The Sun's Tirade is a good hip-hop album, especially for a chill summer's day.

Stage Four is quite possibly Touché Amoré’s best album yet. They have once again one–upped themselves into crafting a fierce record which would do all their families proud.

Despite a noble resume, no other album comes closer to capturing the true essence of their onstage presence.

Distinctive in style and sound, particularly Hecksher's drawling vocal and JC Rees expedient guitar surges, it's a record that pulls no punches in execution or delivery while conveying some of the most heartfelt lyrics Hecksher has ever penned.

Kokoro is a small but significant treasure that is full of compassion, and the so-called ‘selfie’ generation would do well to pay heed to it.

The improvement in sound quality on the re-release is remarkable; the songs, incredibly, sound even meatier and more imposing now. ... The nine 'new' songs, which comprise disc three, do feel a bit like fan service for those who were upset 19 years ago at the absence of the ‘Sunshine Woman’ sessions.

Whatever one makes of the songs presented here, at least we should all be able to agree that another addition to Cave’s legendary, beyond comparison catalogue is in itself enough of a reason to feel very satisfied.

There are only fleeting glimpses of brilliance on a long-player littered with ideas that never seemed to get past the kernel stage.

Here, Laura Jane Grace is emerging from her shell, grasping her icon status with both hands and speaking up for what she sees as a largely invisible, voiceless group of underdogs. And it doesn't get much more punk rock than that.

The tracks' durations are, to these ears, not wisely distributed and this is possibly the album's biggest drawback.

The band transcend their obvious influences: the recording is far heavier and denser than anything they're referencing, the songs more abstract and feral, the vocals surging with an unknowable American passion that sets them apart from their Brit influence.

The songs are little self-contained vignettes about various characters and their journeys, resembling campfire or drinking songs. Some are really bland and instantly forgettable, others--really poetic and imaginative.

For all the globe-trotting that went into the album, this is a band that--perhaps more than any other at the moment--innately sound like and capture their Californian home in all its beautiful complexity.

The problem with clipping. is that they sometimes seem to have an unusual idea of what makes good hip-hop. Sometimes it feels like the purely hip-hop side-project of a dodgy rap-metal group circa 2003.

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

It’s probably not the album in the band’s considerable catalogue that’s going to convert the unconvinced--it’s a bit too uneven to be considered for that position--but, for the first time in a while, Thee Oh Sees have their eyes fixed firmly on new ground.

It may eschew the rough edges of their earlier records, and adhere to the templates the Fannies have used since Songs, but when you’ve got the formula just right, and have the songwriting chops of three of the finest melodic songwriters these isles have to offer, then the result cannot be anything less than sheer joy in the here and now.

There is an effortless vibe to Astronaut Meets Appleman can only be gained from a career doing your own thing and not caring about chat places and record advances. Anderson appears to be happy in his skin and has crafted nine songs that reference his past, but also hint to his future.

[Nels Cline's] noodling is nice and all, but it’s akin to casting Jason Statham in an ITV period drama. Worse still is the treatment of Mike Jorgensen, who has such an instantly recognisable sound on the keyboard; I genuinely don’t know if he is even on this record. Some nice fluttery percussion on ‘Quarters’ aside, the brilliant Glenn Kotche barely is.

With Ultra, Zomby might have finally removed any remaining warmth from his sound: the album is cold to the point of inaccessibility.

Going, Going..., the group's ninth record, is full of bizarre twists and turns that make it unlike any album they have released to date.

Olsen’s most ambitious album yet. Taking a more polished--though not straight-up glossy--approach, Olsen sounds more vulnerable for having made her vocals more central to the mix.

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.

Uninterested in zipping from A to B, it is instead a moving, repeatedly devastating depiction of an artist who is still trying to figure out his place in the world as he moves forward in life, ever mindful of what we leave behind, the things said and left unspoken, the good and the bad that comes with trying to make it all make sense and the sobering knowledge that we cannot go back.

The Divine Comedy are, 26 years on from their debut and six on from Bang Goes the Knighthood, making a kind of pop music a million miles away from anyone more likely to touch the singles charts (assuming those are still a thing). It’s good to have them back.

Trick is comfortably Jamie T’s best album so far, showing off every element he can and touching many bases without ever feeling like the contrast is jarring.

False Readings On is a calmer, more pensive, and more inward-looking affair than Cooper’s recent Inventions releases.

On Glory it is something to celebrate; the sound of a Britney Spears much more confident and comfortable in herself than she has seemed in years.

Ultimately it’s a response to sugary summer pop songs that won’t keep you warm then the sun goes down.

Skits and the odd miss accepted, and the Anonymous Nobody… is a grand achievement. Regardless of whether their next project requires outsourced funding or not, De La Soul fans worldwide will just be happy if the group can keep up these standards while never forgoing their wayfaring creativity.

his is The Veils as you would expect to find them, untroubled too much by changes to their formula. And that’s just the way that most of their loyal fans would probably want it.

