The rave presets of old will appease older fans while the more intricate synth work will satisfy more recent converts. Still, it’s the deeper tunes here that point to an intriguing future.

Ditching everything he’d been working on, Carr launched himself into New Shapes Of Life, his finest work since The Boo Radleys.

The tone is consistently one of hope, if James intended it to act as a balm to soothe any of the problems of the world, he’s certainly succeeded.

With no hint of hype (but a lot of alliteration), The Usual Suspects is perhaps chef Wobble’s most appealing musical smorgasbord to date. It’s rare for one album to evince comparisons to both Lee Perry and Lalo Schifrin in style, or to Lonnie Liston Smith, Eddie Van Halen and Keith Moon with its musicianship.

With hints of minimalism, psych rock, and even Gregorian chant to be found, Reaching For Indigo is rich, dark and incisive; a work of immense beauty.

With its cinematic strings and glacial synth arrangements, Rise is certainly rife with theatricality--but rather than play-acting at the role of singer, Gainsbourg’s patchwork embeds the answers to those questions, and many more, deep within.

It’s difficult to determine why one session of abstract noise is more thrilling and less tedious than when your mate’s “avant-garde project” bash their instruments discordantly for 50 minutes. It’s not just down to the names on display. There’s a difference. Moore and Hayward play the good kind.

It’s a dense, lengthy work (at 71 minutes the longest studio album of her career). Only one song, the ecstatic, pulsating techno of Sue Me, is likely to work on the dancefloor. Yet the errant, raucous confluence of sounds and styles has a homogeneity that works to create a beguiling, and ultimately hugely rewarding whole.

Bajas Fresh is an unapologetically chilled-out album for the horizontal of body and the expanded of mind. See you down the ashram.

From The Trees is simple and unadorned, with generous ladling of his legendarily wayward backing vocals. Skeletal, appealing melodies support tales of inertia (“Torpor rolls upon me in a fog, settles like a sweat upon the skin”), lost love (Girl To The North Country’s “just like that, she’s gone”) and the wane into old age (“only yesterday you were pegging out your tent”).

Fusing those 60s influences with rich electronica creates a tableau that’s familiar in parts, but offers a distinctive twist to the predictable.

The Wasted Years collects these first four releases; a fabulous chance to get reacquainted with the magic of the Butcher, and what sweetly daft indie sounded like in the mid-80s.

Huge swathes of the album are like an elaborate game of spot the steal. ... Overall, the songs are better crafted than on his previous HFB albums, more persuasive and memorable.

Eight songs from an artist with 20 years of amazing in his back pocket is way too frugal, but as a proper introduction to Karl Blau, it’ll do for now. More please.

Golden Teacher aren’t quite there yet, just missing a tune or two that really defines what they do. They haven’t produced something that is manages to simultaneously play to their strengths; as catchy as opener Sauchiehall Withdrawal, as rhythmically engaging as the West African-inspired Diop, as pumping as Spiritron.

Bob Stinson wouldn’t see out the rest of the year as a Replacement as his damaging behaviour got the better of him, but he’s on fire here, showboating around with utter joie de vivre – Color Me Impressed is a riot of total abandon, check his solo on a raucous Favorite Thing. The irritating sorts who witnessed The Replacements in their wild pomp will never tire of reminding you of the fact. This explains why.

Way more folk-ridden than Orc’s hysterical prog racket, this one’s soaked in acoustic guitars, lush strings, early-Bowie eccentricity and singing saws.

Soul Of A Woman finds Jones bowing out in the finest form, somehow filling the space between Gladys Knight and Etta James.

Staples is in strong voice throughout, yet on All Over Again, the closing folk blues look back on a lfe lived without regrets, she sings even lower than usual, sounding her age--impossibly wise and dignified. A fitting end to a great record.

Sketches Of Brunswick East is the band’s mellowest outing since 2015’s Paper Mâché Dream Balloon.

Easy listening it isn’t, but Three Futures cuts into the tangled complexities of human connection with an uncannily unwavering precision.

