Arabia Mountain is energetic, fun, loose, and immediate. Everything the Black Lips should be.

Marissa Nadler is the sort of folk album that you'll be returning to simply because it is so varied.

Hopefully none of the charm of Special Affections is lost in the process, and the record is seen as more of a building block on which to add, rather than an early turn at which some distance is required. As the former, it is a great start to which greater things are implied, anticipated, and, eventually, expected. No pressure.

Rarely does music feel this much like a celebration, and though it might not get to you emotionally, that doesn't mean you can't sing along.

Despite I Break Horses' songs being dense, the range of instrumentation that they use is slim, and therefore the use of these tools repeatedly is going to result in some expectedly less-inspired moments.

Guitars jangle, piano keys ripple like they've been recorded from a jaunty saloon session while vocals harmonise and lift the spirit of everything around.

The band has only strengthened their propensity for catchy, melodic pop hooks, and they come one after the other like a best-of Lite-FM programming block.

We're treated with music that demonstrates a perfect niche between pop-accessibility and zany experimentation.

[It offers] up some of the most melodramatic songs Los Campesinos! have recorded to date.

It's the broader story through which Undun gains its strength; through the musings and rants of Black Thought and Dice Raw (who, this time around, has near as large a presence as the group's leader).

Another excellent sort-of-post-dubstep EP from a relative unknown making use of thickly nocturnal synths with distant and obscured vocal samples.

Hive Mind is confident in finding a throughway and becomes as much a joy to listen to for its toy-box experimentation as it is for its head-nodding immediacy.

My Head is an Animal is a highly impressive debut that's full of emotional lyrics, lush, diverse instrumentation, and a powerful and dynamic male/female vocals.

The set might get a little long in the tooth, even in its individual parts, but on both parts Shackleton is treading fresh ground in a whole different solar system than the rest of dance music and all its various eccentrics.

Oshin is undeniably a record tailored for driving around with some friends in the dead heat of summer, but the music also packs a range of raw emotions.

It has clearly come from a very damaged part of Angelakos' psyche, but Gossamer is a step up in sophistication and songcraft, and one of the year's stronger pop albums.

This record definitely ranks up there with Offend Maggie and The Runners Four in regards to its emotional immediacy.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

Nocturne proves that Tatum is firmly at the centre of the Wild Nothing universe, and around him orbits his dreams, influences and abilities, which seem to stretch out infinitely.

Punk Authority sounds too accomplished to be the product of mere caprice.

Dadub have crafted an LP with depth and subtle yet grand-scale dimension, adding another excellent release to the Stroboscopic Artefacts canon.