The decision to front-load the album with singles means that you experience a jarring drop in energy and quality three songs in. After that Freakout/Release settles into songs that, while alright, sound a bit like the product of an AI program that has been made to listen to 100 hours of Hot Chip and then generate its own imitation.

Ruins doesn't aim to re-write the indie-folk/country rule book, rather, the Söderberg sisters are just fine-tuning their craft and growing into a comfortable groove.

At times this feels like a celebration of what can be achieved with three chords and an earnest tale, intelligently told.

All up, it’s an energetic, accomplished debut from a group of highly-seasoned musicians, making Flat Worms an emerging outfit with a fuck-tonne of punked-up potential.

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.

Perverts is Hayden Anhedönia’s first big step in establishing Ethel Cain as a character, a world and an idea, not just another ephemeral popstar pseudonym.

Erez’s songwriting is clever, nuanced and often packed with wit. On KIDS she shows how far she's come in crafting her sound in just a few short years.

Hug of Thunder ploughs through emotional highs and lows with an empathetic grace, sometimes decorating its more dramatic moments with swells of brass, ditto its out-and-out rock’n’roll cuts; elsewhere they just let everything hang loose on a light robo-funk groove.

Keys and pianos prove especially important as seen on John Lennon-esque finale The Barely Blur making WHY?'s latest a dreamier affair, easy and pleasurable enough to get lost in.

Fans of experimentation with hardware in live shows, and evident in this work, Blondes have mixed all of these elements and delivered a fine album in Warmth.

Sunshine in music form, A LA SALA is another stellar addition to Khruangbin’s blissful repertoire.

Skip A Sinking Stone isn’t an immediate record, and neither is there anything particularly novel in its utilisation of imagery, but that’s picking holes for the sake of it; tracks such as Getting Gone and the titular Skipping Stones balance naturally, the harmonies gentle, the acoustic guitar, piano and strings positioned with grace.

he languid mid-tempo tones are certainly pleasant and, on the likes of Wildwood, sometimes capture a sense of achingly beautiful melancholia. Still, you’re left longing for Amos’s social commentary to be laced with just a little more venom to truly conjure the state of upheaval in the world.

The Penguins’ music always defied easy definition and Arthur’s determination to keep the band’s trademark sound keep careering its way from traditional folk and pop styles to minimalism and South American music is admirable in the extreme. What’s even better is that the music is now matching the sentiment.

KiCK ii is deconstructed reggaeton. A great idea (see DJ Python), but it makes for some of the least interesting music of the whole collection, as the first half leans on typical reggaeton beats (though nicely spectral on Rakata) for fairly straightforward songs.

Although the project offers quality in production and vocals, tracks like Roller Coaster and Bang Bang Boom fall a little flat with overly repetitive refrains. Despite some hiccups along the way, Brijean have continued to carve out their own sound through an increasing mastery of production and vocal talent. The album achieves dreaminess without sending you to sleep.

While there are certainly some decent enough ideas to be enjoyed here, this is ultimately a rather flat listen that doesn't challenge anywhere near enough as it appears to intend to; a real wasted opportunity.

Producers Marius De Vries and Eldad Guettta, alongside the Valve Bone Woe Ensemble, have helped Hynde find the sweet spots on a selection of songs that bring to mind Iggy Pop's excursions into jazz or the sound of Bob Dylan's recent covers collections.

Like The Bride, there is a common conceptual thread running through these tracks, but unlike that record, there is less effort exerted in shaping them to fit a narrative. The songs are better for it, each unspooling like a miniature movie of its own without the same need to move the story from point A to point B.

Come Around doesn’t have the tonal or the sonic variety of that previous record. Instead the record polishes to perfection dal Forno’s specific sound-world, feeling more like a jigsaw, the songs forming a kind of composite dreamscape.

Produced by Bernard Butler, its ten tracks hum with greedy ambition.

All in all a gracious record, and one that grows on the listener.

Sticky harmonies and the running theme of longing for something more are just a few elements that make both GUV I and GUV II very fun, intriguing listens.

From the ghostly mid-tempo beauty of tracks like Missus Morality and my kiss era, to lead single Nurse!, bar italia demonstrate how to be complex and seductive, without ever feeling pretentious.

These songs are more impressionistic than anything Kenney has produced to date making for interesting and thoughtful music, and an accomplished second album.

Still disorientating yet more alive than ever, this is a bold album that skillfully pairs darkness with light.

The further away Hansard gets from his roots, the closer he is to home.

Witty, uniquely Australian observational songs such as 6L GTR, Ticket Inspector, and the particularly ferocious The Price of Smokes are testament to the trio's power-pop-punk.