The Peter Asher-produced album is glossily listenable even if you have no knowledge of the star name fronting the band. Whether it deserves the level of coverage it will receive is another conversation.

Some of the bombastic stadium moments are so silly they’re fun but the more rustic pieces are where this Starr shines brightest. Speed Of Sound and Shake It Up have good-time rockabilly swagger, while the record’s highlight is So Wrong For So Long: a pedal-steel breakup tune which reaffirms Starr’s scouse-cowboy croon as one of the great lost voices of country music.

A impressively remastered album (including a new mix in the audiophile-friendly Dolby Atmos format), a decent live set. .... Remember REM any way you want, but Automatic For The People is a good if ultimately maudlin one.

Low occasionally summons enough leavening fervour to make a Morrissey album seem worth the time: no small achievement after his dreaded political blather.

Melancholy without being depressing and intensely dramatic, De Biasio proves here on this superlative nine-song collection that No Deal was no fluke.

Russell’s widow says her husband thought the album was his best-ever work; that will forever be open to debate, but what’s certain is that a truly great musician left this world on an undeniable high.

A surprisingly wide-ranging six-track EP of instrumentals providing a loving partner-piece.

A Sentimental Education’s grab-bag of exquisite curios upholds a flair for the art of the cover that previously saw songs from Bonnie And Clyde to Neon Lights Lunafied, to echo the title of the band’s own 2006 covers release.

A beautiful, haunted, haunting album; hear it.

All four members are gifted musicians, but they sacrifice virtuosity over a rough-hewn spiritedness which makes Between The Earth a thrilling listen.

The unpromising combinations separate rather than coalesce. The talented, pugilistic youngster’s best feels yet to come.

It won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but if you like your music to sound as if it could soundtrack a coming of age montage in a particularly gloomy John Hughes film, you found your gal.

Recorded in Sheffield with crack producer Andy Bell, Afterglow is an ambitious addition to the sounds of a city that is fast becoming the central hub for the UK’s best folk talent.

The result is a fourth album that conveys Maus’ confounding persona with total confidence: sometimes silly, sometimes stentorian, it gives the impression of a man in full command of his off-piste forays, rendering it fascinating even as it befuddles.

In the absence of a live album, these re-recordings with a band including son-of- John Cody offer loving snapshots of Carpenter’s reckoning with his track record, here covering the years between 1974’s goofy Dark Star and 1998’s macho Vampires.

It’s an ambitious collision of worlds that Holden and The Animal Spirits pull off with style.

Given Low Country Blues was Grammy-nominated, stand by for the superior Southern Blood to appear in many year-end lists.

Conceived in antithesis to the tediously technically proficient metal that’s abundant these days, EW’s ninth album takes joy-doom to another level. Their riffs match the fuzziness of their weed-fogged minds.

Fleeting pleasures aside, the focus becomes wayward afterwards.

Nothing here is going to uproot trees, but given Hillman’s recent lack of activity the release is welcome. The ideal aural companion to Johnny Rogan’s comprehsive Byrds books.

The resultant World Wide Funk comes across as a well-drilled unit running through manoeuvres without actually going into battle.

Opener Fly On Your Wall is oddly reminiscent of the plodding, tense quality of some of John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band – the bits where Ringo appears to be playing biscuit tins--that is, until Olsen’s soaraway, otherworldly vocals take it somewhere altogether more spectral. Special follows, a languid jam that could have easily slotted on to the last album.

Its brief running time over just six tracks harks back to earlier releases such as The Internationale or his debut Life’s A Riot, but this is a definitively 2017 soundtrack.

A painstaking labour of love for all concerned, Savage Young Dü is--at last--the kind of archival release fans of these transcendent punk-pop pioneers have long since craved.

Dylan Sharp and Carrie Keith back their deftly penned songs with the kind of delicate sonic weirdness that demands attention without distracting from the principal communicative mission of the tune and its lyrics. They might proclaim to be out of range but Gun Outfit are still right on target.

Though it’s short and sweet, the 10 tracks that make up Dury’s fifth album are cinematic in scope and yet laser focused.

