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

A record whose main theme may be death, but whose power comes from Kozelek’s vivid celebration of life.

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.

If Goldenheart was a monumental but monolithic edifice of an album, Blackheart is a shape-shifting house of mirrors in permanent flux, light where its predecessor was heavy, welcoming instead of forbidding.

As anyone who’s spent a night lurking by the subwoofers knows, these tracks have the power to rearrange internal organs. Uncomfortable though that may sound, it’s a pleasure to experience.

Sandison and Eoin have produced an album that, in spite of its considerable runtime, is genuinely absorbing and convincing in its narrative sweep.

Beyoncé is a stronger personal statement than Magna Carta… Holy Grail, less self-indulgent than The 20/20 Experience, and (in its own way) as dark and confrontational as Yeezus.

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

This honest emotional core is something that Vincent has always put into his music, but rarely has it felt quite so effortless as it does here. It’s the kind of album you could imagine non-house and techno fans getting behind quite easily, and shows that his appeal shouldn’t just be limited to vinyl collectors.

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.

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

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

Thomson's manifesto is articulate, incisive and practically book-length.

This is Kanye’s record: a cornucopia of concepts and collaborators reduced to a singular vision. That vision is what makes Yeezus stand out as one of Kanye’s finest moments.

Each track says something different, but with his honest subject matter and his unique arrangements constantly in focus, Snaith never loses his way.

If his aim was to give musical form to the eastern DRC’s “unnerving beauty and unflinching horror”, then A U R O R A is a dazzling success.

This album is as life-affirming a piece of music as anything else you’ll hear this year: there’s nothing more uplifting than a good band getting better.

Henke is always at great pains to direct Monolake so that it exists in a constant dialogue with the dancefloor and with its multifarious abstract leanings, Ghosts pushes that challenge to its limits. That it succeeds on both counts whilst balancing a fictive pathway with real emotion only makes it more remarkable.

As an exhilarating listen and the perfect reflection of Black Jazz Records’ singular musicians, Black Jazz Signature is a record you will probably keep and return to for life.

Everything about the record suggests a separation and a self-contained existence, like a second novel, and is wonderful for it.

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.

Yes, fine songs. But in part, though, a little of the success of July should be attributed to producer Randall Dunn.

It’s an album that feels measured and well timed and yet avoids sounding over-polished or awkwardly stage-managed.

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.

Moodymann has inflated wildly, now standing at a monstrous 27 tracks in length through a generous stuffing of media samples and, in typical Kenny Dixon Jr fashion, a bunch of material that has already seen release.

Soused may not be the best record either Sunn O))) or Walker have released in the last few years--those accolades go to Monoliths & Dimensions and The Drift, respectively--but it’s still an endlessly compelling work, the match between singular solo artist and the pivotal group every bit as thrilling as you’d expect.

It is certainly every bit its predecessor, but through a more meditative, contemplative use of elements it is even better.

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