This is probably one for Veirs purists, but such is the standard of her songwriting that even among these sketches, there’s some real gems to be found.

The result is a more energetic pop sound and a bright 13-track album designed for live performance. There are shades of noughties indie twee in Ozard’s conversational storytelling style.

It’s not all headbanging and blistering hooks. Penultimate track Hangovers plays with the classic album construct of a stripped-back number, yet it’s really in the nostalgic nod to emo heartache where Muncie Girls dazzle.

The Modern Age is craftily frontloaded, rattling impatiently through the most immediate tracks and building up a steam of goodwill before slowing the tempo with the gentle experimentation of the title track.

Their obvious love of the Ramones’ weirder cuts is still alive and thrashing, and, admittedly, a lot of Adventure walks extremely familiar soil.

It's perhaps not the finest Hiss Golden Messenger album, but it's certainly one of the most joyful, and in the current climate, maybe that's just what we need.

Pax Americana is something of a mixed bag of a return for Bratten. Its short runtime and nature as a mix of already released and new material making it feel more like an elongated EP than a cohesive album. It’s a record that takes its time shaking off a clawing desire to replicate its influences, but ultimately finds the form that led to Bratten’s best work again.

While IRL is satiny and consistent, sonically and lyrically you’re eager for some bigger swings. At times operating in truisms, you await unspooling of edgier insight. IRL is like a path reflecting dappled sunlight: we can see patches of brightness but its full light is obscured.

It takes repeated plays to reveal the subtle depths, the pump organ, accordion, electric bass, melodica, mellotron.

When Bright Green Field follows in the footsteps of their best track The Cleaner – supercharging the banal and mundane with vigour and purpose – it rips, mixing genres like straight-ahead indie-rock with funk and jazz, and exploring ambient and textural backdrops which make their now-home Warp apt.

More Rain finds Ward playing genre bingo with generally enjoyable results, including a tasteful homage to T. Rex and a well-handled country number about his Christian faith.

VI is undoubtedly You Me At Six's poppiest effort yet complete with funky, melodic beats and synths along with relatable themes of relationships, feelings and late night adventures that perfectly straddles the line between pop and rock.

Ultimately, although it’s more immediate than their 2016 record, what you gain from We Are Sent Here By History will be dictated by how much you connect with its musical vision. Sink into its groove though and it’s an album that presents a fascinating societal commentary.

God Games provides glimpses of what makes The Kills so compelling, but is unlikely to convert many new listeners to the cause.

Plenty of highlights for fans of minimalism can be found here--choose, for instance, from the frosty, shimmering synth and compelling tempo of Scido, or the deliciously dark, skittish Sleep Chamber. There's a slight hiccup with Balance, which has a throwaway feel, and Some Cats is an unremarkable album midpoint, but Kowton's maturity rears its reliable head again amongst Loops 1's spare arrangement, and Shots Fired is a trancey album closer.

New Me, Same Us finds its vigour in the sweet spot between pure pop and the band’s more adventurous tendencies. When an emotionally-charged, jazz-inspired piano climax cuts through the otherwise smooth veneer of New Fiction or when Where You Belong leans fully into a part-funk, part-R'n'B groove, the band really hit their stride. It’s just a shame there are some stumbles on the way.

Overall, Space Gun gives hope for the continuing future of a band that’s already died twice. While there’s a few bumps here and there, this is the sound of a group drunk off its own energy and excited to be alive.

This is a band on a journey. Modern English Decoration nods to its predecessor, certainly, but you can hear the way in which the original duo has consolidated their appeal as a five-piece. These guys have got promise written all over them.

At its most delicate points, slow climbing chord progressions carry as much emotion as her lyrics, and at its lowest, though sparse, carry them where they feel overly simple.

Williams’ songwriting approach, while accomplished and still urgent, occasionally loses some of its ferocity and connection to the theme by playing to his game a bit too much; relying on that trademark electro-rock production instead of mutating contemporary trap and noise feels like a slight misstep.

Jonny arrives after a decade as the same well-paced and tender exercise in running in place, exactly where they always leave off.

This early run of songs is perfectly enjoyable and the lyrics play superbly with country clichés, but rarely does it reach towards the quality we know the band to be capable. That is until lead single Gentleman turns up and gives the album the kick it needs.

Thankfully, on third full-length Something’s Changed Rose seems to have dispensed with an ardent desire to please. She’s embraced her inner Beth Orton, and she’s ploughing her own furrow.