The sounds are cosmic and enveloping, yet at times comedic, and full of joie de vivre. It’s fulsome, nattering with treble, and all quite similar, and is hence something of an assault course, but is a great reaffirmation that Yoshimi holds the keys to happiness, as viewed through a cracked mirror.

Ostensibly half an hour of instrumentals, recent Walker converts should tread carefully but long-time watchers should come along for the latest excursion in this evolving ride. Things could get wild.

The nascent stirrings of Japan’s independent music scene can be divined here; the first comp to offer a detailed overview of the country’s fertile early 70s folk and rock movement.

The demos and live tracks will be intrigue enough--while the as-yet unconvinced may be surprised to find an album that remains relevant; as resonant, daring and evocative as it ever was.

Most of Billy 2.0’s low-key lullabies are pleasant enough. Indeed, you could place any one of them in the middle of a big rock record as an eyebrow-raising, spine-tingling palate cleanser. Enduring them all in one sitting is, unfortunately, less fun than consuming 11 consecutive courses of the same pumpkin-flavoured sorbet.

Arguably superior, its confident follow-up The Knowledge is again enriched with songs relating to Difford and Tilbrook’s old stamping grounds.

On new album Daylight, Black’s voice is often less strident than it used to be, though she can still raise the roof in the chorus of songs like Pass The Power. She’s as fearsomely committed as ever, but there’s an agreeably lush sheen over the band’s blend of ska, reggae and pop.

More abstruse and cerebral.

The first UNKLE album in seven years regresses towards bad old habits, its patchy pleasures often lacking the cohesive clout needed to sharpen its ambitions.

Arguably The Horrors’ best album yet. V, it would seem, is for Victory.

While the music collected here has ultimately been Hooker’s ticket to prosperity, awards, and the good life, its real value is its cultural and historical significance. The music that he created 60 years ago, even today in the 21st century, remains an essential part of the DNA of rock music. It’s (yep) a veritable boogie wonderland.

Ultimately, Woods deserves the hype, though more consistency would deliver fully on her talent.

While not an explicitly political record, Omnion is nevertheless the right one for Butler and crew to have made in 2017.

Dead Cross’ comely disquiet is bathed in that inimitable Patton charisma, and his vocals add in so many diverse elements that Lombardo and co cannot have foreseen. In short, Patton makes it fun.

Cameron could be a pop contender, but the masks that make the man are as much barrier as blessing here.

Hints of psychedelia and bursts of frantic riffing flirt with a classic Primus sound over much of The Desaturating Seven.

The title fits: tender, tumultuous and titanic, Wolf Alice sound like a band for life.

Throughout, The Clientele’s mellifluous breeziness accommodates fresh sounds without signs of strain.

Bruised but still brawling, Relatives channels the horror and embattled hope of our times with a vital insistence.

It’s all fairly light, but there’s plenty to savour.

A prime opportunity to taste everything from Haines’ buffet--sweet and savoury alike.

His eponymous seventh LP feels like a massive leap forward, as though an epiphany has allowed him to put all the right pieces in all the right places, and suddenly the picture becomes clear.

Sun Gong comes across like Laraaji’s own personal answer to the Reverend CL Franklin’s rhythmic yet unsettlingly intense sermons.

Songs that are just truly comforting to their core and that make Hallelujah Anyhow another richly rewarding listen.

This doesn’t disappoint. Undoing A Luciferian Towers opens proceedings and wastes no time in transporting the listener into their world.

It’s a pleasure to report that he’s come up with something much more tangible than a mere phoned-in hash of former glories.

Cut Copy need to learn to make music with the reckless abandon of a good night out--at whichever type of club they end up in.

Hiss Spun is easily a contender for her best work.

Part 2’s tracklist does find room for efficient new versions of songs Brix co-wrote for The Fall (LA, Feeling Numb and the enigmatic Hotel Bloedel) but they’re merely the icing on the cake here. Indeed, they’re arguably bettered by newly-minted songs such as the stomping, Big New Prinz-esque Something To Lose; the shape-throwing Damned For Eternity and the psych-pop candy floss of Moonrise Kingdom.

