An honest & emotional record.

The post-hiatus band are still angry and have something to say.... Welcome back, gang.

Dragging their new wave and post-punk influences to the fore, the Sacramento crew have produced their most dynamic, adventurous and downright strange album in years.

A relentlessly insistent, unexpectedly danceable record which manages to be as engaging as it is wilfully bizarre.

It's a brilliant, timeless debut and a must-listen.

Though ‘The Powerless Rise’ only signifies progression within strict genre parameters, AILD have stuck to their guns with flair.

Die Without Hope shows them at their most uncompromising, bleak and arse-splittingly heavy.

It may not be pushing the boundaries, keeping much of the stylisations of the band's debut, but the sum really is as great as all of its parts.

Common Courtesy is not the end of this band. If anything, it’s their new beginning.

Frantic opener ‘Praise Poison’ feels like the heaviest song they’ve penned in years, while elsewhere the slow, heavy-hitting riff of ‘Lock & Load’ and the desperate, raking soar of ‘Flyover States’ make this a versatile, and interesting album that manages to combine everything that’s great about this band’s rich back catalogue.

The Wilderness is the perfect title, too; the album’s nine songs exploring an expansive, evocative range of sounds, grooves, peaks and valleys. Which is to say, this is something really quite special.

This is a grower not a shower but persevere because White Silence has been worth the wait.

A compelling, intricate album in which to lose yourself.

Admittedly, it’s easy to sneer at this album for its lack of diversity, but it’s a tried and tested formula. And, for Airbourne it’s one that works.

Monolithic, streamlined and straight from the underworld, Snakes For The Divine is High On Fire's finest hour thus far.

Lyrics largely consist of nostalgic references, in-jokes and arch observations, but with a bummed-out charm that invites rather than excludes. If you’ve played the classics to death and want a fresh fix, this is among the best of the new breed’s offerings.

Five Serpent's Teeth is 100 per cent square in the Evile MO: twisted kinetic riffs from the Brothers Drake push the needle into the red before resolving themselves in anthemic choruses.

Beloved is both a reincarnation of old and a lesson in modern metalcore that makes IKTPQ the oldest newcomers to stake their claim for 2014.

It’s a challenging and, at times frustrating listen, with great melodies getting lost amongst the feedback--but it begs your attention nonetheless.

Some of his vocal lines seemed rushed and out-of-sync with the American metal chug, but he proves his pipes on a fair number of spots.

For all its bluster, There Is A Hell is far more than the story of a man battling his self-perpetuated inner turmoil; it is the sound of a remarkable band establishing themselves as one of the finest of their generation.

Clouded is possibly the most beautiful record about heartbreak you’ll hear all year.

Beach Slang’s second full-length does a stellar job of building on frontman James Alex’s knack for storytelling.

As soulful and finely crafted as their debut of sorts, II is a glorious record.

It's still heavy, still weird and Jared Warren still sounds like a water buffalo gargling turpentine, and while there might just be four tracks to be had they're still more kingly than 99 per cent of whatever else is calling itself 'rock' music these days.

Free from the shadows of their past, it seems Young Widows have found an infinitely darker place to dwell.

Full of textured, wide-screen soundscapes, the record dips its feet in electronic waters, yet retains the emotional vulnerability that has always defined the Atlanta band. There’s an extra dose of sinister unease, too, especially on ‘Lead, SD’ and ‘The Moth’.

[A] mightily ambitious, versatile record.

While none quite make it all the way, they do end up nestling rather nicely among the planets.

A brief but superb collection, this cements them as one of the most compelling acts in their genre.

This long-awaited second album isn’t just thrilling from start to finish: it might also be exactly what rock needs right now.

Relentless Reckless Forever, the band's seventh album, is more of the same but faster and stronger.

Lost Forever, Lost Together is the sound of Architects finding and unleashing the buried treasure they’ve been searching for.

Ruthlessly combining technical brutality and pure fucking class, DevilDriver have finally come of age.

Famously chaotic musical magpies Dana Janssen, Seth Olinsky and Miles Seaton have outdone themselves here in concocting an album almost as enigmatic as its title.