This time around, it's the longer tracks that hit the hardest.

There’s pressure to satisfy. Largely, it does – especially when there’s a spark with his songwriting partners. Rochelle Jordan brings heat to her pair of dancefloor-ready offerings. Still, with Charlotte Day Wilson, balances polish and raw performance. KAYTRANADA gets fantastic performances out of Anderson .Paak and Childish Gambino, who are given extravagant tracks to work with. Other moments are stilted.

Ideas disintegrate before developing, awkwardly blending into the next, leading to occasionally aimless moments. At its best, though, it’s a riveting and subtle addition to an already impressive discography.

Generally speaking, while it's a solid return for the group, it's likely to leave some wanting more, aching for some real catharsis or a change of gear here and there.

On Want You to Know she assures us that 'beneath the layers there is simplicity'. Despite this, there's always an emotional distance created by screens and technology, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics.

The true standout of the EP is Fickle Season. ... The other three tracks are inoffensive but somewhat forgettable

Dead Channel Sky’s brilliance is front-loaded. .... This vitality soon becomes mired in conceptual slog – testament that clipping. are capable of greatness but struggle to stay consistently great.

Hannigan's oeuvre requires patience and focus, and while much of this new collection is dependent on tone and texture to connect, eventually deeper qualties shine through.

It’s not teeming with future classics, but it’s their most solid and replayable record since Brain Thrust Mastery.

Young’s jump into pastures new feels significant throughout, coupled with lyrical themes of escapism and adventurous spirit. As such, the record feels purposely detached from much of their discography up until this point. That said, the band’s long championed easy-breezy, summer indie-rock still exists in bursts.

While RITUAL possesses Hopkins' trademark blend of dark vs light, it feels slight compared to his prior work, and so fails to reach his former glories.

It’s an album of shattered dreams and primary colours--“Where’s your sense of humour?” decries Blunderland--and more than once it isn’t obvious if the band are laughing with us or (in the nicest possible way) at us.

Moments help prevent Dizzy Spells from becoming one-note by putting a different spin on the happy-sad formula, keeping it a bright yet bittersweet full-length exploration of Clifford’s new sonic world.

Ultimately, at a drone-heavy run-time of over an hour, Dear isn't much of a fun prospect for a summer album.

What Marauder provides is a top-up of Interpol for the band’s most dedicated fans, but nothing that approaches their former glory.

In a confusing attempt at experimentation, the album shifts through different genres featuring elements of big band sound with the use of brass, synths and acoustic guitar-jazz which at times borders on ‘easy listening’. Despite playing it a bit safe, it is clear that KT Tunstall is very much in charge.

It’s a smooth ride for the most part but sometimes you just wish whoever's driving this thing would find a decent station and stick with it.

Compared to some of their previous works, it’s an album that also feels somewhat gloomy with Isaiah Barr’s thoughts on issues such as gentrification and eviction distilled into dark and often murky compositions. ... Despite this, Lower East Suite Part Three still manages to capture contemporary urban discord.

It’s in the curation of the record where Ayewa excels, presenting a platform for black and queer collaborators throughout.

Sallee’s songs tend to expand outwards, the feeling established at the outset spreading itself thinner as the loops cover more area.

Is Inner World Peace going to change the history of music? Probably not. But it will absolutely become a comfort album for many.

Sleater-Kinney’s decade-spanning songwriting style feels the same. Give us the electrifying assault and brutal guitar tones to fill those tiny cracks now present in our hearts. Give us a little more rope.

When it works, it’s thrilling, especially on the moody Moi and the mercurial, atmospheric Sons and Daughters. Elsewhere, Palms of Hands and Dusty are perhaps a little grindcore-by-numbers. Still, Neil and Vennart have presented their vision in uncompromising fashion, and those who yearn for Blackened Sky-era Biffy will unquestionably find something to love.

Perhaps it isn't quite a fully realised picture, but Life of Pause still paints a very pretty sonic landscape.

The most successful of these joint efforts is Outgrown which was co-written by Bonobo; elsewhere, partnerships with the likes of Lil Silva and Tracey Thorn cast a pop overtone--a characteristic of FitzGerald's past productions, but here it feels overly saccharine. Ultimately, All That Must Be’s best moments are also its least contrived.

