In other words, it’s exactly what a Pavement retrospective should be - a heavily slanted, palpably enchanted slab of richly flawed anarcho-pop.

Bitte Orca isn't a record that'll reduce many to tears, except perhaps of awe. But when something's so astonishing in every other respect, we can allow for that.

Devotion contains just enough variety to make for an enticing listen.

When the band truly comes together, there's a lightness of touch and a winning intimacy.

Overall, Journal For Plague Lovers is a strident comeback that would have been a worthy direct successor to "The Holy Bible" had circumstances been different.

There are moments of ‘saneness and plainness’ on the album, but these are only short, giddy moments. The great bulk of material on it plays under the assertion that one conclusion, or one reading of a situation is impossible. Great works contain multitudes, and that is exactly what you’ll get here.

On the first spin this is a set of highly listenable light pop tunes. However, this is by no means insubstantial and some real gems begin to reveal themselves.

In spite of all of this [still packed with his slow tempos, slurred sadness, and dour imagery], Grass, Branch and Bone stands as one of the easiest to inhabit of all of Joyner’s albums. Happily, it’s also as rewarding to explore as anything he’s done.

All Things Under Heaven is on another level.

Truth be told the record is hard to quantify - it's so dense and layered that attempting to describe why it works just makes it seem contrived, while it's success should measured by the fact that it sounds anything but.

It’s got something for everyone, providing everyone is at least a little fucked in the head.

It's an absolute must-buy release.

He filters these gifts of poetry and keen observation through his bruised, romantic outlook, into a fully-formed album that sounds as if it was always in there, waiting to see the light of day. Or the darkness.

Celebration Day is a fitting title: it's an enchanting tribute to the eternal power of rock, no matter the age of the music or the performers themselves.

Despite the running time, it should be noted that Pure Comedy moves at a clip; only ‘The Memo’ and its cold boardroom-speak textures belabour the narrative a little too much on a record that’s all about stretching out an exact, unwavering thread.

It’s a vivid and beautiful painting that you can walk into; a magic window into another world that I'd be happy to get lost in, and never come back.

There really is very little out there like this, and Demdike is a very acquired taste. If you've got the stomach for it then Elemental is their banquet - 18 nightmares you'll want to revisit.

Far from being just a gifted synthesiser experimenter, then, Sarah Davachi is increasingly establishing herself as a multi-faceted explorer of the many liminal terrains of minimalist music. Gave in Rest is a work of disarmingly simple, yet often extremely profound, beauty.

Anyone who owns the 1992 Sub Pop compilation The Way of the Vaselines might be thinking there's nothing for them here, but beyond the re-mastering adding significant depth to Dum Dum (the difference it's made to the EPs is negligible to my admittedly rather damaged ears) there's also a second disc of previously unreleased material.

These 17 vignettes glow with Cold War paranoia, picking up where Threads, the most scarring piece of TV ever made, left off. It might also be the duo’s most accomplished album yet--and that’s coming from someone unable to remove the Hi Scores LP from his stereo.

Much like Actor, it's the contrast of tendernesses in both the red-raw and Elvis senses of the word, that marks St. Vincent's music out as something more sophisticated and enthralling than it might first appear.

His third studio album, Astroworld, feels like the grand opening of a vision that took a half-decade to perfect, still using the same psychedelic synth warps, diamond-cut drums, and reptilian hooks that initially skyrocketed him to stardom.

Far from being disappointing, then, New Bermuda is comfortably good enough to blow even Deafheaven’s sceptics away.

If the results are as finely crafted as The Harrow & The Harvest, she can take as long as she likes with the next one.

Chorus serves to highlight what a vital band Lush were. Understated and underrated yet undeniably consistent throughout their tenure. And with new material set to surface next spring, their story hasn't reached its conclusion yet.

Live at the BBC is obviously preposterously big (I'm kind of relieved not to have been sent the accompanying DVD), but actually that’s kind of fine in the digital era – it’s not that old fashioned beast ‘the live album’, but a whole sprawling history to immerse yourself in, eras hurtling by.

An easy grandeur is present throughout, as is a sense they are following an increasingly individual, carefully textured path. It is a wild, vivid romance that The National make their own, and on High Violet it sounds just as striking, just as wild, just as vivid as ever.

A surprisingly excellent singles band.