Villagers ought to be applauded for their ambition to heave themselves away from expectation, and then mourned for their lack of conviction which discards them back into it.

It is a solid and adept demonstration of his strengths as a dance producer and his ear for a hook. Roosevelt is intended to pacify the annual, somber, post-festival comedown. Every now and then, we just have to enjoy it simply for what it is, and not what it may lack.

The King of Limbs is very much a rhythm-driven album; skittering, off-kilter beats underpin the majority of the songs on show.

It's short but manages to feel long. It's interesting but manages to feel dull.

It's great when artists learn to produce work that has more than one dimension to it. Robyn's has two. I'd just like to see her develop one or two more.

Everyday Life may not be able to reach the peaks of Coldplay’s work in the 2000s or have the discipline of the mostly-minimalist Ghost Stories, but it shows a level of creativity, imagination and sheer enjoyment in making music that felt like it had been lost.

Just because something “sounds” like a classic record, it doesn’t mean it is.

It’s not cynical and calculated enough to be a shameless cash-grab yet it’s not self-indulgent enough to be a vanity project. Perhaps it’s just a stopgap in the catalogues of two big-selling artists; an intended homage to the music that made Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. They’re making this music because they like it, because they want to, and because they can.

They're much fuzzier than Deerhunter, more jam-inclined than The Horrors, far lighter than Slowdive – and if it's true that they're introducing the kids to krautrock and psychedelia I'm all for it. Perhaps more of an homage than an invention, then, but still, an absorbing debut.

Magic Kids do pull off a winner with Summer, a sultry delight of abounding strings and tropical strums that, sadly, sounds out of place with the obvious eye winks scattered throughout. Memphis may borrow from such an imaginative time period, but their explorative range remains very limited.

Yet, while it's unlikely that the previously familiar will be suddenly converted by these endeavours, it wouldn't be strictly fair to say that there's not the occasional hint of a broadened palette on display here.

It’s nowhere near as annoying, despite my physically manifest aversion to it, but it definitely is not trying to please you, or make you comfortable, or even happy in any way.

Long Slow Dance might be a strong garage pop album with some incredibly catchy songs, but it could definitely be grounded from its chick flick sensibilities.

JAMC’s reclaim for glory is expectedly uneven: it’s as carelessly abrasive and reverb-heavy as it should be, but it’s also mounted with a heavy number of throwaways that document different periods of their celebrated past without a clear notion of how they should move forward.

Forcefield chiefly sounds more relaxed and natural, fully letting go of the stilted verses and swift tempos they’ve been gradually forgoing ever since A Lesson in Crime made such an immediate splash.

Palm do stand out from their contemporaries on Rock Island, especially since they equally embrace and rile against indie rock as a conservative movement. Their nonconformist aesthetic is imbued with an independent spirit, even if the sources they pull from prevents them from really taking off.

For most of this album, Costello switches between percussive anxiety and odd ditties with ease.

The whole of it is too calculated, even if they occasionally hit the mark with an obvious attention to craft which, to be fair, certainly counts for something.

Some good ol', serviceable rock ' roll always goes down easy, but with The Hold Steady, we know they're capable of so much more.

He has created such a strong, affecting soundscape that for the most part of the record it is uncomfortable to listen to. Whether that is by design or not, Ejimiwe has administered a macabre marriage of sound and speak that are made for each other.

Boarding House Reach isn’t the easiest of listens, and at times sounds like an over-excited White has just pressed 'record' and let his absurdity run amok. However, its strong moments just about outnumber the less appealing ones, and White’s own creative juices are still being harvested in abundance.

If only she would’ve toned down the unnecessary sensual flourishes to cultivate more of what she does best: amiable, pleasant songs with outwardly simple, yet weighty underlying truths.

Personality is not quite the dancefloor-igniting record that was expected, though nor is it a mere rehash of previous work – it is the sound of Rose exploring a variety of styles without successfully nailing any of them.

If Moaning could unshackle their melodic sound and avoid building their walls of sound so high on their second record, they will be another certified gem in the Sub Pop crown.

The sound HÆLOS have refined is the perfect foil for truly spectacular things to happen, but with the exception of the album’s centerpiece, Oracle, Full Circle consistently gives the impression that the tools aren’t being used as efficiently as they could be.

She's a vibrant presence on Anywayz and How Did You Know, pushing her operatic vocals over soaring, anthemic choruses. But that's not enough to save an album that, despite sounding so busy and hectic, fails to generate much excitement—even if Stelmanis' emotional downward spiral is compelling in the lyrical sense.

Neither hot nor shit; it's one of those albums you might buy on impulse and be neither disappointed nor overwhelmed by.

The hastiness and outlandishness of the swerving soundscapes are the album’s strengths and it’s weaknesses, simultaneously keeping a listener enticed and running them ragged. Such zeal keeps Krohn’s final destination on the horizon, just out of reach.