Keely's is a singular mind that luxuriates in its own logic, but on Original Machines it luxuriates a little too much. Cheeringly, though, there are superb moments and doodles, the pace of which makes for an inventively utilitarian listen.

Night Thoughts is a record that deals poetically and bravely with the shadows that start to grow as we age and life's responsibilities weigh heavier on our shoulders. Brett Anderson seems as comfortable writing about the aging process as he did chemical smiles in the backs of Volvos and bored suburban housewives done in on sleeping pills etc, something that bodes well indeed for the future.

Interestingly, the tracks that fail to scale the same heights as those mentioned above don't take away from the general value of Dystopia, as there is enough underlying merit to be found.

For the majority of Hymns' runtime Russell decides to play it safe and prop up Kele's uninspired musings like he's just another programmable component of an increasingly polished, synthetic entity. That the two longstanding partners can still lock together so seamlessly musically is nice and all, but it also highlights the essential ingredient missing from this half-baked album: chaos.

While many of the songs are gloomy as ever they are not cynical or nihilistic in their view of love or other subjects. Nor are they especially sentimental.

Tortoise may no longer sound like the future because the future happened, but as long as they keep on hitting the levels of perfection they reach on tracks like 'Shake Hands With Danger' and 'Gesceap' then complacency doesn't sound so bad.

Third Law in fact sees him taking a wise look inwards, re-appraising and drawing upon his influences and past techniques, and adapting his music accordingly, resulting in an album that is far more detailed and interesting than its predecessor.

Love Over Will offers a techno release beyond the noise, one that wrestles with vocal placement and layers chaos into algorithms and filtered metrics strung out in evolving time.

David Bowie hasn't sounded this relevant in an age. [Blackstar] marks the bold and rejuvenated beginnings of a second or maybe third wind.

M:FANS perhaps loses some of those dissonant, euphoric yet deeply melancholic moments that Music For A New Society has to give us; tracks where it seems a self-consuming feat for Cale to bring himself to sing. But the two work in a partnership rather than against each other.

Scar Sighted is still focused on conveying the noir duality found when the ugliness of atonality tries to devour moments of beautiful ill-quiet and creepy melody. This sonic ideology is perfectly produced and engineered by Billy Anderson (Pallbearer, Swans) who, along with Whitehead, captures the chaos in all of its multi-dimensional forms.

Heather Leigh has emerged from centuries of tradition and the improv world she is most closely associated with, to deliver a work of art that exists in a world all of its own.

Timbaland, Kanye and Diddy are among the big names on the boards here, battling it out with lesser known producers, all gleefully playing to Pusha's style.... If Pusha T can keep this up throughout King Push proper, the forthcoming main event, he'll have the hip hop album of next year too.

Usually such an album would never be the place to start for a newcomer to the act in question, yet so comprehensively does this explore McCombs' multiple directions, there is a case to be made that A Folk Set Apart could be a suitable primer.

This sense of place and space in Futures makes its suite of sumptuous love songs doubly poignant, turns them into glorious moments of both clarity and giddy disorientation amid the impending decay and desperation of time and events beyond the back door, the darkness glimpsed out on the horizon. The songs don't emerge as 'crafted' at all, rather you can't quite believe they didn't always exist in this form.

City Lake is a stunning, humble record built on traditions we all understand, yet, somehow feels dizzyingly new.

This experience of overcoming grave adversity and living to tell the tale exists at the thumping heart of Purple, and accordingly in the accomplished, passionate and fully mended band who has gifted it to us.

At times the album becomes a little difficult to follow, with the momentum failing during the twists and turns of songs such as the slightly ponderous 'Vile Hell'. However Chasny often manages to claw back interest by adding slight colouring to the stark instrumental palette.

While space rock might never be considered high art, when it begets nine tracks as riveting and white-hot as those on Shape Shift there's little you can do but submit.

It does feel like Enya's strongest effort in years, and that is not at the expense of previous records. Dark Sky Island is Enya operating at her most maximal and self-aware.

Whatever the aural equivalent of a spectacle might be, that's Mutant, which firmly establishes its creator as an auteur.

You'd think that with the weight of success behind her, Adele could, and would want to, do anything. Instead, she largely retreads the same paths and explores the same tones.

In reconstructing their music to match the grand scale of their ambition, they've mapped out a whole new territory to explore, and Tape Hiss indicates it's going to be a hell of a ride.

Shades of The Herbaliser's Something Wicked This Way Comes abound, and the sensation that there's some kind of malevolent presence woven through the eight songs that make up Sold Out never fully escapes you.

It's the type of album you have to commit to completely, but for those seeking a glimpse of the numinous, it's worth the effort.

Where Visions looked inward--sounding like the echo of your voice inside your skull--Art Angels blasts relentlessly outward; an unabashed pleasure seeking missile that blurs the lines between euphoria and the nauseating sickness of excess.

Highly Deadly Black Tarantula has a strange unease to it, an air of what's almost unfinished-ness. Which is not to say that it doesn't function, successfully, as a complete whole; but much like movies made with incredibly strong first and final reels, it rather loses its direction around the midway point, necessitating commitment on the part of the listener to see the experience through.

This album marks a continued evolution in a subtly different new direction for this most idiosyncratic of American alternative bands, one of the few "allowed" to deliver this most unsettled of musics in a quasi-mainstream setting. After repeated listens, I've come to the conclusion that it and No Answer: Lower Floors represent a welcome refinement of something Wolf Eyes have been articulating since their humble beginnings way back in 2000.