Mantasy is a noticeably self-contained work: it unfolds gradually and deliberately, full of wholly beguiling details.

Even if How to destroy angels_ are simply tweaking a long-established formula, rather than clearing the chalkboard, An Omen_ still presents a band that has mastered the task at hand.

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.

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

When times are lean, Smalhans contains just the sort of shamelessly calorific dance music that we should be thankful for.

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.

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.

If the album never quite reaches the tune-packed heights of 808s, the overall listen is utterly melting.

It is certainly a gorgeous production, and tracks will possibly come across differently in a mix, even if it is not quite what many will have been expecting.

Rinse Presents: Royal-T takes his biggest anthems to date--the abrasive, ferocious 'Orangeade' and the gloriously untethered 'Cool Down'--and builds on them in every direction.

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.

Good Kid, m.A.A.d City impresses with its diversity and scope, but it's not just a record to admire: put simply, there's an embarrassment of killer material here.

For the most part this is a composed, nourishing pop album.

Order Of Noise [is] a meaty, satisfying listen.

In terms of its complexity and level of skill on display Breakthrough is a big step up for Bensussen.

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.

In its finished form, Miguel's Kaleidoscope Dream is a testament to his evolved songwriting, reverence to the past, and refusal to be pigeonholed.

For an album that, at times, is beautiful, it doesn't hypnotise you, it doesn't entrance you, and even its best moments fail to stay in your head.

What strikes you first about Album Title Goes Here, apart from the moronic postmodernism-for-tweens title, is how resolutely un-danceable it is.

This perpetual cycling through of ideas can be fascinating but also fatiguing, and it ultimately marks the record's most debilitating flaw.

For the most part, it's content to lull the listener into a state of bliss.

Space Zone keeps the bar propped up impressively high without treading back over old ground.

This CD version has some outstanding moments, and at times is a masterful lesson in dream-like production.

All things considered, this is a handsome, stately album.

Sebenza demonstrates yet again that LV are an act as admirable as they are on, on their day, masterful.

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

Whereas 2009′s Missing Chairs carried a prissy frivolity in its floridness, Piramida is a noble, self-possessed creation; a masterclass in considered arrangement.

Total Loss is a largely dud-free album.

It is satisfying--almost a relief--see potential in this record for something more from the group.

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.

Nguzunguzu have always had something that stood them apart from imitators, but with Warm Pulse they are coming into their own as a reference in their own right.

Neither spectacular or deflating, Coexist is simply the sound of the xx, more or less just as we left it: minimalist, intuitive, romantic and enchanting. Consequently it's a good album, for exactly the same qualities that made their debut likewise.

Ultimately, the overall feeling of Mature Themes is of a band and songwriter that don't really care. So why should we?

The Seer is clearly brilliant, and may even be Swans' finest album yet, three decades in.

In both musical and studio accomplishment Holy Other has come into his own as strong, individual, musical voice; Held is a strong display of this and is going to make a lot of people very happy indeed.

It's as if by having every tool and style of every era and nation available to them at the press of a button has stripped AC's world of its mystery; as if there's nothing more to discover.

Coupled with a diminished knack for melody and slower (r'n'b-aping) tempos, conveying a vaguely subdued mood, the difficult Fragrant World just isn't what most people would consider fun.

Steam Days is a worthwhile--if slightly unseasonal--listen.

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.

Despite the occasional tendency to soar above when her songs could benefit from some earthiness, in the main Ware's sheer, confident boldness carries the day.

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.

LHF offer up their most extensive, immersive work to date.

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.

Unselfconscious and joyfully untrammelled, most importantly Never is charmingly weird--that quality so coveted by indie chancers everywhere.

In short, it's big, dumb, and a lot of fun, but the overriding feel to TNGHT is that it feels closer to being the start of something great than a great record in itself.

The album wants to be eccentric, but it severely lacks personality.

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

The self-awareness of this conflict makes Life Is Good a more compelling listen than Nas has delivered in a while.

The final outcome is a trebly plastic-fantastic quality, rendering Shrines closer in tone and texture to coke-rap than ethereal indie.

A largely beatific album, it propagates love over high living, but also shipped is the urban locale, the one-dimensional serenading and the cartoonish sexuality that informs a significant percentage of mainstream r'n'b, substituted for the same precocious wisdom, emotional intelligence, writerly nuance and reasoned portrayal of lust displayed on the Tumblr post.

