu Xiu’s best.

Heydarian’s approach in his second album is quite respectable. He makes no bold statements; and avoids falling into the trap of pseudo mysticism and over technicality. His music is subtle, mature, humble, and simple, yet worth exploring.

For all their three-pronged power and musical fluidity, Unwound didn't, perhaps, quite make music which transcended the genres, styles and subcultures it was associated with.... If nothing else, this two-hour compendium of righteous, often superlative noise demonstrates that they could also cater to dancin' feet, and ears looking to be bled like radiators.

Musically, Smith’s electronic extravaganza finds kinship with such auteurs as Fever Ray and Estonian producer Maria Minerva. From shimmering hypnagogic pop on ‘Both’ to playful 8-bit ‘What’s Between Us’, Gush is inventive and unpredictable.

Whether due to Gurnsey and Void’s developing rapport, or the honing of their collective sound, 25 25 packs the immense sort of punch that descriptions of their live shows recount.

Their world might be lined by wrack and ruin, but it's a world that fits them like a studded glove.

For some Communion will be too discordant, too warlike, too brutal to their sensibilities, a direct threat to their notions of what is "beautiful" in their world. But the chrome plated harshness of Rabit's music brings out a different form of joy, a pleasure that comes from catharsis, frustration, and alienation.

There Is A Garden is a highly accomplished album which captures Beings’ live playing so well it sounds as though they’re recording it right now, inside your head.

Hamdan stays true to her musical roots while capturing the anguish of our times. She balances grief with persistence, tempering pain and disappointment with the experimental grooviness she’s known for

The approach behind Two Ribbons is omnivorous, forming a vibrant kaleidoscope that fluidly twists between genres. ... Despite its more gentle touch, the album’s spirit remains restless, transmogrifying.

A direct response to the band’s dreamlike debut, Wicked City is a venomous inversion of the very world the group strived to create; where there was once playfulness, there is now fiendishness. It’s a frenetic and lively record, for not once does it stay too long in one place.

Ultimately, Beast is smart and cohesive but still joyous and daft.

This is a complete change of mood to everything they've produced previously, for the better; here they sound alive and excited to be playing. It's encouraging to note that everything hangs together very well, strung together by the imperious guitars.

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.