Things start promisingly on opener Special, with the equally rip-roaring Fantasy shortly after. The problems emerge in the album's latter half, starting from the latest single Tonight, which feels sadly very safe and leads to songs that wouldn't feel out of place on an early 2000s generic pop-punk album.

Too often for a 30-minute record do you find ponderous filler (Notes in a Bottle, Now or Never, Properties of Perception), in which even the ever-earnest Murray doesn’t seem to believe the lyrics he’s opining.

The songs are solid enough, particularly Candlelight (a dead ringer for The Sonics) and Follow Me Home, which has the swagger and punch of Van Morrison's Them. If that whole milieu is to your taste, definitely worth seeking out.

he album could be considered experimental in its dizzy melodies and introspective topics. The entirety of Black Rainbow Sound delves into an unknown use of electronica; combined with indie-rock drum beats and guitar riffs, Menace Beach maintain that depth and power of a solid electro-indie album.

Wavves are no stranger to this smooth-to-rugged combination, and on Hideaway, the mix feels like a familiar cocktail recipe that mostly hits all the right notes.

Warzone is as much about her individual experiences as it is about the world we all inhabit. The album is not without flaws, the sentimentality of certain songs occasionally threatening to spill into the maudlin, but the overriding sense is one of deep and critical reflection, offering a sensitivity that is needed in our world now as much as ever.

Thrashing Thru the Passion is a good album of fine songs, great lyrics and passionate playing – but ending with the playing-at-being-The-Clash Confusion In the Marketplace, after various nods to Dexys, E Street Band, Van Morrison, The Replacements, Boomtown Rats and more, its staccato block chords might be one homage too many.

Menace Beach gain a lot from the distinctive nasal vocal style of former Komakino frontman Ryan Needham, and when he becomes largely absent the record suffers as a result. ... But when they strike gold, they hit it hard.

It wouldn't be a recommended entry point for Beach Slang, but the chances are you'd find one or two songs here palatable enough to seek out more. If you're a Replacements fan you'll either think this fills the Westerberg-shaped hole in your life or you'll tear your hair out and curse at just how audaciously similar some of these songs are. Still, whatever side of the fence you might sit on, it's probably worth a listen to find out.

While displaying every tongue-in-cheek, New Age sleight of hand Lopatin is famous for, it all feels less immaculate this time around, more polished for the big screen.

It's often said that love is better the second time around; whilst this remains to be seen, Cry is a grower and we look forward to love’s next incarnation.

Sometimes though the more minimal vibe that runs across Broken Politics feels a bit too languid and relaxed. Tracks can float by too easily, while the clattering air horns and steel drums of Natural Skin Deep feel out of place on an otherwise low-key album.

As some similar-sounding songs morph into the other, we can sometimes feel the narrow scope of 9 Sad Symphonies, but Nash charms with the winning, irreverent bluntness first employed in her vaunted debut, showing received pronunciation the proverbial finger.

By deliriously atmospheric closer Lisboa, it's clear that the Chicagoan trio have little new to offer the genre, but they sure know how to make a dead concept feel alive.

There's something of an air of spontaneity to some of the tracks here, but this same spontaneity can make feel the album feel slightly ephemeral in places. Pang! can sometimes leave you hungering for more, but it’s still often an engaging listen.

For a band renowned for their experimentation it doesn’t feel like much new ground is covered on Time Skiffs and even after years of waiting, by the end of the album you’re left wanting more.

Four talented youngsters from LA of Asian and Latinx descent, wearing their influences on their sleeves, have produced a light-of-foot album of fun riffs and effectively simple ideas.

Always Ascending thrives when the band indulge their sense of fun--it's not the best work Franz Ferdinand have ever produced, but it's proof that they should embrace their intelligence and their quirks more and not try to be a standard indie band. They’re too good for that.

Besides some pretty clear face value, there are layers, moods, attitudes and tones to dissect and unpick which are overshadowed somewhat as the album stands.

While bracing throwbacks, they serve to obscure his new insights. Baldi’s certainly matured; all he needs now is for his music to catch up.

Curiously what you have here is an album composed by someone with an obvious love of the big band sound, blatantly wearing its influences on its sleeve but heartfelt as all hell.

SASAMI can write the hell out of a love song, but something about this album's emotional side feels more generic than referential.

Most of the songs have the intensity of an opener, diluting their power and impeccable production; by the end, the drops and tonal shifts don’t hit as surprises.

