This is one holiday destination you really should explore.

[The] process of sonic expansion is continued apace on this latest effort.

All told, a rebel-rousing cut above today’s sludge.

Electric Trim is a missed opportunity. The emphasis on meandering acoustic balladry is a real shame.

Old sweetens the deal, with tracks as good as anything from previous releases. However it’s New that intrigues, confuses, saddens and ultimately tempts you back with its sheer vulnerability--this is far deeper than the cash grab landfill this reunion could’ve spawned.

There’s not a sound out of place or misstep, just swooning narcotic allure and bad attitude throughout what will be one of the year’s major debuts.

The duo’s drone-driven proclivities loosen these tunes from their secular shackles, freeing them from the earthly confines of time and place.

Whatever’s ailing him, he cuts through the murk for his most confident, affecting and clear-sighted album yet here.

How Do You Spell Heaven channels GBV of old.

Vol 2’s serrated guitars, sawdust vocals, tipsy piano and sardonic wit are a scalping delight, while still tapping reserves of tender beauty for Jumpstarting and Pulse.

Through its folksy acoustic front, Vol 1 brims with passion.

La Dee Da has a welcome edge, with a slightly sarcastic feel reminiscent of Grohl’s stint a few years back with Queens Of The Stone Age, and Dirty Water is a competent bit of mid-tempo, mid-intensity, mid-everything stadium rock, as indeed is pretty much the rest of this polished album.

Tendencies toward pop existentialism (song called Nihilist Abyss? Check) and sonic repetition are the cost of this querulous consistency, but her flair for sparely dramatic intensity compels.

Divorced from the times, though, it’s always the torpedo-damning oddballs who really stand out in any self-respecting compilation and here C88 comes up trumps in digging out Scottish proto-shoegazers Prayers’ gritty Sister Goodbye and cranky Mancunians King Of The Slums’ (literally) bile-soaked The Pennine Spitter.

The six songs that make up Terminal hit the sweet spot between glorious pomposity and roughshod urgency, all underpinned by the sheer delight in maximalist sonic attack.

It’s that signature weather-battered baritone that provides the most goosebumping moments however, crooning into the sunset about love, loss and failure.

Ultimately, the highlights here are those where Deerhoof are left to their own devices, as on the perky pop of Con Sordino or Kokoye, a scintillating blast of garage rock that might just be the best thing they’ve put to tape in years.

If the album’s remainder veers from hit to ho-hum, the Death In Vegas-ish bass pulse and deep-immersion dream-techno of Me Swimming offer clear hits of hypnotic electronica.

A superlative album that finds them back to their ethereal best.

Listen with dad for maximum uneasy, immersive and moving effect.

Yello (Glue Head), Cluster (Caramel) and even Factory label signatories Minny Pops (Son) also make the cut, but the most effective entries tend to be the unfriendliest ones: PIE (Versión) by Esplendor Geométrico, redolent of filthy concrete blast walls and quasar radiation; Sexual Discipline by Die Form, robot-blank and remorseless; and Krematorien by Universalanschluss, a strobing migraine of dots and squiggles.

All in all, it’s an exhaustive trawl through this proud provincial stronghold’s extraordinary creative archive and arguably the definitive guide to our trends in the north.

Overall Sleep Well Beast is a more subdued record that shows evidence of their solo side projects having shaped their new direction. Those who know that a new National album often requires multiple listens to fully grow and reveal its charms and nuances will have their patience rewarded, as this is a beautiful piece of work.

Raw and unfiltered, Invitation oozes with the exuberant energy of an 18 year-old, but shines with their collective experience, delivering heavy strikes to both the head and heart in the process.

A fairly decent substitute for those who can’t snag tickets.

Between concept and clamorous noise, Exile is the sound of an unflinching, old-school, outsider-punk voice rising to modern challenges.

While no new territory is broken on Orc, none needs to be. The expanding Oh Sees fanbase laps up the band’s highs and lows, of which there are both here.

Every Country’s Sun feels honed, and passages of ponderous string-picking now flow serenely into the bursts of noise (1,000 Foot Face, Old Poisons) that make them such an imposing force live.