That the record spans their 15-year lifespan puts the kybosh on continuity a touch; see announcing your last song in the middle of an album. However, that’s generally overridden by sheer dumb fun within cuts like synth-drenched supermarket ode "Tesco V Sainsbury's".

With The Big Deep they've taken a much more straightforward approach to things than ever before and ended up with a collection of solid, accessible rock songs.

A great introduction to a band destined for very good things indeed.

Born of isolation and introspection, Stomachaches is hugely likeable, and leaves everything on the table.

The production allows the introspective oddness of Soto’s lyrics to show through better, lending them a really likeable, stand-out character.

Crowbar were always more reflective. And that's kind of what Sever The Wicked Hand is all about, corpulent down-tuned riffs and a sense of grizzled resignation articulated through Windstein's taut songwriting and sorrowful croon.

It sounds ferocious and is going to have you feeling filthy and dealing with tinnitus afterwards, but nothing's going to stop you from rocking.

While they’ve ramped up the production values on this follow-up, its nine tracks retain the reckless zest for life that have defined their creators’ output.

11 tracks with all the anguish that melodic hardcore thrives on, but with enough testosterone to keep it on the right side of whiney.

his is polished, assured pop-rock custom built for massive stages and even bigger singalongs, and both are no doubt in the pipeline.

Stripped down to a three-piece since Tyondai Braxton's surprise departure, Battles' sophomore effort may not have a nailed-on stand-out like their debut's Atlas but their dizzying electro-prog has a great deal more focus this time around.

The Husker Du-lionising and strategic swearing of earlier releases might be absent, but Let's Wrestle's copious charms are otherwise very much in force on their full-length debut.

The Ohio pop-punks are on their finest form in years here.

The Foo Fighters may have ballooned in size over the past few years and if it took them going back to their roots to make an album this good then so be it, but when all is said and done Wasting Light is as an example of how to be a globe-eatingly massive band and still sound young, hungry and, above all, important.

Chuck Ragan's third full-length solo release, oozes blue-collar charm.

This is a brilliant collaboration between two of the most inventive musicians of recent times.

It’s the stellar-sounding closer ‘This Place Is Death’ that perfectly demonstrates the striking yet violent contrasts that make album number six a masterpiece.

It doesn't shun country influences altogether, mind--when matched to the album's mood and Green's plain-speaking lyrics, they function to add a soulful feel to a set of characteristically lovely, melancholic songs.

Fusing hardcore with metal and occasionally veering off on deranged, druggy tangents, this is an ambitious blend of sounds.

48 minutes that will go down among the very best of this year.

Baffling yet hum-able at the same time, this is the work of a band without a clue where they're going, and it's all the stronger for it.

The Fatal Feast might fall short of improvement, but for headbanging, whiplash-inducing chaos there are still few better than the Waste.

This is a deafening, destructive and devilishly diverse affair, serving as a firm and timely reminder that when it comes to this particular game, nobody does it quite like this.

As ever, their songs are structured, paced and technically advanced in a way that's leagues above much of this genre.

Though it’s still very early doors, Seaway could have just put in a strong claim as the first pop-punk breakthrough of 2015.

An alluring, seductive listen that might take a while to get under your skin, but once there will point blank refuse to leave.

There may be fewer hooks and a lack of a real fist-in-the-air anthem, but on The Home Inside My Head, these sad boys become men. Gracefully.

The band’s mad formula is familiar now, but there’s still enough experimentation here to keep things interesting.

If they can combine the desperate urgency demonstrated on that first EP (which is a little diminished here) with the more finely-crafted songwriting they’re moving towards, they will be swimming onward, rather than sinking, for a long while to come.

If world leaders, corporate douche-monkeys and the 1 per cent could just hear Fang Island, there would be no war, inequality or bad vibes.

Though nowhere near the monolithic, bottled lightning of ‘The ’59 Sound’, this is a return to the Brian Fallon the rock world fell trucker caps over Chuck Taylors in love with.

To some it will seem cloying and trite, but persevere: underneath Scott Hutchison’s warm burr lie a clutch of songs that deserve to be held close and tight.

In short To Be Everywhere... is another triumphant step for a band whose two-decade growth from able but impetuous riff merchants to purveyors of truly ambitious art has been nothing short of inspiring.