A pandemic baby, the album is a mixed bag as the singer explores new paths for herself.

An enigmatic listen, crying out for your own reading.

Whilst it’s fair to say that the offering has been fine-tuned somewhat (frontwoman Lili Trifilio has all but ditched the Courtney Barnett schtick in favour of a far more direct punk-pop far closer in tone to early Paramore), it’s still a solid effort.

The title track, Cruel World, is a brilliantly deceptive slice of sunshine. .... Elsewhere, the album is quieter and less sure footed.

But with all this exploration, the record lacks a little impact, not quite achieving the cohesion and emotional gravity of Good at Falling.

There’s less of an exploratory bent to the record than there was last time out, on 2014's Too Much Information, and when there is a touch of that ambition, the band often revert to their comfort zone too quickly.

That isn't to say there aren't enjoyable moments on III that transcend genre--the final build in Days Turn Into Years is particularly good--but ultimately, this is largely standard fare.

This is a record packed to the brim with guest vocalists and layers of instrumentation, all sitting on top of rock-solid yet unpredictable grooves.

Sir is as extroverted as Spooner’s recent experiences, but some occasional, additional restraint may have added extra punch to its more introverted moments.

Albums have come at a brisk pace in the last few years, but there have been some diminishing returns as the Manchester troupe try to find the balance between the big hitters and the bit between their teeth.

The Beggar is another solid entry into the Swans canon, if not one that suggests it will have the staying power of their classics. It still marks Swans as a group intent on developing long into their career, and there’s no threat of them losing their intensity.

Paradise is a better pop record but less immediately fun than previous offerings.

While Glasgow Eyes is no Psychocandy, it is without doubt a true-to-form The Jesus and Mary Chain album and, for that reason alone, worth the listen.

The fact she’s instead opted for a bunch of gritty, Bunker Records-inspired analogue improvisations makes the end product all the more enjoyable. Qualm is also underpinned by a peculiar sense of Britishness.

There are curve balls--Rise sounds like The Lighthouse Family (!); Leatherette like an outtake from Madonna's Ray of Light--but this is business as usual for Gilmore: great lyrics, good melodies and production chasing today's radio. But you can't help feeling there’s still a great album to come from her.

CACTI is understandably more subdued than her self-titled debut, but the boisterous numbers it does contain, like spite, might feel more dynamic played live by humans – it feels like the energy that makes her such a captivating performer is being restricted by her drum machine.

Nosebleed Weekend goes for the gut and mostly hits it dead-on. Occasionally their ideas get the better of them.

At times perhaps overly conceptual--Honeymooning Alone needlessly hammers the point home--The Bride also lacks more standout cuts to truly make it soar. There’s nevertheless plenty to appreciate here; just don’t expect much in the way of wedding playlist material.

Hiperasia might be a less accessible album, but it’s Díaz-Reixa at his most experimental and inventive.

Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. is overlong and perhaps too diffuse for its own good, but to hear Moreno wholeheartedly indulge his melodic instincts makes the whole exercise a worthwhile one.

For all her DIY charms, Next Thing continues to give credence to the view that the home studio environment might not quite meet the requirements of a songwriter blessed with such precocious talent.

[Shows] a more intimate side to Barnett than we’ve previously encountered. ... Things start to feel monotonous and samey by If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight and Splendour and there’s none of the brazen intensity or deadpan delivery that graces Tell Me How You Really Feel to behold here, which is a shame.

Patchy and unfiltered, but charming as all hell, it’s a candid reflection of its creator.

There’s just nothing bringing the whole thing together, and a nagging feeling that he could do better if he tried.

One More Thing is the product of an accomplished band noodling around in the studio. There's a playfulness and creativity here that promises bigger and better things from the Brighton four-piece in the future. As far as debut albums go, this is a promising one.

Carpenter is at both her best and her worst when she leans into humour, which is threaded throughout the record. It’s a continuation of what’s made her so memorable in the past: the campy innuendo of Bed Chem’s 'come right on me… I mean camaraderie' or her viral 'have you ever tried this one?' sex position-asides on tour. Here, that same instinct bubbles up everywhere; sometimes brilliantly, sometimes too much.

TYRON’s second half is undoubtedly more interesting, demonstrating a maturity to his lyrical ability. While it does feel like a forced attempt to put things right, on TYRON slowthai is allowed the time for self-reflection that cancel culture often denies.