Beyond genre lines, racial lines, sexuality lines, any lines you can think of, it's that all-too-rare gem: a universal story you'll come back to long after the hype's been and gone.

Bluntly, if you consider yourself in any way interested in rock music and don't already own this album, you're doing yourself a rather large disservice.

It’s a flawed album that’s at times unbelievable, at times unbelievably bad but for those interested in investigating the moment Elton John became the legend he sought to be this is a thorough and generous offering.

She is intensely self-aware and, accordingly, is able to take all the inelegancies of youth--the stumbles out of nightclub doors, the clothes strewn across the bedroom floor, how apocalyptic that first heartbreak feels--and turn them into something exquisite.

If you can name me just one rapper that made a more complete record in 2003 than either of these two Southern boys' efforts, I’ll call you a liar.

Perhaps one of the greatest, and certainly most underappreciated, post-hardcore rock groups of all time.

This is a faithful and staggering tribute to a state executed with passion and originality, and it's one of the finest records you'll hear this year.

A collection of songs as captivating, poignant and finally, ultimately, redemptive as any that Stevens has produced.

Sleater-Kinney are one of the great rock bands and No Cities To Love is the perfect comeback: a treat for die-hard fans as well, a perfect introduction for newcomers--and what a journey that’ll be.

Encompassing chamber pop melodies, angular art-rock, lavish orchestration and post-punk vocals, its sheer sonic size and ambition goes some way towards justifying the amount of gushing praise that's been heaped upon this album since its September release on Merge last year. The fact that the music is so paradoxically life-affirming and euphoric makes it much easier to write, what now feel like, trite hyperboles.

The cumulative effect--somewhere around being lifted into the heavens by sunrays--is at odds with the continuous black clouds that come before. Yet it’s a necessary chink of light to conclude a journey so oppressive you may just forget to breathe through its duration.

The 'odds and ends' packaged at the end of disc one feel like Jay Farrar’s discarded solo off-cuts, although disc two’s collection of demos is an intriguing listen; the ten tracks from the Not Forever, Just For Now tapes being what persuaded Rockville (then Giant) to sign them in the first place.

Whatever the plan was, Both Directions at Once isn’t just a treat for the hardcore, either in terms of Coltrane or jazz more broadly.

It’s a crisp, clear makeover that gives the record a greater definition and focus without piling on the polish, tightening it but toughening it too.

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.

What gives this album more depth is the focus, the rolling symmetry and cinema.

With Spaces he goes one further--successfully channelling the chills of an actual performance, and making a genuine connection with his listener even in recorded form.

The songs from St. Vincent that you’ll return to umpteen times are front-loaded into its first 23 minutes.

An unerring sense of conflict courses through The Dusk In Us, and while that might sound like business as usual for a Converge record, it’s a testament to Bannon and his cohorts that they remain so compelling nine albums in.

RTJ2 is replete with razor-sharp lyricism and clattering, abrasive production.

Honey is a fine record, a consistent record and a thoroughly enjoyable record. But it is not a great record, and in comparison with the standard she has set for herself previously, this is a mild (though fleeting) disappointment. That said, there is still a clear and beating heart here and the sheer humanity of Robyn’s musical soul remains one of the most beautiful things in contemporary music.

The first thing to say is that the remastering is pretty good: it's in no way a record that needed remastering, but it's definitely one that suits being remastered.

Form and function crystallize together here, and man does it feel so right.

Nearly half the length of his debut, Big Fish Theory is tightly-wound and laser-focused, yet covers a huge amount of ground, simultaneously showcasing Staples at the most pumped-up and most fragile we’ve yet seen him. His word play is spectacular even when his flow isn’t at its most natural.

Chris is an album delivered for a wider audience, but still with a subversive and unique texture and emotion that loses nothing of the vacillating energy of the subculture whilst making a confident play for the biggest stages.

The 19 songs form a 39-minute-long cohesive whole which looses its meaning once shuffled or reorganised. What could come across as a mash-up of jam sessions slowly reveals its internal coherence.

Is Merriweather Post Pavilion the flawless album that it's been willed to be? Taken as a whole I'd say it's pretty damn close.

The Mindsweep is Enter Shikari at their most inspirational and consistent and as a result, their best record yet.