Fans of the last LP will not be disappointed--yes, even with the ones that sound (whisper it) a bit too much like Muse. But there’s so much more here than artful innovation.

Singer and band are in perfect synch throughout, the benefits of a lengthy and approaching telepathic relationship obvious for all to hear.

The swaggering beasts of Wall Of Glass and Bold kick it off and Greedy Soul waves a musical truncheon in your face as producers Greg Kurstin and Dan Grech- Marguerat find the jugular on songs powered by riffs, choruses, hooks and lashings of attitude to keep up with their swaggering frontman.

A unique, wide-eyed feeling of awe and wonder underpins all the lush melodies (see I Am Learning), but with The Kid’s lyrics offering a thoughtful counterpoint to all the loved-up ambience.

The understated closer Admiral Of Upside Down is evidence that somewhere beneath all the sonic experimentation he’s inherited at least a modicum of his famous father’s ear for melody.

Colors suffers for sacrificing personality for immediacy.

Mary Casio is another cohesive collection, glued together by the slightly silly yet still thought-provoking storyline, which regards the life story of an obscure imaginary electronic composer, who is set upon space travel.

Produced by David Foster, it’s largely tremendous fun, even if the path on which it walks is rather well worn.

If you ever liked Spain, Galaxie 500 or Mazzy Star, this is for you. Smoky, reverb-heavy melodies that gently noodle off nowhere slowly, this compilation of released tunes and salvaged demos contains much for the heads.

The album is streaked through with intelligent string orchestrations that don’t feel bolted onto the songs to pad out or prettify them but increase their psychological intensity.

Their fourth album’s trembling vocals address mortality, heartbreak, collapse, resilience, different extremities of weather, running to someone and leaving the city at night. Such earnestness is offset nicely by jaunty synthesizer sounds and admirably expressive drum work. It remains unfortunate that Wolf Parade have never reached the fascinating twitchiness of their heroes Modest Mouse.

Part of Death's triumph is its unadornment, which allows the songs to glimmer as rough diamonds.

Angular but well-rounded; Pere Ubu remain as paradoxical as ever.

Truth be told, Strange Peace’s series of succinct bludgeonings are more a case of ain’t-broke-don’t-fix and the appointment of likeminded racket fetishist Steve Albini as producer comes less as a surprise than foregone conclusion.

Though he’s undoubtedly an anachronistic anomaly whose idiosyncratic style (think Tom Waits meets Edith Piaf in a 19th Century music hall) appears out of kilter with convention, he has, nevertheless, produced an essential soundtrack to our times.

Like most covers albums, though, this collection isn’t designed to bear serious analysis, so have some fun with God Save The Queen, Cat Scratch Fever and what have you. The real Motörhead is to found elsewhere.

The songs, all from Nelson’s pen, are what really sells this terrific record, knocked into shit-kicking shape by a drum-tight band who effortless play with delicacy or venom, and all points in-between.

Danilova’s most accessibly gothtastic numbers bear worrying resemblance to a pitch for a songwriting credit on the next Evanescence or Lorde album. Yet there’s no denying that tracks such as Veka and Wiseblood are bangerz of the highest, and indeed saddest, order.

Ultimately, The Source, offers indisputable proof that the man from Lagos is thriving in what are supposed to be his twilight years. Like a vintage bottle of Château Lafite, he just seems to improve with each passing year. Long may he continue to do so.

The ambition and scope of these 23 songs is undeniably impressive, Scott still with a firm grip on the country and folk-minded tropes of his best back pages, augmented by (mostly) successful detours into the arenas of soul, funk, even hip-hop.

With enough reference points for old heads to spot and enjoy, but enough invention and melody to stand entirely on its own two feet, To The Bone--with its tales of paranoia and love in the fake news era--is thoroughly recommended.

While it may not be the long overdue and richly deserved breakthrough to a mass global audience, it’s another reassuring set of solidly crafted, intelligent adult pop.