Best Coast still sound like Best Coast, but now they're tidier, shinier and looking us right in the eye.

This is no revolution, but Shit Robot has put together a seriously robust collection of party records.

Yet at every turn, this new album eschews clichés--any strident shrieking, chanting and cod imagery--for something sleek, fluid and effortlessly modern.

This is an album nostalgic for a time when soul, circa Watergate/Vietnam, had an upbeat message and a positivist agenda. Here, though, Crow puts aside politics for pure fun.

Never Trust a Happy Song is far from a cohesive album, but that actually works to its advantage--because it encapsulates the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, of this emotional rollercoaster known as life.

For a debut album it’s accomplished stuff, though like the Manics before them Anthems is not without its stodgier moments.

A rich, warm, big-hearted and hilarious album.

There's still the chance that this album will finally push them into the stratosphere – you wish Interpol were globally huge, you really do – although it's likely that their future won't be written until after Dengler's tour-replacements have helped broaden the band's palette more.

Zig Zaj is predictably unpredictable, something else again for the artist.

The follow-up to 2010's Paupers Field, this set plunders the overarching melancholy of Townes Van Zandt, making for an emotionally draining listen.

This is agonisingly personal music, poured straight from the heart--just as punk should be. It's a bonus that it's also frightening catchy.

1977 may be a blip for this artist in regard to its genesis, but for anyone other than his ex-wife (and perhaps himself) it's an utter pleasure.

This thoroughly enjoyable release does include one surprising blast of brass.

Almost everything is tight and controlled, returning time and again to the simple power of a pop song.

There's more than enough here to satisfy aficionados of offbeat, fiercely inventive pop music.

They've produced an album worthy of a closer look.

Yes, he's got Paul McCartney playing slurpy bass on As It Comes, and Neko Case pops up on the countrified duet Sing Me to Sleep, but there's no escaping the sound of his past. Nor any sense that it's a past that needs to be escaped from.

Consequently Familial initially seems timid, even half-hearted, but persistence reveals an album full of sweet sentiment and honest meditations.

The imaginative artwork, of a black and white keyboard splintering into different colours, emphasises the feel-good factor of this winning collection of songs and arrangements done with great style.

In the US they're pitching this as Diamond's revelatory masterpiece, which is a bit rich considering he's performed covers often before, and his own best songs were as strong as anything here.

Throughout, there are unexpected melodic twists and turns, and the whole thing feels like a bid for commercial acceptance, if indeed the market for this classy music even exists anymore.

What first seemed like an impenetrable puzzle will prove endlessly engrossing.

The Deserters, given a chance, will completely negate any such journalistic silliness with just one listen, because it is a jolt of psychedelic, oozing instrumental wonder and songwriting magnificence.

Whether Mazes are a band that to stand the test of time remains to be seen, but this is an enjoyable, exciting and mostly excellent snapshot of their lives as they are right now; and you can't help but want to join them as the days grow longer and the nights lighter.

Talk About Body is a long, long way from the oblique post-shoegaze blur of chillwave, witch house, ill-bient and experimental dubstep at the cutting edge of the alternative.

Mylo Xyloto may have an oblique title but it's a triumph because the music is anything but.

On the whole, this is an interesting experiment in the creative process, as well as the values of musicianship and friendship.

They've also striven to make their soiree as all-are-welcome as possible. If the latest serving of salad days for indie has to start somewhere, it could do a whole lot worse than here.