Government Plates is sometimes just incoherent.... But in the end these are minor quibbles.

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.

Their music is about 40 per cent less exciting shorn from the lurid splatter of their videos, but music in 2014 is a more interesting place for their presence.

Nepenthe is more ambitious than its predecessors, more varied in style and execution and sonically richer.

Ultimately, the album’s electro-house elements feel like comparative cheap thrills placed amongst the wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship elsewhere on the EP.

While the new forms forged from the genre manipulation here begets novelty and, yeah, interesting music, ultimately you’re left feeling unfulfilled.... In the end, though, it’s hard to begrudge adventurousness, especially when the end product is this pleasing.

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

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.

By and large, this is a downbeat record, one suggesting maybe Albarn recently had a listen to ‘Mr Robinson’s Quango’ and decided never to do ‘whimsical’ again. Still, there’s a couple of more upbeat numbers that work in neat counterpoint.

If someone compiles their favourite 12 tracks from it, they may well have their album of the year, but in its current state With Love is pretty far from a classic.

Surrender to the Fantasy is undoubtedly good, but occasionally falls short of its potential.

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

Cupid Deluxe starts strongly with ‘Chamakay’, ‘You’re Not Good Enough’, and ‘Uncle ACE’, but sadly loses focus.

While My Krazy Life is YG’s debut, it feels more like an album-length celebration of Mustard’s ratchet revolution, a sound distilled from LA G-Funk, Atlanta snap and Bay Area hyphy.

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

An incredibly interesting debut album that's nearly as clever as its creators intended.

Whilst My Name Is My Name has one of the best selections of beats on a major label rap album in years, and Pusha’s enunciations are still as sonically potent as a decade ago, his singularity largely comes across as a stubborn resistance to change in the face of how ambitious the LP (and so much new rap, frankly) sounds, and suffers from a tracklist too concerned with features to allow this singularity to reign supreme anyway.

Black Bananas manage that ridiculously difficult feat of changing your sound up pretty massively without the whole thing feeling like a jarring shift in aesthetic.

The meandering, incidental quality of their music works alternately in their favor and against them.

It’s fair to say that, from a purely musical point of view, this is far from Herbert’s best work, but that’s hardly the point; The End Of Silence aims to unseat us and provoke a more profound engagement with the events around us, and to that end it’s a success.

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

Yes, it’s possible to read Soul Music as some kind of commentary on, or deconstruction of, jungle. More people will probably interpret it as a collection of straightforward, canon-savvy bangers. That’s fine, of course, but it’s difficult to shake the sense that Special Request could have been something more.

News From Nowhere marks a far more dramatic turn for them than North did in 2010.

It's playful and skittish, with equal time spent showcasing Black Milk's sample (and scratch!)-heavy beats and Brown's rhymes.

His solo work tends to be more delicate--with Audience Of One capturing him at his most porcelain.

Their obvious musical talent and distinctive voice make Silence Yourself an uncompromising and very enjoyable paean to individual agency.

There’s more than enough in this album to keep her in that position--so, come for the gay brostep, stay for the songcraft and character.

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.