It's that mix of astral expensiveness and strict artistry that makes Thundercat's debut LP The Golden Age Of Apocalypse as grand and visionary as its title.

The first Shjips album to be recorded in a proper studio, with an engineer, West is Wooden Shjips' fullest exploration of these tensions to date, and sees the band stepping up their game in every aspect.

The combination of Eno's obsession with stasis and his attachment to novelty for its own sake does the album in.

Whilst it may lack the game-changing originality of other big 2011 releases, the record spans half a century of musical history more effectively than any other in recent memory.

Where the warm, bright finish on Fondo made it gleam expansively, occasionally here you wish for a little more space in the mix and in the arrangements, if only to allow us to explore Vieux Fara Touré's beautiful songs more freely.

From a purely musical perspective, however, it executes that very most rare form of retroism--the type that makes the tired, forgotten and domesticated once again radical.

Hype and arrogance created Watch the Throne and stifled the creative revelation it could have been. It would be nice if that could serve as a kind of lesson for the hip hop world, but somehow that seems unlikely.

Its huge, cocaine-pricked melodies remain present and correct throughout, but the tracks themselves are among his best so far.

'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.

The result is a woozily involving mood piece that encompasses everything from the shimmering heat of daytime ('Lifesized Stuffed Animal', where music box chimes rub up against disoriented square wave bass) to the dead of night, caught in the lairy drunken lurch of 'Kitties'.

When the album stops playing the temptation to categorize Family and Friends as a literate Streets project or Buck 65 with a flair for topic sentences is irresistible. Only one song exceeds the five-minute mark, though, and most are just over two minutes, so boredom isn't a problem.

Bermuda Drain is, from the off, a massive step forward for Prurient.

The Family Sign commits a few of hip hop's cardinal sins and doesn't provide nearly enough justification for doing so.

While the album is by no means a disappointment, one can't help but long for the return of a less inhibited Krug, free of – albeit self-imposed – limitations.

Life's Rich Pageant rather sweetly gathers the emotions and carries them back to the time.

One immediately clear difference between Two Way Mirror and previous Crystal Antlers work is the fact the band, led by vocalist and bass player Jonny Bell, have improved immeasurably as musicians.