Hippopotamus is exactly what you’d expect and more besides.

What a world of pleasure will open up to any adventurous young music fan taking a punt on this one though, and then proceeding to connect the dots.

This is intimate, timeless music performed with respect, tenderness and a heavy heart. Just another Unthanks record then.

A soulful set of tunes that includes a lush, laid back version of Georgia On My Mind that oozes a languorous eroticism.

Rather than damaging their genre-shaping legacy (influencing the birth of thrash and the wider scene in general), they’ve embellished it with a series of albums that could have followed Russian Roulette (1986), with The Rise of Chaos possibly their strongest reunion-era release so far.

Childhood don’t want for exploratory instincts, but focused tunes prove more elusive. Without them, this long hot summer of an album risks passing you by.

There are strong post-rock and metal overtones throughout the record, but it doesn’t pigeonhole itself; the influence of minimalist music can be detected in Stetson’s playing, and the album is not short of rhythmic swagger.

Willowy, wiry, windswept, it’s a haunting, hardly immediate but certainly growing, collection of songs that speak from deep inside. Intriguing stuff.

Trouble Maker is up there with their best.

Power Of Peace is exactly what it is; people old enough to have long packed up this business, getting down to it, having enormous enjoyment doing it. No one would expect it to touch either artists’ greatest work, but at times, it certainly comes close.

A mere 36 minutes in length, it’s an all-killer no-filler triumph.

Paced beautifully, a little funny, sonically on point, and with a wealth of new material for the hardcore, it continually rewards.

For the most part, it’s hard to deny that Granduciel has succeeded in pimping his wheels for bigger journeys.

The collection is likely to be remembered as a curious transitional chapter rather than placed on a pedestal alongside 2006’s meisterwerk Drum’s Not Dead. Even at its patchiest though, the sound of Andrew re-finding his feet offers greater rewards than most groups’ fully realised records of derivative blues-rock mating calls.

Murry reaches their greatest heights on Wrong Man, which treats a relationship’s death as a foregone conclusion to gorgeously unfiltered effect. It’s little wonder the evocatively scraped strings and precarious piano of When God Walks In barely hold themselves together, though Murry’s capacity for clarity is equally pronounced.

Here is a warm, kind album that may sag a little on the second side but has songs up there with Beam’s best. Think Teenage Fanclub’s recent Here for a similar bittersweet reunion. Mellow doubt indeed.

You’re left feeling that much of Painted Ruins could be a slow-burn grower, if those studiously painted collages were more emotionally inviting.

Brewed in DIY charm and classic pop nous, Earl Grey works best when it pairs tight, Abba-esque melodies and singer-songwriter pop with the lo-fi spirit of C86.

Almanack was captured in a week on analogue tape by studio vets Ken Scott and Matt Andrews. It shows on the result, a sprightly blast of rootsy playfulness carried with Rawlings’ effortless control of mood and musicianship.

Benefiting from Deradoorian’s ghostly vocals and Eyvand King’s orchestrations, Eucalyptus offers rich blooms wherever it roams.

While not entirely lacking new ideas (the louche, second version of Infinite Content would make Wilco proud), Everything Now feels like a brainstorming idea with one too many executives in the boardroom.

Barely any light gets in during nine tracks that all sprawl over five minutes, titles such as DTM. (Dead To Me), Screamin’ Jesus and the racism-savaging Duke’s God Bar harnessing the rage Vega called an energy into seething walls of multi-tiered electronic cacophony, wailing guitars and jackhammer beats, although the closing Stars carries the underlying optimism that was also a crucial element in his work.

As Light Return pushes The Telescopes’ sound to newer, often much darker places. It’s a bracing and occasionally totally disarming listen, but utterly compelling throughout.

Spirit Reflection entrances with its delicate, gossamer vocals drizzled over dreamy, summery soundscapes.

As befitting a band who met studying music at Toronto’s Humber College, this Late Night Tales is akin to capturing a conversation by friends bursting with excitement, sharing their latest musical finds.

