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.