It seems Paradinas' real talents lie behind the scenes.

There’s nothing game-changing about The New Classic, just recycled hustlin’ tropes and an ugly, nasal double-time flow overcompensating for mediocre wordplay.

While Food may be more home-cooked comforts than Blumenthal experimentation, at its best it’s a fulfilling portion.

This is the sound of progress.

With the help of former Coral man Bill Ryder-Jones, Liverpool's We Are Catchers (aka Peter Jackson) has captured the melancholy essence of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's solo album 'Pacific Ocean Blue' and distilled it in the murky Mersey to produce this confident debut.

It’s no radical reinvention, sure, but the singer captures these songs in their most up-close-and-personal state, with instrumentation stripped back to nearly zero.

For all its high-mindedness, it’s garage-rock primalism is just as easily enjoyed with your brain switched off. Perhaps that’s the point.

There aren’t quite enough classic songs here to render their voice vital, but as long as boring bands exist, this kind of piss and vinegar will always be welcome.

Lo-fi electronica ('Getaway Ride') and ambient pop ('Dominic') create the spine of a charmingly off-kilter record, while 'I Love Our World' is essentially a field recording.

There’s a rare moment of foreboding on the briefly gloomy ‘Feather Man’, but the likes of ‘Shining’ and the Avi Buffalo-style ‘Only The Lonely’ are representative of an optimistic and sprightly record.

It suits them just fine.

A brutal and beauteous slither from the grave.

He's turned in an electronic album that’s full of character without resorting to robot costumes or Pharrell bloody Williams.

Australia’s Chet Faker has a pretty big hole to dig himself out of on his debut. Singing no faster than 2mph doesn’t help either, but there’s an unexpected range in his schtick that’s disarming.

Thought Forms' side peaks with the driving Sonic Youth riffs of ‘Sound Of Violence’ and the dizzying My Bloody Valentine lurch of ‘For The Moving Stars’.... Having left their label, [Esben And The Witch] are using crowdfunding to record their next album with Steve Albini, for which these raw tracks offer great.

A good seven years out of date, Doom Abuse is pure synth-pop mania, frequently teetering between unadulterated Trent Reznor pop brilliance and impressions of Skrillex driving a monster truck through a Savages gig in a video arcade.

Here and there, though, it’s a bit of a grind.

It’s far grubbier and more riotous than any high school musical.

Intelligent and visceral in equal measure, PUP is effortlessly cool, charmingly nerdy and wholly brilliant.

The pit-friendly snarl of ‘I Won’t Be A Casualty’ and ‘You Must Be Damned’ show that these guys are all still the real deal.

Tremors is frustrating. But when the colours align it’s alluring and impressive.

Old Fears provides a fascinating insight into the mind of an increasingly-indispensable pop polymath.

Her most outward-looking work to date.

This is one house of horrors that’s worth the ride.

The London four-piece have never had trouble creating pretty atmospheres though; it’s contrasting them with a bolder hook, lyrical or otherwise, where they struggle.

Slowly, their melodic smarts outweigh their influences.

She sounds like she’s having a bathroom hairbrush-singing party to which we’re all invited. These are sweet sweet fantasies, baby.

This is cold-blooded revenge pop that strikes like a shard of shattered plate to the heart.