Despite the dualistic structure of Angels & Devils, the album’s two halves are never in opposition to one another; its vocalists all equally damned, equally resilient to their fate.

While Last Night might seem dressed to impress, Benin City hold a mirror to London’s nightlife that condemns and empathises in equal turns. And, even more than Fires, Idehen and the gang weave a mesmerising web, one you could either sit and admire at home or bounce up and down on the dancefloor.

Not only does The Plot Against Common Sense reach and exceed those expectations, it only goes blows them out of the water. Into the sky. To the moon. And beyond... This is everything a Future of the Left album should be.

It’s all over the place, yet perfectly fresh and maligned.

You Are All I See is all about the shimmer, as if rather than playing with cutting edge tech Grossi's touch is so deft, and the sound so seemingly in tune with the natural world, he somehow is able to play with light.

This is a wonderful, intoxicatingly special album that deserves to be cherished, and played and played.

Perhaps the great achievement is that, in delivering an album that invites close scrutiny, These New Puritans create an aural haven from the very lifestyle Field of Reeds challenges.

Over these ten songs Lenker continues to carve out the little slices of magic that at this stage we now fully expect from her.

This is the next record you have to buy. Absolutely. Unequivocally.

The album is brought to a close by the title track, a summary of sorts about what's gone on before that erupts in a monumental instrumental breakdown for its final two minutes as Big Box Of Chocolates closes its lid one last time. As kitchen sink dramas go, this is the perfect soundtrack.

Listened to as a journey from beginning to end, this is a genuine attempt to progress to pastures new after With Teeth.

If this truly is the end, Sauna Youth should be more than proud of the work they've created. It is an oeuvre many would be lucky to have, and this album detailing the struggles of balancing your art with every day working life is at once frustrating but relatable and rewarding.

The Chills’ most compelling album yet.

There really isn’t anything wrong with this album. It’s just the most amazing sugar rush you’re going to have this year, and is what, at this point in time, sounds strongly like the best debut album by a British indie band since Tigermilk.

It is a stunning and ambitious piece of work; one for the ages.

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.

At a time when many electronic albums sound more like mixed sets than collections of songs, this expansive double album is all the more impressive, with its 33 abruptly separated songs holding the listener captive within Zomby’s edgy world for well over an hour.... It’s unnervingly beautiful.

It’s one for the wider music aficionado too though, a fine opportunity to appreciate the best band of the past 20 years.

The unashamed enthusiasm and fun in 'Elephunk' makes BEP the true heirs to the legendary De La Soul.

Wired with a sense of opportunity, these little Caesars continue to play mother's favourite rather than the ostracised gurning recluses they initially cast themselves as.

Will Bevan's done the unthinkable in managing to both appease and pull the rug out from under his fans.

It’s how Interpol would sound like if they dealt with universal themes and reflection rather than singing about fellatio fantasies with Stella, or their length of loves.

They turn critics into gibbering wrecks unable to write proper reviews and leave us forced to just string together our favourite lyrics like a damn teenage girl scribbles Tokio Hotel choruses onto her bed headboard. But, y’know. Hairier.

In four minutes of this record there are two tracks that together have more melodies, more moments of joy, than most bands will manage this year.

Wonderfully accomplished in construction, devastatingly powerful in delivery, Echo Lake have just raised the bar one notch higher for everyone around them.

He has followed up the exceptional Sleep with yet another dazzling work that is “full of echoes, of memories, of associations” that celebrate and reflect this towering writer.

What’s really on display here is a well honed, experienced band flexing their muscles and creating tightly controlled, good old fashioned rock ‘n’ roll music (of a rather cerebral variety) on their own terms, free from the weighty plague of fashion.

Over twenty years later their music continues to connect.

A debut album containing no filler whatsoever, and a record that mirrors the ferocious intensity of those live shows to boot.

Here she’s hacked away the art school whimsy, tossed out the crystals and burned the floaty headscarfs, focussing her talents into ten razor sharp songs, some subtle, some vicious.

Defeatist it may be, but such genius is very rarely recognised in a band’s lifetime. So be it – because there genuinely is no verbal persuasion that could exceed a single listen to America’s most underrated.

Think of Sensuous as like walking round a modern art museum: sometimes difficult to fathom, always a perverse thrill.

