Better Living remains a repetitive, tonally monotonous album. But its a repetitiousness which works to further evoke a life of spirit-crushing routine, while reinforcing the idea of a permanent headache.

Lonely At The Top has ample points to recommend it: its breadth of scope tempered by its unity of feel; the finesse of its construction paired with Blair's ear for bold sonic combinations. And yet it's curiously difficult to love.

An uncharacteristically difficult end to a record that’s not quite a paradigm smasher, but a must-hear for anyone who likes their hip-hop weird and with teeth.

The Keychain Collection is an album of miniatures painted in tiny brushstrokes, and its relative attenuation belies the richness of its details.

[IV Play revisits] Nash’s usual tropes through a more varied sound palette that demonstrates a willingness to experiment and, at rare and glorious points, a raw sense of urgency fuelled by his bitterness.

It's not going to make techno fans fall in love with noise, or noise fans fall in love with techno, but for those who, er, bat for both sides, it's a dream come true.

Lip Lock is exactly the kind of pop album that rappers set on crossover success should be making.

Pretty Ugly is occasionally tender, sometimes facetious; thrillingly mechanical, let down by human voices; frequently adventurous, often injudicious.

As a psychological snapshot of DOOM's current inbetween-ness, it's certainly a fascinating listen. But, interesting as it is, it's a mite too spiritless to be considered a classic DOOM record.

It’s not a huge stride in a new direction, but its incorporation of new sounds into the established blueprint sounds like a band both mature and renewed.

While Barrow and Salisbury have painted a forbidding picture of the overall future, their own futures as producers with an ever-expanding, consistent repertoire looks assured.

In Conflict is an impressive record of worthy content, but the day he finds a way to reconcile his musical chops to his pop ear, then Owen Pallett will surely make his masterpiece.

Will Happiness Find Me? is a fitful, thought-provoking listen.

It’s not there yet, but Beast Mode is an excellent place to start.

Z is billed as an EP, but that undersells the completion and cohesion of these 10 songs. Her voice may be gentle, the songs just left-of-center, but SZA’s lyrics demand attention.

The percussion is low in the mix and the bass way up, giving the songs a molten, fluid quality. The parts themselves, however, are guided by an erratic intelligence.

When it works, it makes for gloriously contradictory pop--it's just a shame that the formula isn't a little more consistent.

The Man Who Died In His Boat is, to put it simply, more of the same--and whether that’s a worthy thing for an album to be is largely down to your view on this period of Grouper’s output. For what it’s worth, it’s absolutely fine by me.

Regional Surrealism will leave you with a sense of the unresolved, but that's no bad thing: think of it not as a neatly contained expressive statement so much as a window onto a deeply idiosyncratic meditative practice.

The Block Brochure is a daunting proposition and quite simply a difficult amount of music to process. This is unfortunate, though, given the sheer number and variety of gems strewn throughout.

In terms of compositional sophistication, Doyle struggles to compete with the Jon Hopkinses of this world, his emotional brushstrokes unambiguous and delineated. But considering he’s a 22 year old home producer, comparing Total Strife Forever to last year’s EP shows that he’s growing exponentially.

While the final result may be uneven in places, if you leave your inhibitions at the airlock you're guaranteed an enjoyable ride.

The Block Brochure is a daunting proposition and quite simply a difficult amount of music to process. This is unfortunate, though, given the sheer number and variety of gems strewn throughout.

In running time and number of songs, (III) may be their shortest album, but it's also their most cohesive personal statement yet.

Rich Forever is a supremely confident mixtape, which is probably why it is extremely entertaining in small chunks, but can be witheringly boring listened to in its entirety.

The Block Brochure is a daunting proposition and quite simply a difficult amount of music to process. This is unfortunate, though, given the sheer number and variety of gems strewn throughout.

It’s a creditable enough compilation as a whole, although a couple of relative oldies, Burial’s ‘Shell Of Light’ (from 2007’s Untrue) and DJ Rashad’s ‘Only One’ (from last year’s Double Cup) rather make me question the aims of the exercise.

Whether or not an attempt to be faithful to the original recordings (which kind of defeats the purpose), his compositions are, while lyrical, touching and impressively accomplished, fairly middle of the road.

At the moment, it feels like he's clinging tenaciously to the edge of disco's seamy grandeur: held there by a certain stiffness, seriousness even.

By and large, Overjoyed works when it rocks--the snarling chugga-chugga of “Do It Nation”, the nursery-rhyme feedback shredding of “Overjoyed And Thankful”--and falls a little flat when it doesn’t.