A Collection... isn't Maus' best record--played back to back with We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves, it blanches in comparison--but it's a fine insight into the mind of an inspired Lord Of Misrule.

The Idler Wheel... is her most adult work yet, a record that's underpinned by the fundamental grown-up characteristic of embracing one's own ridiculous, stubborn dysfunction because, Hell, what other option is there?

Swing Lo Magellan features some of the Dirty Projectors' most straightforward pop songs to date.

Believe doesn't always live up to the standards of its best cuts.

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.

Primal but denatured, >> leaves you feeling wired, lethal and focused; dehumanized.

By the end, you only want more: you find yourself wishing that Neneh Cherry and The Thing would just go ahead and cover every song in the world in this inimitable manner.

Lucifer is a very pleasant listen, but then so are The Wailers, without Bob.

At its most cleverly executed, Polysick's sound world is easy on the ears but never quite easy listening – entrancingly, exotically beautiful, but with a barb in its tail.

Ticks all the boxes you'd expect of retro-futurist cosmic disco – chugging italo basslines, chunky synths, ridiculous arpeggios, crashing guitars straight outta Miami Vice – but it's the way they're put together that elevates it into more interesting and original territorry.

Banks continues to get away with her obnoxiousness--and while the quality of the music remains disproportionate to the hype, it does make her bratty rejection of the rap establishment feel that much more thrilling.

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

On Pluto, Future does his best to build a coherent album around these hits. He succeeds; the problem is that it's too coherent.

As far as historic compilations go, this is an undeniable belter, successfully capturing music with a very particular energy worth celebrating.

It's Kemp's uncompromising beat patterns and bouncing, funk-infused basslines that ultimately deserve the spotlight here.

In Our Heads seems acutely lacking in personality, meaning or the ability to evoke, in your head, anything other than a vague urge to dance.

The result leaves the listener with less of a sense of control and more of an experience controlled by someone who knows exactly what they are doing.

It's an ear-catching work, more immediate than anything Killer Mike has done since his brief commercial moment of glory in 2003.

It stands out as one of the year's most demanding, lasting listens.

It's not without faults, but overall it's a undoubtedly a very welcome gift.

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.

With this record Laurel Halo has created a strong work that, while being notable and challenging for its unusual, compact combination of pop, ambience and musique concrète, is also immersive and enjoyable for this exact reason.

Words and Music by St Etienne really brings it on itself, and the result is totally vapid.

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

The music is certainly some of El's most engaging yet, and should possess real lasting power.

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.

I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up as the best dubstep album released this year.

An unobtrusively profound statement, cradled in soft-focus melancholy, it's a willowy but towering expression of disassociation, and deeply moving.

This is Squarepusher with the best equipment money can buy, pumping his tracks mercilessly until they're all surface and no substance.

The result is a collection of intriguing, often beautiful miniatures--gems to be cherished and enjoyed, sonic curiosities that reward repeated listening.

Almost overwhelming in places, and certainly distinct, Light Asylum is, quite simply, a brilliant album from musicians who deserve immense respect.

Reform Club's prime influences may be rooted in techno's past but what it lacks in formal innovation it more than makes up for with a rich and profound personal expression that will keep you company long after the rest of the world has shut down for the night.

Combined with Köner's solo work, Biokinetics is a pivotal moment in electronic music and a decisive moment in one of the most important and brilliant oeuvres in contemporary music.

Galaxy Garden is ambitious, which is to be lauded, and Cutler also has a reassuringly realistic outlook when saying that he is still "chipping away at a big idea".

Underpinning the shots White fires at the world has always been a deep-seated melancholy that she brings out effectively here.

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.

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.

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.

XXX might just represent the most polished and fully formed manifestation of street-meets-art rap so far.

This is the best footwork album released by Planet Mu to date, and sits comfortably in the upper echelons of their discography. Traxman has set the bar incredibly high.

I'm still waiting for the Tin Album that will bowl me over and convince me of his importance, but Vienna Blue is a loafered step in the right direction.

Kill For Love matures with each listen, and there's enough craftsmanship at work to more than compensate for the more listless moments.

Voices From The Lake is serene and sinister, hides more than it reveals and is so entirely absorbing that you could lose yourself in it indefinitely.

Five songs coming in just under 18 minutes of superior darkly-stranded pop music.

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

R.I.P is a fantastical, fascinating album: as Actress intended, it feels not really of this world.

Despite her undoubted vocal talents, she doesn't possess the authority to sell the bluster of her lyrics.