Kveikur is as melodic and, in places, as fragile as anything the band have released before.

Representing UK production at its best, SBTRKT's self-titled album is playful yet gritty.

His work until now can only be seen as preparing the ground for this body of work, an album so satisfying, accomplished and beautiful.

It’s more immediate, more instantly gratifying and more technically proficient, but there are also dark, difficult corners which hint at hidden terror.

These songs are timeless. These songs are addictive. These songs are great. Why can't every album be like this?

Mumps, etc. simultaneously feels like a fresh start and consolidation for the band; it encapsulates what makes them so unique while subtly expanding and pushing forward their sound, and as such must be viewed a real triumph.

This record is a testament to its creators’ endurance. It has also resulted in an absolute creative peak.

Like its predecessor, Now Only lays profoundly bare Elverum’s grief. But although it is often an excruciating listen, it also finds room to step, however briefly, outside of the agony that marked its predecessor, if just for long enough to suggest that Elverum is, somehow, beginning to find some relief in the unbearable.

It is arresting, but not desperate for your attention like an invalid. Coming down or getting up, Coracle will do the trick.

Prisoner isn’t a heartbreak record--it’s potentially the heartbreak record, for my generation at least. Turns out sadness really is quite the currency.

Not since Mansun's "Six" have I heard an album twist its songs into a musical Lombard Street--and I can already picture the audience screaming its approval in the break--before a wall of static and synthesizers takes us home. And home is a little nicer place to be after taking a ride on Spirit If...

The whole thing is put together with such love that nothing ever feels like a burden, nor an obligation. First and foremost, this is an LP which can be enjoyed by anyone. You don’t need to know the album’s backstory to be swayed by its charm.

Album two may see an outline of refinement established, but for now their doldrums meanderings are more exhilarating than many acts’ most-accomplished must-haves, making this a two-from-two contender for a top-ten year-end finish.

Plumb is a good bet for the end of year polls already.

This is a modern masterpiece, it's as simple as that.

Divorced from the accompanying visuals, the exercise proves less engaging overall. In context, however, it is legitimately hypnotic and soothing, as if Bob Ross was reincarnated with woodwork on the brain.

This emotive disc balances a hushed intimacy and vast expanse that places it in a unique sonic terrain.

Achtung Baby is worth the admission fee alone and ultimately a must-have addition to anyone's music collection.

Brutalism has lost none of its bite and stands peerless as a staggering album of unmatched sincerity and self-assuredness.

Sour Soul is sublime. Rather than standing around starstruck, BBNG have more than proven their worth as Ghostface’s backing band.

Breathtaking[ly] experimental.

Piramida is undoubtedly the band's most immediate work to date and it might be strange to be writing it, but nearly each and every track would work standing on its own.

Wracked with doubt, contradiction and existential despair, Mama, I’m Swollen strikes out as a weighty, superbly realised endeavour which, for all its oppressive nature, is as eminently listenable and brave an album as any the band have produced.

It's the interpretation of a human voice that elevates this record beyond a curious obscurist record and makes the simmering (but never boiling over) electronica truly shimmer.

The result is an often crushingly heavy masterpiece that has true meaning with or without the music. It’s a rare thing these days but Porcupine Tree seem able to do it time and again. This album is no exception.

I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone is pretty in its sonic gloominess and witty in the way that it wears its anxieties on its sleeve, but what makes it special is the way that all of that is grounded by the sturdiest of anchors--the quiet optimism that friendship inspires.

The resulting work, and meeting of two minds who admire and compliment each others creativity, is something of rare, imaginative depth.

It's a record which brilliantly lives up to and even exceeds all the hype, mystique and hyperbole that has surrounding it since it's inception, and it's essential for anyone with even a fleeting interest in rap music.