There’s often a disconnect between the production and what’s going on vocally, the two elements at times even working at cross purposes.

Even if his chops as a producer aren’t in question, the writing on Xen is too patchy to fully realise Ghersi’s ambitions. Still, it’s hardly lacking in ideas.

If you dislike fidgetty edits and squealing high frequencies fine--go and listen to Eleh--but if you like dance music crashing into the most mainstream of the mainstream on a skateboard, being cheeky, rude, funny and giving you a massive rush when you listen to it, then here it is. Recess. Enjoy.

It’s all genre-splicing and too little genre-defining, and I can’t help but think that Martyn, with both his musical knowledge and his production chops, is capable of something better.

It’s Too Late is a woozy, scattershot thing--Late Night Drake, if you will.

So safely, solidly familiar is Hawk's third album that it's enough to make you nostalgic for the sound as it splutters on its deathbed.

In patten’s world the fizz of intellect is an end in itself, rather than a means to some sort of insight. Which is enjoyable in moderation, but mostly just frustrating.

More of a step sideways, then, but one which keeps us very much interested in what comes next.

If anything, they illuminate an increasingly formulaic approach that, in its attempt to express extremes of human emotion, ends up saying not very much at all.

It’s an honest album, and while you may not skip back to all of it, its jagged pieces all have their place.

A delicate thing, and for all its studied complexity sometimes comes off a touch insubstantial.

It's not a classic album, but its contents implicitly argue that the concept of a "classic album" has become irrelevant in 2012 anyway.

Supermeng is a refinement of Shirach's sound, exhibiting what you might call a newfound maturity. But when being puerile and provocative is your schtick, that's not necessarily a good thing.

While the lyrical content can be a little prescriptive in places, all of Womack's contributions are frank, honest and humble

Unfortunately, dependable lounge ambience this ain’t; as the album progresses, any sense of cohesion or purpose is quickly lost to the sheer density and variety of ideas.

It does occasionally miss the mark, but that there are any hits to speak of at all shows that Eno and Hyde have a good deal more to offer than the uninspiring gruel of their debut.

Yet despite having created a record that admirably challenges pop conventions, Black Dice could let a little more of the tradition in to help shape their material further and get the most from this direction.

There are moments of dynamism, like the excellent quivering steppers’ bassline in ‘Time’, or ‘In’’s disemboweled grime-pulse sounds. But even these tracks feel weighed down by a relentless paranoiac mood that soon begins to tire, their gestures sparse and restrained in a manner that’s presumably meant to be evocative, but often just feels unadventurous.

The result is unexpected; thick, major label-backed, acoustically driven independent pop songs with a folkish tinge, laced with soft electronics and David Bryne-like vocals. BBC Radio 2 beckons.

While the sense of humor that separates him from someone like Gucci Mane emerges at times, the brief grins are not quite enough to distract from the relentless, repetitive tropes that have come to define Juicy’s (and the rest of the rap game’s) lyrics over the past few years.

Transistor Rhythm is a well-made but forgettable album by someone who, given past form, I'd expected more from.

Even when new ideas poke their way through, the knowledge in the back of your mind of how great a Terror Danjah album in 2012 could and should be sours the tight-lipped lack of fun on display here.

How you find Document And Eyewitness will depend on your appetite for artistic bloody mindedness. Still, if you’re a fan of Wire, you’ll know it can be moreish.

The fact is, what we're presented with here isn't filler exactly, but it's certainly not killer either.

The album's middle section treads water--'The Palace' passes by without making any impression whatsoever, '1313′ sounds like a more conventional Panda Bear--and then it all goes tits up.

MU.ZZ.LE isn't the perfect album either, but it is another bizarre step in the unfolding vision of a very unique voice, a tantalizing and far too brief hint at something magnificent to come.

The lion's share of this album is sprawling, confused, and almost grotesquely misshapen--a grand experiment with disappointing results.

While this EP showcases some interesting ideas, even its best moments fall short of his work as Audion or False.

My Everything isn’t quite everything, but it’s enough.

As with Hive Mind, the record's most interesting moments are its briefest, almost as if Martin-McCormick's strongest ideas are the implied ones, the unrealised ones.

Overall, Homosapien doesn’t possess quite the same spirit as Church With No Magic but is certainly a surefooted step somewhere.

Flop moments aside though, Rebellious Soul ticks the prerequisite boxes of classic r’n'b: confessional tales of love, loss and longing sung with passion and sincerity.

