In throwing his emotional locker wide open, Frank Ocean has made a tender, engrossing classic.

Far-out, fascinating, fantastic--just plain F-ing good.

It might be as modern as loincloth, but ‘California X’ is surely a future classic.

Frankly, it’s a delightful, demented journey into pure psych chaos. Essential listening.

Deerhoof's eleventh album continues their long tradition of delighting and confounding in equal measure.

What richly rewarding, flourishing, beautiful songs they are.

This is Peace using 90s sounds to channel that decade’s optimism into something positive for today.

This is music that demands to be played loud, and often.

A perfectly-crafted album rich in just about everything.

The Oklahoma songwriter is back with some of her most ebullient, ambitiously styled music to date on St Vincent.

Impressively diverse but united by a strain of quintessentially Maccabeean hopeless hopefulness, it's an outpouring of both technical brilliance and affective emotion that thrives in its sheer humanity.

It's really bloody good.

Another near-flawless piece of work.

Something's exquisite charms confirm that Chairlift mk.II are a much-improved proposition.

Oozing more nihilistic youthful abandonment than anyone since Black Lips, their manifesto sounds pretty appealing from here.

Forget hidden depths, Plumb exposes every inch of the Brewises' brilliance.

Occasionally the bare-bones arrangements, a virtue in the main, serve to expose minor shortcomings in the songs. But overall, it’s a quibble far outweighed by the thrill afforded by a record that’s as honest and open-hearted as anything this great band have put their names to yet.

With Loud City Song, Julia Holter marks the scene’s zenith, continuing her journey from obscurity, through marginality and onwards into accessibility.

These are songs that flinch as much as they fight, that veer wildly into strange territories but never overindulge and that, essentially, draw all of the best bits from Coxon's weird and wonderful arsenal into one inimitable package.

Irrespective of genre or decade, 'Rispah' is an astonishing tsunami of emotion which above all, makes you feel alive.

Constantly exhilarating, it's a sensory obliteration that proves that now, more than ever, APTBS are much more than just noise.

[WIXIW is] dizzying, discordant and heavily rhythmic, as Andrew, Hemphill and Gross weave found sounds, freaky fragments of melancholy off-kilter melody, spiralling keyboard motifs, flurries of strings and distorted vocals and riffs through electronics that crunch and crack like shattered glass.

Overall, this is a daring, dynamic and dramatic debut.

While some of the abstract material here is frustratingly opaque, how many other ‘pop’ acts can you name that would have the brass cojones to drop a near 20-minute track right in the middle of their record? Astonishing.

An album of chilly, detached beauty.

It’s the longest and best Laura Marling record yet.

It's an album that reels you in, enveloping everything in a black mist, from the slick protestations of 'Dark Star' to the surging intensity of closer 'Leading To Death'.

Their LP betrays nothing other than attention to detail, enviable knowledge of their musical history and the ability to chisel hunks of belligerent punk that could revitalise the genre.

It's a record that effortlessly juxtaposes chopped up electronics and ghostly effects with James' supersweet voice to create eleven strange but simple pleasures.

The now-quartet’s fourth record marries prickly melody with glossy discord, eclipsing not only its predecessors but its entire genre.

It’s the romantic last dance of an album that shows that they’re still the same old Monkeys. Just dressed up slicker and sexier.

Nostalgic, positive and romantic, it pumps new warmth into Copenhagen’s cold and concrete punk movement.

A spectacular, modern take on a classic, timeworn formula.

[Unsound] is as rough, ragged and wracked as they've ever been, the likes of 'Dust Devil' and '7's' pushing needles thoroughly into the red.

This time round, perhaps due to Courtney’s settling down and the addition of Girls keyboardist Matt Kallman, the band sounds fuller and more mature, with a tendency to look forward rather than harking back to the past.

[Once Krug's genius is realized by the world] then riches untold will pile up and allow him to do nothing but make albums like 'Heartbreaking Bravery'.

This debut's sophistication might mean Jessie slinks to the forefront rather than shoving her way to the top, but however long it takes, Devotion marks a new chapter in this future-pop superstar's journey.

Articulate lyrics, brutality, aggression and hot, thick-and-fast sequences that could turn Benjamin Francis Leftwich into a spliff-stealing thug characterise 119.

Some of the best material she's ever penned.

'Lost Souls' is so preposterously raucous it should have the record industry running scared at the point of a pitchfork.

'A Different Ship' is a magnificent return.

It's pretty f***ing awesome.

The Californians still play ethereal tunes that could waft on forever.

An intimate and very British release to cherish and hold close; it also happens to be one of the year’s best so far.

