Although not completely original or life changing, this collection of songs provides a fresh angle on the early days of Friendly Fires and Tame Impala; with such a talent for refreshing the past, who knows what will come next.

The More I Sleep follows on nicely from their earlier releases, channelling them in a consciously reflective manner, and harnessing their typical dissonance while also not feeling as frantic in places as its predecessors.

Grizzling, fuzzy guitars occupy a large amount of the album lead parts and chord shifts between major and minor mix up the mood while still retaining a positive outlook and feeling of cheery hopefulness. It’s short, sweet and easily one of the band’s best efforts to date.

Ultimately, >>> is yet another excellent record from Barrow and co, one which will surely delight for quite some time post-release.

The songs are resonant and cleverly unhurried--the group aren’t afraid to sit in silence, letting a feeling wash over the listener for a beat before continuing their story.

As its title suggests, Chris is a supremely confident introduction to the next phase of Christine and the Queens.

Gazelle Twin has crafted a masterpiece that feels timeless, her most deft blend of punishing and melodic yet as well as a fearless examination of both then and now.

The Art of Pretending to Swim is an album that will reveal itself after a few listens.

Double Negative is a magnificent and courageous record, if you’re ready for it.

Like each of the other eight explosive and grinding grunge tracks that make up Heaven, I Feel Free works to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Despite the ferocity, there is undoubtedly uplift woven into the very fabric of each of Heaven’s blistering tracks.

Over the course of ten tracks in 30 minutes, Terry display the sheer prowess of their pop sensibilities and punk aesthetic, with brilliant movers and shakers like The Whip, or the more reflective Oh Helen at the core of it.

Much more than mere offcuts, Great Thunder instead offers some stunning moments from Waxahatchee with Katie Crutchfield at her most off guard and most personal.

It's a study of musical form that is innovative in its approach and experimentation.

Solo Piano III is colourful and humorous; the sheer musicality of the work is astounding, bringing the listener as close to contentment as music possibly can.

The second album from Leschper’s Atlanta outfit Mothers, it reaffirms the band’s talent for making the familiar sound so strange.

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.

A Better Life is total fire from the get-go, offering great melody and pop lifts that you’ll be singing for days. Buck-wild and vicious songwriting, not for the light-hearted.

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.

Although this album has some appealing pop melodies, any further examination or appreciation removes their surface-level charm. Elevator music isn't bad, it just fills awkward silences.

Let’s Go Sunshine is a triumph for a band unafraid of pushing their sound, fusing together a variety of influences and flying the indie-pop flag high and proud for all to admire.

ANNO stands as a collection that casts an old master in a new light while cementing Meredith’s place as a constantly startling and boundary-breaking contemporary composer.

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.

Featuring contributions from Jody Stephens (Big Star) and Brian and Michael's father Ronnie D’Addario, Go To School is a true beauty and a classic in its own right.

Not only are the band adding to their soundtrack credentials but they're also getting rather good at the old pop banger.

By its closing tracks though, the relative lack of shade to balance the bubblegum-coloured light can become a bit cloying, the endearing charm of the sugary nature fading slightly. Nevertheless, Laading and Fitzpatrick have still delivered a debut that suggests they’ll be continuing to craft impossibly catchy off-kilter pop for years to come.

Sprawling, magnificent, dangerous and fantastical; this beast is--however extraordinary--an apt representation of the 11-song extravaganza it adorns here.

Their confidence is so clearly on show here, and despite two fresh members for the album they're already tight and unanimous of their vision: "to make interesting, up-tempo rock & roll."

While Dance On the Blacktop is a fair attempt at taking forward their sound, unfortunately, it feels more like a regression.

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

While Deportation Blues may have come from that place of great turmoil, it also further magnifies the dynamism and creativity that underpins BC Camplight’s work.

At Weddings shows Tomberlin tapping into a tentative inner strength, creating a soothing record that ends up resisting its self-doubts and reaches out its hand.

Produced by Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild), Angry Cyclist offers a little less gravitas than usual in truth, but the taut Telecasters that dominate The Proclaimers' eleventh studio album provide a tension that seems to sit well within the heart of these prescient compositions.

Slow Air takes time to process as we reflect on the musical journey we've been on, it's an escapist dream which can only offer more to the imagination with every listen.

Decidedly more disco for Mitski, Be the Cowboy is a showdown of electrowave and her signature fretwork that brings a pop pep to heartbreak and humanity’s greatest gluttonies. With that formidable force of a voice, she forces us all to be the cowboy and lament for a while.

While the subject matter and style aren't vastly different to anything Kathryn Joseph’s done before, the progression here is more of a tasteful expansion of what came before it. In terms of finding new ways to express oneself with honesty while staying true to what makes you special, this album is a roaring success.

While Nearer My God isn’t always successful, the imagination behind it is more than enough to give it your time.

Deaf Havana have moved with the times but it isn’t all sugar-coated and there’s still enough emotion to drive us towards their music.

