A knotty, messy work: a series of interior monologues depicting some unsavoury but very human sentiments; a sprawl of devastating emotion wrought with a keen yet weary eye. But it’s undoubtedly a triumph--Kasher hasn’t sounded quite this sharp in years.

MMorningside, the debut album from Auckland’s Fazerdaze, is a dream-pop record with both of its feet on the ground.

You’ll need a breather or two, for sure, but that’s the nature of great horror, regardless of what supernatural forces you choose to worship.

This album is a love letter, written in elegant cursive (and blood, obvs), for anyone and everyone that holds the underground to their heart.

Music is cathartic for Girlpool, allowing them to share their honest expressions while simultaneously allowing the listener to impose their own perceptions. This is a delicate balancing act that takes most artists years to master, but Tucker and Tividad provide enough give and take to make the overall experience one of constant intrigue.

In trying to be all things to all fans, all critics, all expectations, all click-bait corners, Harry Styles has failed to make a defining statement.

Ultimately, Oxbow's seventh full-length is an incredible, cinematic experience which is at once rewarding and terrifying.

The album will appeal to new fans, but for anyone that has followed Nite Jewel’s creative ascendance over the years, Real High will stand out as the artistic apex of what she has attempted to create during her short but eventful career. The overwhelming impression is that of authority; an artist at one with herself and her vision.

Lyrically, it's a broad, emotionally-led investigation into 'the state of things'. By no means, however, is it bogged down by the precise or the singular or the definitive. Within its lyrical muddlings, we might be able to tease of a forecast of things to come, or it might just be fooling us with a potent swirling of punchy psychedelic rock.

Ultimately, this is the best thing Dulli has put his name to since Blackberry Belle.

Three of the songs are between seven and ten minutes long and make for laboured listens and sadly, the lack of song variety doesn’t really fit in a volume that’s meant to reflect lightness.

Creating a 19-track album out of Black Lips’ brand of messy psychedelic punk was always going to be a huge ask. And they have nearly pulled it off.

With such a range of musical stylings on one record, No Shape occasionally sounds more like a collection of songs than a unified album, at times this can be a bit stifling to the listener. ... But these are minor flaws in a record with many a moment of gorgeousness.

Halo cements itself into yr ears. This is logic in motion, and it’s dead beautiful to watch every piece of these puzzles fall into place.

This Old Dog is the sound of an artist on top of his game. An artist shedding every inch of wackiness from his bone and sounding all the better for it.

What Pollinator does confirm is that there’s plenty left in the tank from Harry and Stein; next time, they might better realise that surrounding yourself with bright young things can often be the same as surrounding yourselves with your fans--and that they might well try too hard to please you.

Each song tells its own story so intensely and so completely, like 11 musical horror novellas, that listening to any of them individually produces an experience more like that of listening to a shortish, intense, masterpiece-like album, especially as the songs often have a few different musical sections and ideas.

A majestic return that doesn't just fill in the gaps, but points unflinchingly towards future horizons.

For the most part, In•ter a•li•a is content to exist as a barrage--add ‘Call Broken Arrow’ to the ‘confirmed belter’ list--and almost never strays into more experimental territory as explored by The Mars Volta. There is one sort-of exception, however, in the form of ‘Ghost-Tape No. 9.’

The result with For Crying Out Loud is that it has bright moments but ultimately adds to the collection of below-par efforts that will do little to extinguish the elitism scorn that they attract.

It’s the work of a confident, mature songwriter with a clear and distinct voice.

I Go Missing In My Sleep is a collection of beautiful songs made infinitely more beautiful by the way they've been meticulously put together. The lightest touch lets Wilson's exceptional vocal sit effortlessly close, without sacrificing complexity or interest.

Gargoyle is missing the emotive, musical draw that makes Langegan the tear-jerking, blues-poet that he really is.

While there will undoubtedly be some who bemoan the same failing within Rock n Roll Consciousness, there’s no way Thurston Moore is going to stop for anyone.

All told, the lovely but tedious collage work of 1948 isn’t crucial to hear.

Colin Stetson is matchless, his record glorious, and you’ll likely never experience silence as dramatically as the moment when All This I do for Glory concludes.

Humanz is good, because Gorillaz are good, and it distinguishes itself by probably being the band’s most party-orientated record, which is great. But ultimately it feel like Gorillaz are now more curators than provocateurs, locked into a classy, comfortable groove.

It’s not what you might have expected or even--on one or two initial listens--have been hoping for from Kendrick Lamar. But this is an artist in his absolute prime: artistically, lyrically and musically.