They embrace what they do best: creating music that balances this personal and political darkness with joy. In their strongest outing since All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the four-piece writes both sweeping anthems as well as some of the most effortless songs of their career.

Despite some missteps (sadly, a few egregious ones), Some Loud Thunder is successful in displaying the group’s breadth of talent and ideas.

An LP with a long gestation period but a short attention span that revels in 1960s pop music and is as fun as it is jangling.

Wild Belle’s debut is a respectable exercise of ethereal pop.

Fresh with a 4th record label (Leeds-based Hatch Records), this latest coming is a dynamic, complete, and assured record, and an exhibition of how grunge music should sound in 2014.

Not as poppy as either Moon Safari or Talkie Walkie, not as out there as 10,000khz Legend, Pocket Symphony instead boasts songs that deserve more attention than previous numbers without performing the prog histrionics often found on their more experimental works.

It’s a confident, fantastic and ultimately very rewarding record that should be met with an open mind.

More quickly than you'd expect, Busdriver's quirks become endearing; his cartoonish vocal stretches to reach those high notes become normalised and you begin to appreciate how much heart he puts into his singing.

This album does its best to give certain fans exactly what they want in sexually-driven club grinders while offering up real, honest-to-goodness substance. It isn't always a perfect situation, and parts of the album border on forgettable, but when they get it right, everything's groovy.

Some people might Matt & Kim's music is without substance, totally incapable of being a sustainable addition to the sonic landscape. I submit that their saccharine hooks, covered in a coating of post-adolescent confusion, is just the opposite.

It's not up there with their very best, but it's actually not that far off.

For many reasons it is confused, self-absorbed, remarkably gauche. It is so often an intentionally uncomfortable thing to listen to... [yet] intriguing.

Call it voyeur. Call it artificial. Call it exploitative. Just don’t call it boring. It’s the first 50 Cent album in some time that can boast that.

The Other Side of Zero shifts from side to side with some regularity, ranging from bubbly and invigorating to downbeat and expressive. There's a real sense of diversity here, and it's what sets the album apart.

This new one is definitely worth checking out, or maybe even seeking out, if you dig the whole African guitar Indie rock thing. If you don’t, you may still be pleasantly surprised.

With their infectious beats and clear guitars mixed with head-bobbing electronic, New Young Pony Club has what cannot be learned, yet what is one hundred percent necessary for achieving greatness: hubris.

It may not be the most unique and memorable of albums, but there's a lot in Boys and Diamonds to like; great thumping melodies, intriguingly mad vocals and moments of beauty (particularly the delicate drumming that closes the album) and shows that Rainbow Arabia are a band that have the potential to be far more interesting than their mundane origins would suggest.

On Ghost Stories, despite a near derailment, they "fly on," moving in fresh directions while keep the catharsis that gave them their audience in the first place.

Overall, its their most accessible, one whose highs are much more pronounced than its lows.

Birthmarks' charm lies in its comforting familiarity.

All told, The Faint, once again, have written a succesful album.

The collaborations are interesting, and at times fascinating, but there is little doubt that the destiny of most tracks here will be, once again, as sonic accompaniments to visual productions.

While the record isn’t perhaps as instantly impressive as Scale or Multiply, there’s much to enjoy on The Third Hand for an appreciator of the finer points of this thing we call pop music.

Every song on the tracklist is fluid, fresh, and endued with a sense of fun.

Clock Opera have delivered a debut which, just about, delivers.

There are no real standout tracks, it is a four song EP after all and electronica has a slight tendency to blend into one long reverby track. But as a piece, it moves so softly, so deep and so colourful.

So Long Forever has a knack of sounding nothing like your prototypical debut album, with no sign of any unsanded edges or rawness. Instead, the album’s sound is that of a band that have honed their sound over a number of exponentially strong releases.

Euphoric///Heartbreak is not an easy listen--as I've already alluded to, it's a convincing notion that this four-piece remain incapable of that--and while it is more theatrically anthemic than the first album, it is feels equally credible and sincere.