For the most part, the songs here are less immediately grabbing than those on his EPs, with greater emphasis on atmosphere than thumping beats, but they share the same glitchy DNA.

Future Me Loves Me occupies a warm, energetic space between joyful hooks, melodic harmonies and lyrical substance.

Much like Ocean’s Blonde, Devotion unfolds and unravels in different ways upon each listen, giving you everything but never too soon. With it, Tirzah and Levi have created something fiercely unique, relatable and of the moment; one of the most crucial pop records of the year.

Once again working with Americana producer du jour Dave Cobb, Shires uses this record to push her sound to another level.

Physical boasts one hell of a range of tracks, some suited for dancing but all suited to telling Gurnsey's favourite story. With it he's created a new and independent take on house proving that Gabe Gurnsey is not just a member of Factory Floor but a solo artist in his own right and style.

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.

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.

It may lack the richness and depth of her solo work, but that is replaced with absolutely towering riffs and Jurassic grooves.

Overall, TRU is a promising step for Ovlov, albeit one that doesn’t always succeed when it comes to standing out from its peers.

A couple of the more traditionally structured techno tracks can feel a little too cold and laboured, sometimes feeling longer than their actual run-time. Despite this, when it pushes boundaries and dips its toe further into avant-garde territory, Family Portrait can be an immersive exploration of dance music.

On Hive Mind, the positive impact of their time apart is quickly apparent. The opener, Come Together is mature and quietly devastating in spite of its perky rhythm, an emblem of solidarity in the face of senseless violence. There’s little else here in the way of political statements, though, to the album’s benefit.

Their combined creative nous is such that if the two took the time to craft something more elegant and thought out, they could deliver a classic.

Musically, the good ideas are palpable; a shame, then, that the lyrical ones take such banal centre stage.

Compared to their past work, the album lacks intensity and seems to rely on a heterogeneity of unrefined styles, making it seem more like an album of covers that flirts too closely to the tired hip-hop trope of a single, aimless verse.

Through it all, Lotic maintains a deep sense of nuance, sounds constantly morphing and remaining grippingly vital, still with great emotional intensity around every corner.

While this album could be characterised as a return to 'normality' for Dirty Projectors, such a label has no bearing on a group this relentlessly imaginative; a creative rebirth would be more accurate.

As always Deafheaven are anything but ordinary.

This is the band's darkest material yet. Opener, The Supremacy of Pure Artistic Feeling is an instant statement of the band's simultaneous deviousness and gorgeousness, which is a feeling that never really lets up over its 40 minutes until the seemingly krautrock-influenced The Right Kind of Adult. Come join the family.

It’s fitting BODEGA’s debut has all the essentials covered; wry wit, shrewd observations and a vision of art rock’s finest punk party. Like, listen, like, like.

Far from the carnival of featured guests that was 2017’s 26-track Humanz, though, The Now Now, at 11 tracks and with only three comparatively unobtrusive features (Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle appear on Hollywood) is tighter conceptually but looser as a listening experience.

Nothing is broken with their sound, but the album feels like an extension of their previous work rather than a progression of it.

Bad Witch has a more palpable vein of nihilism coursing through it than perhaps any Nine Inch Nails release since the seminal The Downward Spiral.

Through it all, Let’s Eat Grandma encapsulate the agony and ecstasy of youth--and even more besides--in constantly dynamic ways that demand your attention. You’ll be all ears.

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.

There are so many layers to get lost in, and over time Stains on Silence reveals itself to be a gorgeously wrought piece of modern post-punk and synth-pop.

It’s not perfect; a couple of the album’s feature spots from the likes of D.R.A.M. and Stefflon Don feel a little crowbarred-in, there's less of the punchiness that characterised the duo's early work, and the lounge-funk interlude of Right Back Home To You goes on for at least a minute too long. But when the pieces fall into place there aren’t many bands that exude this much ridiculous, filthy, party-starting energy.

Wildly inconsistent album.

Hope Downs is as good a reminder as any that life’s a blast. Head to the beach, you’ve found the soundtrack.

It’s a New Day Tonight is a highly polished vehicle that demands to be driven at twilight with the roof down, allowing for its passengers to drift off to the engine’s dulcet purr and the wind’s gentle caress.

Similar to The Highland Mob, it utilises a number of classic grime tropes--eski clicks (Kontinuance); 8-bit homages (Evil Spirits); Dizzee Rascal-sampling sino throwbacks (A Like Ye)--but repackages them in a way that brings introspection to the fore.

The best indie rock songs can often lean on the shorter side, giving in to the sugar rush of instantly memorable riffs. But Jordan has no qualms about letting her songs draw out, as they do on Lush. That’s because she always has something important to say and it’s worth listening.

It's actually not a terrible record, really, but it's frustratingly complacent after two outstanding albums.

Unlike He’s Got the Whole...--and indeed much of the Joan of Arc discography--it’s a stylistically cohesive effort too, primarily consisting of Ausikaitis delivering lilting, honeyed to the point of saccharine vocals over undulating, ambient backdrops.

