There is plenty that is remarkable about Real Gone.

A profound melancholy suffuses the elegant and often sublime Damaged.

This is an album to savour when autumn leaves are falling--and through the rest of the year, too.

These are tunes that twinkle and thunder like exploding stars, and show that there are still infinite possibilities in two guitars, bass and drums.

It’s an unusual record made more beguiling by Tamko’s deep and adaptable voice.

The Cookbook is a convincing return to form.

It’s a sustained and hypnotic march through minimalist, post-Sabbath landscapes, and crucifyingly heavy on every level.

Whatever its limits, however, Trilogy remains a striking piece of work.

The second work for 4AD by the Toronto-based, Illinois-born artist arrives with perfect timing, and tackles difficult issues with her most accessible music so far.

The New Abnormal proves that when they put their minds to it, that old magic is still well within the Strokes’s grasp.

Everything from the heavenly Floyd to the slightly sickly cover of Labi Siffre's Bless the Telephone signal that she has matured into an artist at ease with her position as pop's perennial outsider.

English Graffiti may win some new fans and lose some old ones, but it shows that the Vaccines are certainly no one-trick ponies.

Forget genre, though, and this unique album has much going for it.

It’s in the nature-driven tranquility of sole ambient cut My Body Is Powerful and the affirming vocal samples on spiralling single Can You See Me? where Octo Octa manifests the record’s intent, championing and validating her community. In this year of great tensions, music has rarely looked so up.

A big moment is the ethereal R&B pastiche Constant Conversations, with Swedish a cappella trio Erato, but there are virtually no duds here.

Still, if 21 represents all there is or is ever going to be, it's hard not to be hugely impressed. As sarcophagi go, it's a spectacularly well-appointed one.

This new album picks up exactly where the Kings left off, with warm melodies and exquisitely detailed ruminations.

Her songs are tough and earthy, hating mere prettiness when fieriness or forcefulness are required.

It's a very clever album, and at times easier to admire than to simply enjoy because there is so much going on.

Just don't dip into the album fleetingly - it's music that's hard to appreciate in snippets, but more than satisfactory when devoured as a whole.

It is in the composition of sound that Kwes stands out.

After a decade apart, Be Your Own Pet are a far better band: explicit, tight, even more inventive.

Bridging past and present, Sweet Justice is a breathless, intoxicating album bursting with ideas and creativity, and reveals something different and compelling with every listen.

Like their most obvious stylistic ancestors, Sonic Youth, everything feels primal and instinctive, chaotic but controlled.

It's not the easiest listen in the world, but it's not supposed to be: at a time when most of what passes for alternative rock sounds desiccated, Amphetamine Ballads feels raw and potent and alive.

They are protest songs, but sound anything but worthy or world-weary. Instead, they are sun-soaked aural fizz bombs which channel indie rock through his love of David Bowie and Abba.

The lush melodic sense that deserted Air on 10000Hz Legend has returned.

A sparse, percussive version of jazz standard Autumn Leaves fragments its gentle melody into jagged shapes, only finding respite in James Francies’ journeying Rhodes solo. Nonetheless, Night Reign is a welcome step forward, demonstrating how Aftab’s voice isn’t just a soothing presence but can also evoke everything from solipsism to eroticism and anxiety over these mercurial and moody soundscapes.