A touch more volume on the instruments and a bit of extra distance between one man's mouth and his microphone, this might have been a blissful exercise in studied yet clamorous rock music.

It's certainly far more accessible, and much more ingrained in traditional dance and electronic styles, but it still has that unfamiliarity that remains The Knife's trademark.

Despite Jack White's claims that each song is separate due to the archive nature of his source material Lazaretto is a cohesive entity made distinct by the range of styles and structural arrangements on individual tracks.

Familiars is bleak and dreary, potentially at the cost of dragging in certain spots. However, those willing to spend enough time wrapped in its moody embrace will be rewarded with a quite beautiful experience.

On the whole, it feels like this is an album we've heard before. In all fairness, they rise well above mediocrity in certain areas.

Their third album, Until Silence, is a pleasant listen, but falls at a couple of key moments.

The beautifully crafted lyrics of Things Are Really Great Here, Sort of are slowly offset by the melancholy implied in the title, at times through the stirring yet mournful violin-caressing and whistling Bird.

With Seek Warmer Climes' slight redirection, Toubro and Lower offer mantras to live by, beguilingly presented and difficult to ignore, but with a serious sting in the tail.

Noise is another impressive addition to Boris' expansive catalog of experimental rock.

So Deep Fantasy works as ten lithe, wiry punk ragers, ten howls into our personal nothingness. It works very well as that. But it's more.

In her grand tradition of coining absurd descriptive phrases, Del Rey and Auerbach have christened all this "narco swing", an apt characterisation if only one assumes it's short for narcoleptic; it takes some doing to make sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll sound boring, but in her hands, the vices of hedonism scan as crushingly monotonous.

Donker Mag is unashamedly synthetic in its make-up--a carefully constructed affectation of hooks, melodies and outlandish braggadocio.

There aren't too many moments on the band's fourth studio LP that are going to reach out and steal you away.

Thankfully, rather than this coming across as some comprehensive grave robbery, Greys have added enough of their own ingredients to concoct quite the powerful brew.

It's this widening of scope, combined with such a strong sense of identity, which makes Reality Testing tick over beautifully.

Heartstrings may be a rather trippy journey, but be assured, you are at all times with a capably lucid and extremely thoughtful driver.

The poor lyrics and minimal change in style makes almost all of Luck's tracks sound like slightly more polished B-Sides to his debut of 11 years previous.

This is still a lovely, lovely record, on the surface at least; I'm not sure it'll stand up quite as well to heavy rotation as its predecessor.

WIFE marries the intensity and raw energy of Kelly's background in metal with the subtler inflections of electronica and aquatic pop fluidity; in doing so, he forges an intense album, well worth getting sucked into.

International is extremely effective as a pop album, with stand-outs ('Armida' is very, very good) and a consistency of tone matched by pretty flawless execution.

It's cerebral, visceral storytelling. How you feel about that is your prerogative.

It's an album that you need to experience for yourself, to have it ease into your world and make a home, to feel its freedom, to visit and revisit again and again.

While there are hours of discussions to be had about whether "electronic/classical" hybrids can consistently sound good in a pop context, New Eyes provides ample evidence for erring on the electronic side of that split.

There is a little too much grace and not enough diss.

A considered but playful overdue debut, Towards will no doubt sustain and serve them well as head onwards and upwards.

We know what these artists can do separately. We've even had a glimpse of what they can do together, and when held up to that (and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't hurt me to say this) Do It Again just doesn't stand up.

Easy Pain is absolutely colossal.

Parquet Courts succeed at remaining magnificent, without really exerting themselves.