Most of these songs (with the exception of the spooked, slow burner Hawaii--featuring a fantastically creepy snigger on the intro--and the yearning, melodically twisting beauty of Give Me Strength) would find their way onto various Young albums of various vintages over the years, but there’s an accumulative effect in hearing performances of songs as powerful as Pocahontas, Powderfinger and Campaigner unadorned and fresh in their authors mind.

Finally, this disturbing masterwork’s moment in the sun. Phoebus be praised.

There’s an easy charm about the whole project that lends it a robust confidence.

Opener If You’re Here is a perfect encapsulation of his art. Languorous, gentle, slightly off beat, its discordancy is offset by gorgeous harmonies sung with customary fragility by Oyamada. The rest of the album rides his well-established line between indie and electronica, with the quirk-heavy Sometime/Someplace and Helix/Spiral--a neat take on krautrock by way of Stereolab – providing the highlights.

He’s still doing his thing but goes deeper when he digs (It’s A Jungle Out There’s litany of modernity’s failings), he’s more wicked when he picks a target (white privilege on Brothers), and is still pushing the boundaries of his craft (all of it).

Cooper ventures further out, navigating abstract naval routes plotted by lonely hearts and plagued by daydreams, his tides of burbling static and deftly deployed lap-steel influenced by the solitary missions of real-life sea salts such as Vital Alsar and William Willis, their adventures a certain metaphor for Cooper’s own singular musical path.

At 121 tracks, a running time of nearly nine (NINE!) hours and 55 unreleased songs, it’s somewhat redundant to say this seven-disc boxset documenting the first decade of Fairport Convention’s life is strictly for the hardcore. Sadly – and herein lies the lament of the wallet-destroying boxset--in Come All Ye are songs that would convert a non-believer at 10 paces.

Produced by Memphis Boys’ bassist Tommy Cogbill, who had also played on Pickett’s sessions, Arthur Alexander mixes greasy soul with country funk.

At its best, the record touches on a manic, countrified rock that very early Kings Of Leon might’ve deemed too farmyard to get away with. Occasionally it bleeds over into a blander, stadium sound that seems unbefitting of its creator. But it’s never dull, and in fact often white-knuckle. It’s just a shame it took so long.

While the relaxed vibe is continuous, the music isn’t repetitive but there’s nothing really new here: rather it’s an extension of what Sade’s band Sweetback and trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor were doing well over a decade ago. Even so, it’s an enthralling fusion of sounds and styles.

Paranormal lacks both the nostalgia factor of its predecessor and a concept such as the one behind 2008’s Along Came A Spider. It also can’t claim to be a return to heaviness such as Dragontown from 2001. So what does it offer? Not much, other than a moderately listenable set of songs.

Hhe serves up striking versions of some of his most famous Riverside-era compositions, including Rhythm-A-Ning, and Well, You Needn’t. Also featured is the only known studio recording of Light Blue. The second disc in this 2CD package includes alternate takes and rehearsal versions and is accompanied by an informative 60-page booklet, including an essay by Monk’s biographer, Robin D G Kelley.

10 tightly produced co-writes with the massively influential polymath suggest they might finally strike lucky.

The Dears handle such disparate moods, genre fluidity and instrumental complexity with an architect’s precision.

The set mops up a satisfying amount of previously unreleased session material from 1967 and adds the first real stereo mix of the whole Wild Honey LP. ... But the real revelations come with the bonus tracks.

It’s a tremendously playful collection that veers from the spectral spaghetti western of Visa To The Stars to Chicken On The Rocks; an screwball jaunt that’s begging to be used as the theme for an absurd Radio 4 panel show.

The most vibrant cuts here, Long Time Coming and Brand New Name On An Old Tattoo, rise above generic nostalgia, but very little else is worth a second listen.

While this release fails to be definitive, at least it’s a start for a discography that had been long neglected by its creator.

The problem isn’t simply that he starts the album fixating on his reflection in Mirror and rarely budges. It’s that without a foil to contribute drama or dynamism to his doldrums, Pierce’s echo chamber of mithering is all-consuming.

Between Stuck’s bright indie-jangle and the layered guitars of the reflective Something Else, the result offers testimony to the robust flexibility of Chastity Belt’s alt. indie foundations; they make the evolution seem natural, not stretched.