An hour of music which can be moving, transcendent, invigorating and relaxing all in a matter of minutes.

Since her emergence as a solo artist, Hannigan has been drawn to all things nautical. On her third full length, she continues that fascination, treading new water and exploring new routes on many of the tracks, but still ultimately in search of new shores.

It is an impressive work but sans context, it largely will pass a casual listener by as merely a moody and atmospheric soundtrack without much for them to sink their teeth into.

It is not his finest album, or the one that will win him the most new fans--unlike Colours of the Night--but for anyone with a love of modern classical and a taste for the expressive flavours of the piano it is a very worthwhile listen.

It’s an astounding record from a trio still at the most embryonic of stages. We’ll go on record and get this out there now--it has the potential to be a world-beating album.

There’s a sense of being 'finished' after every single track, and it often feels like you’d get the same experience but quicker listening to any single track individually instead of the album as a whole.

While the revved motors and displaced robot pop satisfy your expectations, you find the virus progressing too quickly for you to evaluate its efficiency. A blue bar at the bottom tracks the virus’s progress to completion; you’re quite alarmed to see this already halfway full, as if someone twisted the fabrics of time in your ears.

Slow Club wear the album’s mood well, and its consistent feel gives the whole record a lovely cohesion, but there are some drawbacks to the approach.

No alarms and no real surprises, yet the execution carries Crystal Castles 2.0 through.

65daysofstatic have captured the sound of space as one of excitement and exhilaration: whether you experience it in isolation or as part of the game it is certainly one worth listening to.

It’s possible it just too hard to produce a record of straight classic songwriting in an era that has heard it all, but Blind Pilot make a good stab at it.

Overall, Encore is a worthwhile listen. It obviously suffers from many of the problems that dance music albums generally suffer from but it does well to show off Snake's ear for hooks just as well as his ear for drops.

While 25 25 is an uneasy listen at first, it's worth the perseverance even when giving up seems like the only plausible option.

When he steps away from alt-country-rock (or whatever you want to call Jeff Tweedy et al) Cline tends to veer towards a more experimental jazz sound and this is where Lovers really surprises.

The fact is that Boys Forever rarely changes pace. Small musical variations in tempo or atmosphere such as on ‘Things’ and ‘I Don’t Remember Your Name’ become ultra significant breaks from the Boys Forever norm and I would have liked to have heard a few more of them. However, the shimmery diamondness of the album still remains.

Rattle’s greatest accomplishment isn’t to just write music for drums, but to write songs that capture AND transcend this modern era we live in.

The all-over-the-place sounds don’t remotely go together, and not even in a good way.

With S+@dium Rock, Titus Andronicus have managed to create a live record that says everything and nothing at the same time.

West, when left alone to his devices, is able to transform emotion into the esoteric, colluding synthesis into vibrant, organic swaths of sound. Rhythmically taking jabs like hesitation marks, throwing caution to the wind.

As an album, it's divided into eight tracks but there's no sense of division whilst listening to it, it's one of the most seamless pieces of music I've come across all year.

Guidance is a masterpiece in the art of emotional communication through musicianship, an album which ultimately, despite its darkness, serves to inspire and uplift--a true reflection of the human experience.

To be frank, it’s pretty much business as usual for Dinosaur Jr on Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not, but when the formula works this well, what’s the point in switching it up? Love live the fuzz.

From the start, fifth album Mono No Aware strikes a different tone--one that personally gets me right in my soft spot.

Some will accuse them of cynicism, and they may be right, but there is enough intriguing material which is unarguably theirs here which keeps this an inventive and enjoyable pop-rock record.

Throughout the album DM Stith acts a man far off into the galaxy, oscillating between space and sound, and without much vocalizing, extends a gracious hand to the listener as well.

[A] charming if slight collection, still worthy of your time, and not just to hear the aching, unfulfilled potential.

Arnalds says he spent months agonising over this mix, and the effort shows. This latest addition to the Late Night Tales catalogue isn’t just a seamless journey into his music collection--by the end, you definitely feel like you can relate to him too.

Although there is nothing world-beating here, Kinsella has been quietly plugging away at this project for over a decade now, and as he approaches middle-age, may well have struck a formula that propels his Owen project into the stratosphere of other highly regarded midwest-American contemporaries Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens or Tallest Man on Earth.

It’s melodically strong enough, and bursting with so many ideas that it feels incredibly timeless: futuristic and classic all at once.

A record that's provided Bear's Den a new lease of life, allowing them to build on the solid foundations laid as a trio and create something that not only feels like a natural progression, but is also staggeringly pretty in the process.

There is plenty of decent stuff going on in the duo's third record, but it still never really takes off into any rarified territory.

Vanilla is an intriguing and often fun record that not only rewards repeat listening, but almost demands it.

Comprising of a sound that, though perfectly pretty, has already been done, and words that have already been said, Theyesandeye doesn’t really bring anything new to music.

Whether this collection of 12 new versions, five of which have been heard before, works as a coherent album is open to debate. There can be no denying, however, that all of them honour the vision of The Race for Space in its original form.