Executed with serious flair, it manages the rare feat of being both mentally stimulating and musically satisfying. It is, in every regard, one of the most daring albums you’ll hear this year.

This was written to be listened to, and to be lived. Don’t dream this away.

Inevitably, critics will place Devils & Dust in a trio with Springsteen's other quiet albums Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad, but be aware that there’s significantly more production polish on Devils & Dust, as well as a wider palette of moods.

From the twin guitar salvos of Mark Goldsworthy and Liam Matthews through to Tom Kelly and Henry Ruddell's flawless rhythm section crowned by Mitchell's voice of reason, they're an unshakable and on this, their long-awaited first LP, an unstoppable force.

This is widescreen alt-rock with an appropriately mammoth production, where euphoric choruses and crushing verses don't just sit alongside each other but ebb and flow to become inextricable entities.

Such is the emotive power of ‘Sea of Blood’, it would be easy for the rest of the LP to be overshadowed by it, but it’s to the credit of Tall Ships and Impressions that this is never a factor.

This isn’t merely a remarkable return: it’s one most one of the most assured--and assuredly rewarding--albums of the year thus far.

Fin as an album appears to be the requisite cross-over hit of the year, following in the footsteps of Caribou's Swim and Pantha Du Prince's Black Noise.

'Stellastarr*' is a rare beast; one that takes from its peers and gives back something fresh, imaginative and breathlessly great.

Each song on Adult is smashed into, torn apart and then scattered like feathers from a pillow. And there is nothing, nothing, better than hearing guitars being pummelled on a double down-stroke as a bass line tries frantically to keep up on sixteenths.

22, A Million is a triumph even before ‘666 ʇ’ and the Springsteen-dashed ‘8 (circle)’ cast their own entrancement. The beauty of it is that this is a puzzle, one that will initially confuse and ultimately resonate in a way that feels deeply organic.

Grant might just be taking the piss here, but his impish spirit reflects a writer with his fingers on the pulse of what’s really magic in this era: an understanding of humanity and all its feathery mess.

Augustines is a record that was born to run, taking hearts along with it as it goes, and is, to these ears, one of the great rock records of recent years.

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.

Some of the radio-friendly oompa of ‘The Last Broadcast’ has been cut back, and the new record bears more resemblance to their debut ‘Lost Souls’ in its ashen-faced detachment and bloodied-yet-unbowed pride.

Whether these 15 tracks have helped him lay some demons to rest is impossible to say, what’s beyond all doubt however, is that I’m New Here is a seriously good record.

His music really is art for the ears, with hues, colours, textures and aural brush strokes dripping with vibrancy and imagination.

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.

Skull-crushingly heavy, but not without a heart, 'The Woods' is definitely Sleater-Kinney’s finest (and loudest) hour to date.

'America's Sweetheart' is still more 'Celebrity Skin' than anything.

The band's fourth and best album to date, there is no denying his prowess as a Nick Cave for a new generation, even if, ironically, Casey is closer to Cave's than the rest of his band or most of his audience.

Tron: Legacy is a remarkable reminder of how electronic music can equal the emotional nuance and resonance of any ballad, torch song or symphonic pop track.

While they still don’t do hits, no-one does brooding, slow-burn magnificence quite like Murphy. He builds everything from the ground up, solid foundations augmented by neat details and flourishes. More than ever, American Dream demonstrates how rhythm is central to LCD Soundsystem.

This is CocoRosie's best long-player yet, and a sure contender for album of the year.

A.M. buzzes and drones, floats and wafts. It’s cloudy skies and open roads. It’s hypnotic and swirly, it’s warm and cosy. It’s static eyeballs and minimal movement. It’s spellbindingly gorgeous.

For all their weirdo mangled machine noise, it feels like they’ve reached a beautiful plateau--a perfect crossroads between all their disparate elements, finely tuned and full of vigour.

One of the most vivid, involving, troubling albums about the trials of love in recent memory.

Interpol have produced a soaring, inventive album that, while incorporating the deliciously dark atmosphere of ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’, merely uses it as a base to create more ambitious, warmer soundscapes.

It feels effortless. Even after repeated listening it somehow grows on you.

Overall, this is an excellent return from an always consistent band who's legacy has grown and grown over the years since their depature in 2011.

