Unfortunately though, as a solidified body of work, it’s lacking. It can be likened to the Star Wars sequels: nostalgic, fun and thrilling, yet relies on sentimentality to entertain. It fails to offer anything particularly new, and feels completely thrown together disregarding the potential greatness that could’ve been.

Unwanted has genuine highlights even if it grows boring and repetitive as an album.

When My Heart Felt Volcanic is a breezy, fun debut, but The Aces hardly stray from the road well-travelled. It’s a shame, considering they’re at their best when they push beyond the generic indie-rock song structure.

Acoustic Dust is for those who, at a bare minimum, enjoyed Ranaldo’s latest solo efforts and are interested enough to hear what some of them might sound like in a different setting.

Overall Resistance is Futile is an interesting nexus of the Manics’ twin ambitions towards populism and complexity--and an encouraging sign that they are still progressing after over 30 years.

It’s hardly a surprise that Big Wheel and Others is at its best when McCombs just keeps it simple with himself and his acoustic guitar, while the moments where he overreaches are the longer pieces without the focus found elsewhere.

Marlon Williams is a perfectly pleasant listen, but we’ll have to check back to see what Williams can do when his personal experience catches up to his subject matter.

TV En Francais isn’t less successful than its predecessors, but the tracks that show a band evolving naturally offer a more welcomed take on the band in 2014.

The highs of Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile are vibrant and energetic. Yet the album’s title itself encapsulates both these highs and the record’s low points. Some tracks merely plod along; others stretch dissonance to breaking point.

Miss Power is a solid instalment from Constance, with real high points across multiple genres. The voice notes are a little heavy-handed, and “YUCK!” risks losing the crowd, but Constance has still shown herself as an exciting voice in indie and alternative pop.

Hardly euphoric but with some real mastery in the guitar, not dissimilar to Body/Head, this is dark swell of analog experimentation will no doubt intrigue guitar geeks globally.

The sonic diversity, for a theme so enveloped in love, doesn’t sit right in a narrative album set in the age of protest. But it opens a door to many plausible pathways; his next big step is to choose wisely.

It’s an overdose of things that would, individually, be fantastic, but are made lesser by their combination.

Musically there’s much to tie Rustie to his Scottish compatriot Hudson Mohawke, and though they may be working from the same spreadsheet, at the moment Rustie still remains in is shadow.

Rather than making a sharp left turn on Basses Loaded, the band instead pays homage to their long, curious history by plugging in with some longtime cohorts, making an unholy ruckus, and once again not giving a damn about what we think of it.

For existing fans this is a tonally varied addition to his substantial oeuvre, but the record will likely prove too oblique, even passé, for more virgin ears.

They haven't really taken a new direction with regards to the songwriting on Decency.

Notably absent from Redcar les adorables étoiles is the sense of exquisite, crystalline vision present in Letissier’s prior work. Perhaps this lack is only a function of the production style, featuring reverb-soaked vocals, rambling melodies, and spacey synthesizers.

Big Deal's third album is pleasantly dreamlike and fuzzy, but lacking focus.

Most reformed bands are creatively barren, hawking around twenty five year old songs, so for Medicine to break this cliché is a great, great thing--it’s just a shame that some of the interesting sounds they create here couldn’t have incubated for a bit longer.

It’s not until Meteorites broadens its scope a little that it begins to offer up genuine highlights.

There are undeniable moments of beauty (the radar-bleeping beginning of “A Light Above Descending” is lent a lovely, watercolour quality by its gentle horn accompaniment), and the live cuts tend to fare better than the studio recordings, imbued as they are with a tangibly excitability. It’s irrefutable though--much of Sea of Brass (by which I mean both the studio album itself and its associated extras) does feel bloated.

These songs feel as if they only exist as a reference for performances, rather than for their own good. Not to mention that the point of a house show is missed if I am forced to put the record on in a crowded metro just to imitate the feeling of getting thrown around in a drunken haze before work.

The second half passes with little to no note, leaving a yearning for perhaps a bit more adventure in the future.

At times acutely annoyingly, far-out wackiness permeate much of the proceedings, rendering the album's less rewarding half as disposable as the band's frustratingly inconsequential recent self-indulgences ala messy guest star workout The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (2012).

There are certainly high points to be found here, but the feeling that vital cogs in the Rustie machinery are missing never quite subsides.

Joy'All ends up being a bit of everything and never establishing a clear enough character. The injection of joy is refreshing yet contrived, and all the simultaneous changes seem too big of an undertaking for her collaborators, who are not able to cultivate her sound.

With skills and interests cemented across various styles, he’s figuring out in real time exactly what he does best – providing floor fillers to club crowds or elevating his performances through complex production. Perhaps when he sings, “Where are my wings? / they’re loading”, the artist is acknowledging that he’s still to assume his most resolute form yet.