Between Two Shores is another Glen Hansard album filled with good songs, gorgeous music and gregarious singing. Is that enough? You decide.

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

It's not perfect (Hugs and Kisses is something of a misfire) but it certainly stands alongside the best of what Rouse has done before.

Whilst the duo blend their styles deftly, there are moments where their individual personalities dominate.

While this isn’t a bad album, it does feel like a safe one (which is perhaps even worse).

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.

A two-way artistic exchange in which everyone wins, musicians and listeners alike.

These are songs for dark evenings in big cities, dancing through heartbreak. For when you feel small, but anything feels possible.

Hotel Last Resort is a collection of music that is poised and deliberate, provoked and provoking. Not a record to be taken at face value, it begs for a conscious listen, start to finish. It affirms Violent Femmes’ place as one of the greatest contributors to both the punk and the American musical canon.

Overall, there's a real sense that La Roux is on autopilot, resulting in a ‘samey’ sound that struggles to hold the listener’s attention.

A lingering suspicion remains that there’s little that’s new or groundbreaking to the bouncy vigour encountered on tracks such as Severed Estates or A Change in Course; even the blissed-out motorcade of highlight Fugue States fails to have all its sirens sounding.

For all its bodily closeness, Camila Fuchs hold back on scratching and pinching when they should.

Filthy Friends have made a record to remind us all what music can aspire to.

While it's absolutely fine that he's not interested in making punk music anymore (or at least for the time being), hearing him run through the blues and rock repertoire of the 60s and 70s offers absolutely nothing that can't be achieved by just going and listening to all those great, original, records.

As The Tourist continues to unravel, so too do the tracks--captivating in parts, but lacking a unifying urgency.

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.

She pirouettes into the upper echelons of her register during Rooting for You, conveying the affection and apprehension contained in the line 'you’re the only thing I’ve ever truly known'. The low scoops on Hell to the Liars are another, as if Reid’s digging in her heels to stand firmly against 'the righteous ones'. But these are rare instances of genuine feeling amongst what otherwise feels like palatable but empty theatrics.

The results flit capriciously and deliciously through tones and genres, with highlights including the mechanical electro of Let’s Relate, the stuttering du jour production of A Sport and A Pastime, and the glam rock/spaghetti western/prog hybrid (aye, another one…) that is Chaos Arpeggiating.

Overt beats don’t appear until the sixth stanza, bass conspicuous by its absence pretty much throughout, yet whilst the themes can occasionally run away with themselves through lack of definite direction or concrete dénouement, 3.5 Degrees remains an accomplished debut.

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.

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

A compilation of 13 new recordings of past songs and covers, Mayonnaise--and its Hellmann’s inspired cover art--are as buttery smooth as the well-known dressing. The recording is as clear and intimate as a living room concert, which is a treat, as Deer Tick is one group whose touring has made them terrific showmen.

Unable to elicit more than a shrug for most of its runtime, the record is just one more passable pop album in a year that really didn’t need another.

Griff’s debut album is proficient pop, polished and clean – but to the point of sterility. It needs a bit of defilement.

K. Flay is definitely a Marmite artist and her alternative take on electro-pop/rock is likely to appeal to a lot of people, but unfortunately for some it will be quite difficult to stomach.

Within Temptation nourish symphonic metal yet again on Resist. Their music is always cohesive and passionate.

The unashamedly 80s aesthetic--which hallmarked the first Lost Themes--is pleasingly and emphatically recurrent on the second.

There's a real vulnerability to Taylor's voice, too, reminding us of his mastery of light and shade. Rennen is more thought-provoking than its predecessor, but it's still unmistakably SOHN.