What makes Broken Bells such a compelling body of work is undeniably the result of the broad range of sounds that fill its palette. Although there are instances whereby each of the two conspirators come to the forefront, at no point does this sound like a Shins record with beats or a hip hop record with guitars.

This album is simply wondrous.

Nils Frahm is clearly a prestigious talent and this is a remarkable tumble through the sounds and shapes of his imagination.

It is the subtle orchestral aspect to the record that stands out, with the same washed arrangements that Grizzly Bear and close cohorts Clogs manage to incorporate so casually.

Bold in intention and quiet in confidence, they've gone back to basics here and for the most part, the results are sublime.

Flying Lotus has added a new realm to his universe, answering one of life's biggest questions in the process.

At times they near the hybrid jazz of The Mars Volta or even the plentiful jam bands that can be found on the boulevards of certain Eastern European shores, but Tortoise's effortless ingenuity and Prince Billy's sensuous and aged voice raise it to a much higher plane.

Bypassing traditional melodies and obvious aesthetics, Mystery Jets have arrived at an unusually original pop album of the most exuberant order.

Come Down With Me has solidified the band as their own entity; it has forged all of the disparate pieces of the past into something evergreen. There is no inclination to pander to any preconceptions of yore and this has now, undoubtedly, made Errors the force they always threatened to be.

Talkie Walkie is a startling and beautiful record, as curious and timeless as Moon Safari and as intelligent and listenable as any of the year’s best records.

An album that is both abundant in depth and variety, as well as in terrifying walls of noise and gaping chasms of silence.

A tight bind of rhythm and noise, of chugging menace and sudden spikes.

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

It’s incredibly satisfying to hear a band reform and sound completely reinvigorated--every second sounds like it’s been pored over for hours, and Erol Alkan’s encouraging production sits perfectly within the music, never intrusive or stifling.

It doesn't cut the deepest on first impressions, but those undulating tones of utter desolation seep beyond skin deep with every fresh listen.

This is Willner's finest record yet, a composition of effortlessly gorgeous, technically fantastic, genuinely awe-inspiring music.

The playing is astounding throughout, with Barnes and Trost turning a dizzying assemblage of strange instruments into a strikingly cohesive whole.

His talents seemingly know no bounds, and A Healthy Distrust is as close as he’s come to fully realising such a dominating on-stage character on a recorded format.

Sounding somehow perfectly modern yet refreshingly and celebratory retro, The Life Pursuit is Belle And Sebastian at their freest, delightfully spilling over with great ideas and perfect pop know-how.

Asunder, Sweet is Godspeed at their most conciliatory, most bloody-minded and most untouchable.

It's here and it's almost perfect.

Less a concert than a monument to a life, a jubilant-sad, bittersweet way to mark the beginning of this old man’s final act, a taking stock, an affirmation that this all mattered. Springsteen on Broadway is a show about a man who dreamed of escape who never escaped.

It fits and works together perfectly despite the fact that the songs showcase the development of a thirteen-year career.

Why Love Now is the first in a potentially endless stream of politically charged punk rock records this year. However, it’s extremely hard to see any of them trumping this glorious, if uncomfortable, masterpiece.

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.

Grid of Points is the sound of what’s left after the winds have subsided. It’s astonishingly beautiful and astonishingly, painfully real.

Fantastic confections of noise and thunder.

Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, can simultaneously be one of the most delicate, affecting albums of the year, and, yet, at the same time have such a strange, menacing name.

Kings and Queens is a resounding success. Okay, maybe it's a tried and true formula that Jamie T and Ben Bones have created, but their textured, layered songs each have something new to offer upon every listen, and they've mastered the art to near perfection.

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

Even peering through the gauze of the back-story, Cat Power's ninth album is a feat of musical and emotional maturity.

There's not yet a band that can evoke the intangible nostalgia that the Radio Dept. do, but at least with this release we can be assured we don't need there to be.

GLAQJO XAACSSO is a work befitting of inevitable acclaim, as it is a debut as riveting and obvious as it is shrouded in unanswerable questions.

A brilliant album certainly not lacking in other highlights.

Whether Dear Science stands the test of time like classic records must is impossible to predict right now, but, at this moment in time, it's sounding like one of the albums of the year, and its makers' latest, greatest masterpiece.

Patience is an album made by a band reaching the pinnacle of its powers. Their ability to merge indie, soul, electronica, gospel and give it a sheer pop sets them apart from their peers.