Nearly every song comes off as unassuming in its rightful place. Each track has a designed role, and for that reason you won’t need to use the skip button.

To put it succinctly, Amy Winehouse has made a really good record.

For a band noted for their precious aesthetics, their secretly aggressive riffs and jabbing zings are the most essential facets to their authenticity.

Although Mice Parade isn't necessarily the group's paramount album, it certainly makes their stock soar high.

Woman King is a brief and yet satisfying taste for what Iron & Wine is all about.

While the best tracks are the most uneasy and strung-out - like when bearing the deranged, astral colors of the Of Montreal kin, “Marry Me” or relishing the fabulous debauchery of the Pixieish devil’s waltz, “My Wicked Wicked Ways” - it can never be denied how honestly happy Lopez sounds on Knitting Needles & Bicycle Bells.

Superbly imaginative for someone still considered a "lad."

Taken as a whole, The Besnard Lakes display a unique style, a winning combination of intriguing songwriting and diverse arrangements.

Kala is only received as a political record if you listen up properly. The music itself no longer asserts itself like a militia; it's too calm and more scattered.

You In Reverse is equal parts subtlety and over self-indulgence, and its problems lie with the latter. More often than not, the stretched out jams seems to take up space rather than move the songs forward.

Although Outside, Closer dwells in cheerless minimalism it is a joy to listen to.

It’s Interpol drinking with the Stratford 4 while doing their best Catherine Wheel impression.

Some may blow off Tongues as too jammy or underdeveloped, but neither is truly the case and, in fact, it's unpolished characteristic is core to it's sound.

While not as fleshed out as some other remarkable debuts, Album is a fully realized personal vision.

While it starts a bit slowly, Aloha’s fourth proper album is filled with signature pieces that are stunningly relentless.

Mentor Tormentor is an inviting listen; it is, among other things, an advanced course in baroque pop and a warm reminder of the thriving music scene in and around their renowned namesake town.

Whereas the last album came across like the more muddled and aimless moments of Fiery Furnaces or Frog Eyes/Wolf Parade songs (all bluster, arrangement - nothing memorable even if expertly played), this record comes across like the more finely tuned pop songs from any of the aforementioned groups.

With hooked beaks and mighty talons, Brightblack Morning Light rip and gut the carcass of psychedelic rock, leaving it exposed and decomposing on the side of the road.

Feels like being caught up in a creative whirlwind; every song at some point grants you the position of the fly on the wall - being privy to a group of people just chilling out, making music and living the good life.

Mainly, Crazy for You manages to reference weed without being lowbrow and her cat without being twee. Sun-drenched guitar licks go woozy and Cosentino's crystal clear vocals lament and wish and hope. You don't have to be West Coast-born to feel the weight of an "I miss you so much" chorus and a slow drum beat.

Kidnapped by Neptune... finds an exponential increase in her reach while still relying on some of her time-tested tricks; the results are wryly melodic and never ever boring.

At a time when Internet buzz can make the latest bands seem like old news, listening to Vivian Girls is still exciting even after many times through; the band do not create something new so much as something now.

Less accessible than its eponymous predecessor, it creates a darker, less cartoonish world where hip-hop, brit-rock, electronica and Dennis Hopper monologues all seem perfectly at home.

A blueprint for where hip hop should be headed.

The good far outweighs the bad on this lack-of-thread-concept-album, and if you are dying to hear a modern day take on the 70’s soft rock band, check out Midlake.

This is deceptively simple, back-to-basics rock music that no honest American can help but enjoy.

Now then, aside from all that, "After the Garden" and "Families" are right up there with "Rockin in the Free World" for displays of board-stomping bravado, which is of course much less the goal here than raising awareness.

It is immediately more slanted than their standard fare - incorporating electronic elements and seething mystery at times - but it still sounds like Teenage Fanclub, which is, on all counts, a thoroughly good thing.