It’s a shame that their debut album is so short on variety and surprises, and doesn’t capture the imagination past a couple of listens.

Alicia Keys is a singer-songwriter in the purest sense, and Girl On Fire is at its best when Keys (and her collaborators) remember that.

It may well appeal to those content with downtime after more forthright records. As an album, however, Evelyn’s good mood sits somewhere between decisive and whimsical.

The record is at its weakest when it’s more hoedown than hoes down.... Generally though, Cyrus’s fourth album is more--ahem--bangers than clangers.

Generally the album hits all the right notes, with great vocals and solid sounds, but at times you may be overpowered by the sickly-sweet nature of the beast.

Her delivery--nasal, slightly nagging--inevitably begins to grate long before the album's running time is up. But there are points of interest that take Kreayshawn beyond empty attempts at swag.

Bundick never quite detaches from the sound here, and if he languishes there any longer he’s liable to go down with the ship.

When Teengirl are on form, their music is a heady thing: house music sent delirious on a glut of ideas, or pop working to some half-known criteria. It's an unstable edifice, though, and too often the results fall flat.

Silver may believe in the changeless beauty of his art, but he doesn’t quite succeed in convincing the rest of us.

There’s no pandering to musical tastes, no whimsical experimentation, but instead real unity between a song’s musicality and meaning.

Having been born of time around Hot Chip's main activities, however, New Build's debut is not without the limitations that are likely of such an endeavour.

The album’s periods of gestation and decomposition so outweigh its moment of flowering that a full listen is much more a chore than a pleasure.

Nobody's denying Herndon's ambition and technical chops, but the goals of this album--however successfully they might be achieved--are often unappealing; the sonic outcomes, regrettably, a little dull.

Aside from anything, the album’s glut of southern coke-rap cuts are plain mundane; partly because trap is so horribly over-exposed right now, and partly because footwork sounds unordinary next to any genre you could name.

By taking electronic to mean, largely, removed introspection, WIXIX might be the one example of a guitar band who, by fully embracing electronica, have regressed.

Overall this is a fine, and occasionally transcendent, stepping up of Fiona's game.

Body Music lacks both the pace and range required to sustain repeated listens, and rests too heavily on one--and even two-year old singles to bolster its overall quality.

Weird Drift is a little laid back, lacking the vertiginous drama that you find in the best synth-pop, and I’m more inclined to stick with another recent Planet Mu foray into the form, Miracle’s overlooked Mercury.

There’s very little sense of a uniting personality, and you’re left wondering how genuinely great an album H&LA might make, how much more they would feel like a band rather than a conceptual project, if they cut loose as much as they do on ‘The Key’.

As a pop-object, Interiors is far more convincing than its predecessor; as a musical experience it is still, regrettably, thin.

Kwes is a resourceful, competent producer and songwriter who’s not short on ideas; if anything, he’s overwhelmed by his own creativity.

Even when Unapologetic fails, it often does so in interesting ways.

There's nothing here resembling stadium polish: if anything, the lush arrangements often yield subtly fascinating results.

It’s so clean, stylish and pleasant that few will rubbish it, so the spotlight is instead shone on select tracks whose impact is then over-stretched as they try to inject some gravitas into how fluffy it can be.

There is some meat here, but it’s difficult to suck it off the bone. Perhaps in his efforts to prevent his music being “reified,” Warwick has fallen short of saying anything much at all.

A fair and fine experiment in folk that sees a more mature and worldly Lynch gently come to the fore.

While it's unlikely to garner them a new generation of fans, as an exercise in generating fresh fodder for their festival sets it's effective enough.

Hive Mind doesn't quite possess the same strength as what has preceded it.

The changes aren't especially radical, but they're noticeable--and it frequently feels like Vasquez has nudged over a line he might have done better to shy away from.

For all this record’s gesturing towards pop directness, it is sorely lacking in impact and in memorability.

Adrian Thaws is not without its moments.... Elsewhere, it’s a story of misfiring ideas and botched experiments.

Instrumental Tourist is unlikely to be viewed as anything more than an unimposing footnote between solo records.

This is two albums in a row now that were basically a bit boring, and she needs to sort it out soonish please.

Despite DeGraw’s earnestness and the many good ideas that are in there, SUM/ONE‘s sense of free rein results in something garishly over the top--a bit like reversing your cases when trying to write a serious point.

MDNA runs the gamut of quality from ghastly to mediocre to brilliant, but it's not the unmitigated disaster that many feared.