Celebration Rock is in perpetual motion, driven by a visceral sense of urgency that most modern guitar music is so sorely lacking.

While Skying is not as large a leap forward as Strange House to Primary Colours was, it's still the work of a band firing on all cylinders, and an exceptional offering from a group that, out of nowhere, is quickly becoming one of the most exciting young acts around.

“Movement 9”, at just two and a half minutes, puts a resplendent cap on proceedings, the LSO’s strings tying things off with forlorn grace and pomp. It’s like an echo of what’s come before, the tremors from the encounter between Sanders and Shepherd resonating out into the infinitude. It leaves us in no doubt that we have just witnessed a meeting of monolithic proportions.

Sheer breath of freshness and youth.

It’s one of the most gleeful and replayable debuts of 2013.

An insistent, vital, full frontal assault.

There's a simultaneous show-of-hand that somehow compliments that emotional weight rather than hinders it. It's that weight that gives these compositions durability, and considering how naked Acab leaves his samples, some staggering life. All said, it's really the bottom line here.

There's No Leaving Now is one of the best albums of the year.

All in all, Hopkins’ roadmap is splendidly plotted, taking the right amount of time to deliver you to your destination and showing you the detours you didn’t even know you wanted to see.

Brazen and charming, it’s the album of this summer.

The cohesion of Pain Olympics is quite the miracle. Even if there are moments that diverge into unpredictable passages, there’s always a sense that Crack Cloud know where the track is heading – it’s obvious that, despite their size, they are always operating from a single artistic vision.

This overall reduction in the reliance on guitar riffs allows for greater flexibility of sound, and as such BCNR wring out more staggering peaks of emotion from Wood’s lovelorn words.

With any luck, Wakin On A Pretty Daze will go down as a document to the workman he really is.

On Island, Pallett reaffirms their status as a special brand of artist. With their compositional flair they can inspire you to bone up on music theory, whilst simultaneously, with a flash of their writerly pen, have the ability to break, rebuild and strengthen your heart.

These are warm, lived-in songs, the sort that feel instantly classic, becoming canon without ever feeling like they’re trying all that hard to.

This is a band operating at their highest, most infectious potency, and the end result is riveting.

It’s Noname’s most convincing album yet – as a whole, it defies any attempt to be embraced as “mainstream” or “digestible”.

The dire gloom of the early years is gone, and the garbled mutations of Some Rap Songs and Feet of Clay have grown in clarity without losing any of their labyrinthine and gothic dynamics. Without calling a masterpiece just yet: this is a very special moment, both for Thebe and his fans. I leave the rest to Two-Face and the flip of his coin.

W becomes more than just ‘another’ Boris album. Like other albums that capture the sublime – be it Kid A, Loveless, Eskimo or On Land – it conjures a sense of presence that is somewhat alien, slightly haunted, certainly physical. It toys with ideas of memories we associate with certain sounds and atmospheres, how our emotions can be formed through sensory experience and time becomes illusory.

Comparing it to where they once were, somewhere middling between post-rock and meandering industrial ambient, the sound of Factory Floor is of a band that is now confident in their own original and entirely dominant sound.

Ocean Roar [is] a truly proper follow-up.

Torres doesn’t really feel like a debut, let alone something remotely self-released–the songwriting ability and surprisingly fantastic and natural production allow for this journal-esque story to get its due.

The record is 15 short vignettes about lost, unattainable, suboptimal, or just plain impossible love, and The Fields nail each and every one.

Once again, Sternberg’s irrepressible, impossibly human spirit shines through the darkness. This is the ultimate power of I’ve Got Me: the majority of songs here focus on negative experiences, but the feeling coming out the other end of listening to it is one of uplift and renewed resolve to make something of one’s life. It’s what makes the album sound both modern and timeless.

Ekstasis is a challenging listen, but a rewarding one.

He’s fulfilled every promise made by Badlands and then some, and despite whatever depths of pain made such an eruption of shattered awesome possible, he’s managed not just one of the best albums of the year, but one of the most genuinely moving, as well.

SICK! is a pure rap album, as only Earl Sweatshirt could deliver.

Sometimes these lyrics are a bit stifling and confusing to place in context, but once more, these songs become something more due to Turner's impeccable vocal melodies.