Banditos light-heartedly plough a furrow of 60s garage-psych, soul, blues and country with a punkish good-time sense of savvy.

Twenty five years into your career, Dear is proof that heavy not only still rocks, but that under your [Boris'] charge, it is unlikely to get boring.

Despite being a compilation, this collection has an immaculate flow--like all Beach House albums.

Overall, the sound is pristine--it’s been remastered from the original 24-track tapes by esteemed engineer Paul Blakemore--and is accompanied by a thick booklet packed with essays.

Walls are punched, tapes are stolen, idols are desecrated... but somewhere in this chaos are tunes worthy of the reputation Chilton tried so hard to ruin.

The tunes might be a bit basic, but there sure ain’t any hackneyed love songs here, even Come Over having more of the feel of faux-cute early White Stripes material than drippy radio fare. Garage rock’s not dead.

Another minor issue is the non-appearance of key outfits The Danse Society, Sex Gang Children and X-Mal Deutschland, though the welcome inclusion of hard-to-source rarities from underrated, short-lived acts Rema Rema, Modern Eon and Dublin experimentalists The Threat ensures that Silhouettes And Statues ultimately makes for a surprisingly joyous celebration of all things dark and deathly.

While the concept may be suitably unhinged and the music boundary pushing, little of it ultimately sticks in the mind.

While the concept may be suitably unhinged and the music boundary pushing, little of it ultimately sticks in the mind.

Out In The Storm bares out the wound-baring pitch. The injuries remain, but its crunchy riffs, sharp melodies and forthright vocals comprise Crutchfield’s deepest, most direct emotional diagnoses yet.

This is their finest work to date.

The cumulative impact on Mother Of The Village and Take Me Home (featuring the Beaufort Male Choir) is potent: packing robust poignancy, these lullabies for working-class pride deep-mine history with great storytelling skill, sensitivity--and, pointedly, a kick of sustained political relevance.

Anyone who likes instrumental prog will be pretty at home with this, which might just also turn a new generation onto the genre’s noodly stylings. Waverers may be persuaded by the four star film, making the CD package the best purchase.

Occasionally the record can lose focus, without a standalone frontman/woman--and while that doesn’t make Hug Of Thunder bad, it can feel disjointed, like listening to a decade-spanning compilation, moving through genres and line-ups with discombobulating results. Still, better to have too much than not enough.

Funk is the dominant addition to the music presented here, with Mystic Djim & The Free Spirits utilising Latin rhythms on the punchy Yaoundé Girls and Bill Loko’s addictive Nen Lambo – apparently so popular it caused its creator to flee the country – adding liquid jabs of synth. On Sanaga Calypso meanwhile, Pasteur Lappe harnesses disco’s ubiquitous grooves. The best stuff here keeps the additions subtle however.

Perrett’s mordant wit and laconic vocal delivery are happily intact and his current band (which includes sons Jamie and Peter Jr) sympathetically top and tail these 10 memorably idiosyncratic odes to love and despair. Highlights are heady and plentiful.

Love is the soundtrack to a short film by Jesse Nieminen (also titled A Walk With Love And Death), and is essentially a series of bugged-out sound collages. Though intriguing on first listen, it’s Death which is the real draw here.

An album aglow with a clear-eyed confidence in hushed, honeyed quietude.

The affirmative, feel-good tone is set with the mid-tempo opener, Don’t Leave Me Here, the first of two tunes the blues men co-wrote together.

Much more than The War Of The Worlds for indie kids, thoroughly recommended.

This is more the work of a road-hardened posse, as opposed to the more introspective troubadour of more recent times, the frontman’s now spitting out odes to blue collar pride (The Firebreak Line, If Mama Coulda Seen Me).

Is This The Life We Really Want? is a stunning accomplishment, as rich as anything Waters has ever managed.

There are gloriously sunny melodies (Cali is a breezy masterpiece), near ambient drones (Integration Tape) and even a touch of politics on Home Is A Feeling. But it’s 100% a Ride record, and neither time nor current fashions can alter that. And nor should it.