It’s a richly realised record and one that is as powerful a statement in support of Case’s measured musical expertise as it is her long-established prowess as a lyric writer.

This record isn't exactly a "pleasurable" experience, and its relatively brief half-an-hour run-time may seem like a relief, but it actually somewhat undermines the tension in its brevity.

God's Favorite Customer showcases Tillman at his most levelled: sly-tongued and biting, emotional and soulful, articulating life's most complex feelings in a way we can all understand.

It's the wealth of exquisitely baroque moments, exploring history as a pliable, multi-dimensional rift, that makes Age Of Lopatin's most ambitious album yet. There is exceptional sonic depth, and those who were confounded by his dive into industrial alternative on Garden of Delete will notice a bewildering continuity.

Universalists is an extension and expansion of his solo debut, an evolution as simultaneously radical and just-right as any of the changes he’s known for improvising live.

You're hearing a songwriter who seems to know exactly what she wants to make, and has all the tools to do that. A glorious, glorious album.

The result is a sparkling pop effort, with Campbell bringing copious quantities of the old Obscura glitz to the likes of the swooningly romantic It Can’t Be Love Unless It Hurts, the jazzy Home & Dry and, most poignantly, to the undiluted Americana of Alabama, a direct tribute to Lander.

These eight tracks are so deliberate and self-contained that you almost wish for something to puncture their protective casing, for Burns to let her agile voice soar. But Argonauta is an album still forming questions, giving no answers.

Her talents won’t be a surprise to anyone familiar with her band, but laid bare like this, her imagination is startling and singular.

Love Is Dead shows CHVRCHES attaining a greater urgency and darkness in tracks such as the dramatic, M83-esque Deliverance and My Enemy, a stuttering, drugged up duet between Mayberry and The National’s Matt Berninger.

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.

One of the album's greatest strengths is how it incorporates these experimental choices into something very musical, although that does mean you do occasionally miss what's below the surface on first listen. Different things rise to the top the more time you invest in the record, so if it's not clicking with you immediately, trust that it eventually will.

What sparkles most about this new album is the comfort you feel when Malkmus and his band do exactly what you expect.

In its 13 tracks and just shy of 40 minutes, Wide Awake! shows perhaps the band's broadest emotional range to date with a healthy dollop of anger on display (see Violence or Before the Water Gets Too High).

Despite the gentle forays into new styles, the universally relatable stories are still well and present, with enough morbid humour, intricately drawn character studies and down-to-earth wisdom to keep you coming back again and again.

He shares the ennui, dissociation, irony and unfulfillment of his particular celebrity destiny, coupled with a biting and original take on a more widely shared quotidian anxiety that listeners will note with nods and laughs and hums of recognition. But a hit or two would have been nice.

Eray’s opening haze burns out to reveal stark, staccato drums, an urgent, discordant Juno lead and almost Orbital-esque bassline, providing a fine touchpoint for Blue Hour and Earth and Elsewhere’s tech-purist soundscapes: think Aphex Twin’s Ambient Works II. They're a fine addition, though an indulgence amid an album of otherwise brilliance.

An elevated level of bravado is present from the outset on La Luz’s third album, Floating Features.

It’s a creative, energised exploration of the power of both the human voice and electronic music to move us.

The wit and wisdom of Moffat is about as sharp as ever here and ‘Hubby’ is clearly at the top of his game.

Eschewing electronic production flourishes in favour of some analogue authenticity, Any Day eventually settles into its groove. The melodies are intricate and layered, but the impressive musicality is outweighed by a lack of urgency.

While they may not have completely achieved seventh heaven here, 7 is still a solid first step heralding Beach House’s next phase.

Vive la Void can be intriguing and enveloping if given the time and space to truly immerse yourself in it, but otherwise might leave only a fleeting impression.

Singularity it feels like he’s levelled up the melding of two worlds: ambient and techno. Hopkins’ signature deep tissue massage bass is stitched together throughout, with unreal moments of musical beauty making Singularity a simply stunning album of emotional highs and lows.

More notable for its meditative atmosphere than blockbuster tracks, Rebound isn’t the sort of record that will blow anyone away, but that’s never been Friedberger’s MO. When it comes to neatly capturing knotty feelings and subtle changes of mood, she remains one of indie rock’s masters.

Plowing Into the Field of Love was a champagne swilling, country honky-tonk left turn; and now comes Beyondless, a record altogether more iconic sounding, but no less strange. ... Iceage continue to be one of the most exciting bands in music.

This album continually bends and warps, jumps and starts, fully absorbing its antedecents and regurgitating a masterstroke of contemporary electronic music.

Harris says these songs were recorded over a brief but intense period brought to an unexpected stop thanks to a high fever. The album itself is much like that – fleeting, over before you can catch your breath. But, an imprint of something – a distinct mark you’re not quite sure the meaning of--is left behind.