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

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

A joyous sense of imagination proves to be its own reward.

Not a great leap forwards, then, but a welcome throwback nonetheless.

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

The record overflows with the tell-tale nuances of a band who have learnt how to translate grandiosity into something more restrained, yet no less forceful.

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.

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.

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.

Far from daft, Tomorrow’s Harvest is a psycho-spiritual stormer.

It’s a pitching and yawing listen, and it’s compelling and punchy in a way that’ll have you bouncing straight out of your chair.

What Kanye has created is the most honest--and yes, at times dislikable--record of his career.

Though Modern Vampires Of The City is flawed--there’s no stand-out single, and the low-key ‘Obvious Bicycle’ is far too sombre to justify its billing as the opening track--repeat listens to this third act are rewarded.

Essentially, Crybaby is an album that achieves exactly what it set out to do.

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

'Blunderbuss'' weaknesses are diminished by moments of sheer greatness.

At just eight songs, doesn't stick around long enough to outstay its welcome.

These songs are all excellent, and if the album had maintained that level of consistency it might have shaded into genius, but sadly the rest falls short, frequently lapsing into a pleasant but slight flexing of Thundercat’s considerable chops.

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

METZ is pulverizing, but in an artistic, superior way; the Canada-based trio balance noise, aggression and tact expertly.

This isn’t her masterpiece (that’s to come in the sixth and seventh suites), but it’s only a sliver away.

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

A very, very brilliant thing.

If a sense of staleness had begun to creep in round 2009's 'Popular Songs', Fade pretty much puts them back on track.

One Day finds Rowland weary, woozy and nakedly accepting of loneliness and age; a true soul man.

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.

A complete lack of compromise anywhere. Yet, whilst that means that it takes a few listens for the intricacies to fully come through (alongside stormy brooder ‘Strife’, early single ‘Husbands’ is still the most sonically independent offering here), it fundamentally endows the record with a clarity of vision that justifies all the hyperbole.

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