Traps shakes with stoned-in-a-basement riffs and sarcasm.

Spoek Mathambo's mixture of rapid rhymes and genre-melding combining thrillingly.

Sure, this is a great garage rock record--but it’s dreaming even bigger.

It doesn’t quite rank alongside their very strongest material, but there are still more rippling vocal harmonies and gutting one-liners than most bands could be proud of in a lifetime.

It’s intimidating at first, but once your eyes acclimatise, you’ll relish joining them in the shadows.

The zingy, careening pop of 'Do The Right Thing', and the grandiose welterweight rock of 'Teenage Daughter' are their most effective communiqués.

Melody's magic combination of dreamy sonics and saccharine vocals is an inexorable pleasure.

Psychic is perfectly executed, impenetrable.

Bold, vulnerable and pleasingly disjointed, miraculously Night Time, My Time was worth the wait.

Both bewitching and berserk, Featherbrain keeps its creator comfortably in the shadows.

He’s absorbed new influences into the unique framework he creates around his songs, pulling in aspects of house, gospel and R&B to create something alluringly strange yet pleasingly palpable.

Mostly, it's a success.

A sweet, sad record full of wide-eyed wonder and a charming, youthful naivety.

An explosion of Snaith's warm-yet-manic verve, this is euphoria from a new master of the dancefloor.

An album that's sprinkled with magic.

The Londoners' ramshackle summer vibes are still happy to coast along on a slacker wave rather than streamlining too directly.

Another twelve inches of brilliance.

Halcyon is a bold and confident step forward.

Ester is very much an individualist work.

It's the freakier corners here that shine bright like neon.

In short, this time, they've nailed it.

Morbid one minute, cute the next, finally untangling 'Choreography' is an engrossing pleasure.

That Christopher Owens' songs are so simultaneously vivid, immersive and indulgent is one thing, that he has crafted the character to execute them so expertly is quite another.

Disenchantment should always be this spellbinding.

Ecstatic, raucous, spine-tingling and delivered in the only way they know, Baby is a piece of Tribes for their devoted followers to hold onto.

America Give Up proves them to be far more exciting than a mere second generation rip-off.

With psych bite and cosmic volume stripped away, Nielson’s brilliant, dextrous playing and addled lyrical bravery are illuminated brighter than ever.

Her classically trained sensibilities shine through on her first solo effort, which sparkles with understated beauty.

A well-rounded and mature second album.

'Visions' is a cornucopia of Claire Boucher's most vivid waking dreams. Gripping, then, but also as intangible as the prevailing dread of a forgotten nightmare.

Despite its length and moments of lyrical self-loathing, Wakin' neither bores nor depresses.

An album that ups the radio-friendly factor without compromising any emotion.

A fully realised work of intellect and warmth.

This majestic medley of eight 'exercises' is a fine display of creativity, where morphing piano loops sound like the modern classical of Philip Glass honed into a structured formula.

Algiers, then, is everything we know Calexico to be: lucid with grit and tempered with melody, easily the equal of their career's best work.

There are times when all you need is a stompy bass drum to underpin a killer melody, and that's exactly what makes Beacon tick; nothing's overworked or overcomplicated.

Prepare to swoon.

The resulting collection of campfire singalongs proving nothing short of magical.

Girls Names make sadness moreish and hypnotic.

Whatever their reference points, Friends always end up sounding like Friends: now but new wavey, cool but catchy, spare but packed with odd sonic squiggles.

On Four Bloc Party manage to make their affecting and dizzyingly devilish music sound relevant and exciting again.

Smart guys, smart record.

Their narratives have been stronger before, but 'Noctourniquet' remains abject absurdity masquerading as sexy heroism.

It’s a rewarding mixture of romance, wit and fantasy.

Born To Die may ultimately prove too-blinkered a vision to fully appeal to the Sheeran-loving public in the long run, but Lana has certainly proved that she's not just here to play games.

Truly special.

Bookended by snippets of crackling fireworks, the aptly-titled 'Celebration Rock' is big on anthems, euphoria and fistpumping rock'n'roll thrills.

There are moments of weightlessness and beauty here.

The juggernauting anthemia that has become their signature is upscaled for Reflektor, a wider-than-widescreen, 70-minute, two-disc odyssey.

Tear-stained and unsettled it may be, but the second chapter of Perfume Genius' flamboyant, disturbing story is uniquely compelling.

It’s good to have them back.

We know a damn good noise rock debut when we hear one.

It’s a compelling story; through industry difficulties and growing pains, comes a lovesick, loveable and brilliant album.

Despite expanding their sonic remit further than ever, Queens Of The Stone Age are still the same peerless band, indebted only to themselves.