The result is a beautifully fragile acoustic record that positions him as the missing link between Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash.

Few bands out there twist metal into such bewildering, bewitching shapes, and--somehow--there’s little sign of their well running dry.

While some of these songs may not be up to the standard of their world-beating best, it’s clear they’re still having a lot of fun.

As fans of the group will attest, there's nothing quite like experiencing Mogwai in a live setting and while Special Moves might never fully capture that sheer weight of sound, it nevertheless represents a hugely impressive live document (even without Burning, the accompanying DVD).

Their fizzy keyboards and Bob Mould-y vocals remain intact, but essentially this is conventional indie-rock.

Individually, tracks like ‘Hymn To The Pillory’ and ‘Somersault’ aren’t particularly staggering, but as a whole body of work it really is something else.

The downside is they’ve lost a little of their trademark lo-fi fuzz, but singer Mariel Loveland’s lyrics stand out as more succinct and immediate this time around.

Root For Ruin is a worthy continuation of their oeuvre, and a better album than 07's "Let's Stay Friends."

This is the sound of a band re-discovering the aggression that made them so great in the first place, and applying it ably to their new template.

Negative Qualities might be uncomfortable listening, but it’s also entrancing, from the scrawny punk rock jams to the Nirvana-esque ‘Feel Shame’ or the surprisingly tuneful late-’90s emo of ‘Money’.

With barely a weak song in sight, the Brighton duo have delivered a collection of tracks of taut, visceral quality.

Occupying a middle-ground between the thrashy, riff-a-minute assault of ’95 and the Gothenburg band’s earlier, darkly atmospheric releases, these 13 tracks form a cohesive and consistently evocative whole.

Far from being an inter-album stop-gap, this EP represents nothing less than the fruits of a musical brain that simply doesn't know how to stop creating goodness.

It's the Bostonians' simplicity that's most endearing though, and this is a terrific, hangover-inducing return to form.

Put simply, this is another wonderful release from a brilliant band.

Their songs, while essentially playful and lovable--more so than ever on Vs Evil, the San Francisco band's 10th album, which features near-lounge music moments--have a hard centre and are often tricky to parse, thanks in no small part to Satomi Matsuzaki's lyrics.

Lonesome guitars wend their way through the shimmer of rising heat, synth swells collapse into dust and a plaintive violin calls to a long-lost lover, all of which twines itself together to form a rich experimental drone that's as vast, lonely and unending as the desert images they conjure.

The way they put together their country-rock is rarely less than tasteful with some nice moments, like the sinuous guitar riff of 'Calamity Song'. Only on 'January Hymn', though, where they capture the stillness and melancholy of winter beautifully, do you forget to check the joinery.

It's still apparent that Mogwai have, once again, produced a record of astonishing subtlety.

Whitechapel are one of the best and downright annihilating bands their field.

A lofty debut effort indeed.

This is perhaps BTBAM's most compact, streamlined effort to date, and despite the convoluted, sci-fi indebted concept which forms its lyrical foundation (Google it), this is a seriously aggressive half hour of power.

Circa Survive have managed to stay both relevant and utterly compelling – not just surviving but thriving.

It all combines to make Citizen’s gloomiest, most atmospheric record yet--and also one of the most disturbing of the year so far. It’s a memorable journey.

A stunning opener to the album, its dynamic range, gleaming melody and driving anthemic nature exemplify what this band was always all about.

Continuing where the dark grooves of 8's Nude With Boots left off, The Bride… exhibits the perfect marriage between the Big Business boys and Melvins main-men King Buzzo and Dale Crover.

Trouble is, after one listen it becomes evident that MB hardly benefit from further investigation – they’re just another hipster band who got lucky.

There's enough excitement and progression here to make Chasing Ghosts a worthwhile look.

While A Nation Sleeps is typically impassioned, excellent stuff that marries wretched, raw aggression and political indignation with massive melodies that are just on the right side of cheesy.

It’s the newfound multi-layered vocals of Mike Hranica and Jeremy DePoyster that give tracks like ‘War’ and ‘Sailor’s Prayer’ a compelling dexterity of textures and allows each track to venture into previously uncharted territory with the utmost conviction.