There’s some great stuff here – specifically Relax, Take It Easy’s sublime falsetto hook - but elsewhere buoyant pop is sunk by relentless vocal mugging and production which wears its influences much too heavily.

At the heart of this album is a trio of absolute killers.

This is music that hits the head, heart and hips all at once.

The subject matter takes them closer to Nick Cave than ever before, yet, whereas he displays a knowing black humour, Low’s earnestness sometimes makes them unwittingly hilarious.

El-P's uniquely, beautifully harsh vision remains undiluted.

An album as rich as it is strange.

While still lush in its own grimy way, Ruff Draft represents the harsher, more experimental end of Dilla’s palette.

The sort of euphoric, sweetly intentioned indie pop that, despite occasionally making Belle & Sebastian sound like Da Lench Mob, nevertheless manages to stay the right side of cloying.

A cannily considered, thoroughly de nos jours mix of punk, skiffle and music hall-bred power pop which fizzes with energy and affects a brash charm, but adds little to Barat’s and Doherty’s original blueprint.

Godin and Dunkel are peerless at conjuring a mood, and sonically this is typically impressive, but it needs more foreground, more focus.

There are missteps... and the production is sometimes frustratingly muddy, but Neon Bible very nearly delivers on impossible expectations.

Don't expect the gumption of Super Furries, instead bask in the mellow psychedelic ramblings of Gruff unplugged.

This is the sound of a fighter punching below his weight.

The album’s dark title belies its artful balancing of psych pop’s sweetness with head-down, rock riffing and the emotional power of the blues.

Overblown orchestrations, searing choruses, a demonic self-help tape pastiche and odes to Tom Cruise’s private life are tempered by sparse melodic interludes and tender songs of souls battling against grim routine.

There are off-centre, post-hardcore workouts and plenty of edgy but polished, pop fusion pieces, which suggest The Futureheads transplanted to 70s West Coast America.

It's perfect for passing down the crown of Malian desert blues.

As lush and expansive as his former work was taut and aggro - only the quality remains.

Lyrically, Allen spins the street-slang tales of blowjobs and booze told with varying success by everyone from The Streets to Shampoo.

At their best, on Yankee Go Home and Five Easy Pieces, their sound becomes less indie rock than ecstatic chanting.

Now every track is an intensely creative pop gem, like those brilliant pockets scattered throughout previous releases, refined and condensed.

This is a beautiful record; so wistful and reflective when it finishes it’ll make you feel instantly nostalgic.

The production is smoother, but when Sleeping Lessons morphs from an opiate dream to a riffing stomp with such exhilarating economy, or Red Rabbits wraps drunkenly swaying strings around yet another firmament-bound chorus, you can forgive an occasional excess of slickness.

Much of Hissing Fauna… dances in the face of its depressing subject matter.

His vivid, scattershot rhymes are clever without being cryptic, and his techno-tinged beats never veer off into tuneless arhythmia.

Essential listening.

This only occasionally matches the breathtaking splendour of last year's …Illinoise! but with its modest price and immodest extras only Scrooge could fail to have his heart warmed.

It’s to her great credit that Newsom (literally) plucks artistic triumph from the jaws of cloying whimsy.