For a record that is largely improvised, it is stunning that such a cohesive piece can be put together and it will be fascinating to see what other tricks this trio has up their sleeve.

Jherek Bischoff does not mess around. It’s amazing to see an artist make such pure, uncompromising music.

All in all, You Got Me Singing is wonderfully curated and beautifully executed, with just the right amount of imprecision in the pretty-much simultaneity of when the two sing together.

DJ-Kicks is essentially a peak-time mix of house and techno that would be devastating if played at any club, standing still and not cracking a smile would be basically impossible. The mix is mostly made up of tracks and not songs and as such really works best on a speaker system than headphones.

Post Plague provides the perfect soundtrack to an incendiary apocalypse only its creators could foresee. On this evidence, the invitation to join them is seductively tempting.

Five years on, BBNG stand poised to write jazz standards for the next generation. In some circles, you’d call that progress. But for folks that turned to BBNG as infiltrators, rebels, the razor edge of the new--in those circles, you’d call that a sell-out.

Monto occasionally overwhelms as its leading light pivots. Patience is rather vital as the album expands and Murphy continues to contemplate. There’s no padding here, but like any good trip into an intriguing mind you may emerge from the swell a touch dizzy.

Ellipsis isn’t a career-defining album. ... This is a worthy addition to their catalogue and a couple of songs are their in years. For a band on album seven, that’s still an achievement.

The emotional universality of the debut has certainly carried through to Blisters in the Pit of My Heart.

This is something of a missed opportunity.

Practically every moment of Hit Reset feels as important as it is brilliant. With the possible exception of 'Time Is Up' (a perfectly good song, just not up to the standard of the rest of the album), it feels damn near flawless.

What the record lacks in the main part is a sense of urgency and excitement. Too often the songs wash over you, making no serious appeal for your heart or mind.

Far from being frozen in time, Wildflower shows a willingness to move forward with a sense of personal history, but unhindered by obligations to it.

And yet for all this effort the album itself is at times curiously empty, both overblown and underwhelming, with loads of smoke but not much atmosphere.

The two sides of the group, both new and old, combine gloriously in Summer, creating a pure pop climax some of the supposed greats of the genre would be proud of.

California sounds like the work of a band filled with the joy of existence, giving in to every pop indulgence or production trick that could stuff in one more hook before the end.

Liquid Cool is at its best and most interesting, though, when Gonzalez’s sound plays with the way our brains and human interactions have been rewired in the modern age, raising the bar by creating impactful moments via osmosis.

The instrumental skill that Deerhoof loyalists have come to love abounds, and front and centre is a resounding, absurdist joy.

The Gotobeds are as incendiary (and/or combustible) as ever.

No Grace is raw, quick and dirty, just as rock 'n roll was always intended. Glorious stuff.

case/lang/veirs is a record full of compelling, tender, starry energy.

An extremely compelling, beautifully articulated, bonafide masterpiece.

If only the album had been made up of songs where they’d allowed the songs to be low key and interesting, it could’ve been really good.

Musically Weaves is a hodgepodge. It opens with surf-pop synths that later give way to meaty, big and bouncy bass lines and bright colours shooting from guitar lines that slip and slide all over the place.

Bugg has always had one foot in the past and that’s fine, but On My One might as well be an official challenge to The Strypes in the ‘parents record collection’ department--though a mercifully more bearable one.

It's not an album that will be remembered for its songs, but it's coherent enough as a whole to make up for that. In 2016, it's refreshing to indulge in a collection of songs that work best when they're heard all together.

The lines referenced in the album’s title are not the kind to restrict or limit. They’re the kind to follow. The lines of an open road, rich with possibilities and rife with unanswered questions. Though whether the road is in this reality or another, remains to be seen.

A darkly glistening, deeply attractive and unexpectedly intelligent use of the album as storytelling device.

It’s not they’ve gone back on themselves or regressed; it’s just that Band of Horses have naturally, and happily, managed to wind their way back home.

Just seven tracks seems an odd length for an album, especially when they are chunky (all between four minutes 40 and seven minutes, most around five-and-a-half-minutes) rather than substantial. Ultimately, it is hard to shake the feeling that My Best Human Face should have given a lot more.

Yung's debut is unflinchingly bold and as confident as you'll find. The verve and brashness on display on A Youthful Dream is counterweighted by maturity and tenderness, making this an album to drink, dance, fight, forget and remember to all at once.

Bands normally falter in their attempts to create an album full of 'hits' instead of remaining true to whatever their mission statement is or artistic roots are, but this is clearly the field where PB&J excel--creating bittersweet musical moments that we will be compelled to revisit again and again.

Compared to the way more dynamic Quarter Over a Living Line, some of the tracks on this album have a maddening potential to them (the sequence Glassed/Cold Cain is my personal stress peak), which comes from such an extended use of repetition. At the same time, tracks like ‘Front Running’ and ‘Stummer', manage to sound uplifting, almost motivational in their stubborn pursuit of monotony.