Sic Alps is an often fine, often frustrating listen which only succeeds when some flesh is applied to those skinny Californian bones.

As usual, it features some reliably masterful beat work and production, but, at the same time, falls somewhat short in becoming the grand defining statement that its creator was intending it to be.

Basic rhythms, simple synth melodies and the occasional burst of fuzz guitar provide a primitive vehicle for Cameron’s idiosyncratic lyrics, where the record’s real pleasures reside.

That’s not to say that Get Hurt isn’t a good album, with some excellent songs on it. But, if you’re looking for more of the blue collar punk of the band’s early years, you might initially be underwhelmed by what it has to offer.

It can’t match the drive and power of his electric projects by its very nature, so it may well remain a release for the hardcore fans.

Courting The Squall touches and recaps on the ideas which Guy Garvey masters in his romanticisms and balladry, but gloriously glimpses his experimental and playful side.

Although Wasser has perhaps sounded better in the past and too many of the songs stretch past their welcome, The Classic is a welcome addition to Joan As Police Woman's repertoire and a recommended addition to any album collection due to its impressive ability to surprise and innovate as it moves forward.

Distinctly shying away from the commercial, Chad VanGaalen is an explorative soul and although his frightening world is separate from ours, he makes a peaceful journey of it.

The record doesn’t achieve a great deal in saying anything new. It’s far from a disaster, though. ... The main issue with Amnesty (I) is that Crystal Castles needed to say something different.

You’d hope there’d be more new ideas injected in to Simon’s music. As it is however, Migration feels disappointingly close to home.

It’s simply the mark of a record that’s captured them exactly as they are at this moment in time. Although it’s tempting to call Instructions a ‘fascinating document’, it’s probably more accurate to settle for ‘rad record’.

While it can be an emotionally turbulent listen that continually returns to the fracturing of the self and the breaking apart from others, this is also an album that is deeply arresting and vital, a reminder that these ruptures are a part of the rocky terrain of life.

At times, their ambition really clicks into place (the euphoric bounce of ‘Smoking Weed Alone’, for example), but at others, it feels a bit muddled. Their ambition is undoubtedly to be applauded, but this one’s a bit of a mixed bag.

Jay-Z’s latest does little to prove that he can come up with anything that isn’t entirely predictable.

Ultimately, though, it’s Pulido’s steady hand that brings an assured, if occasionally slight, album together where there was so much potential for these heavyweights to step on each other’s toes.

There are plenty of good ideas across ‘Suckerpunch’. It just could’ve done with fewer bad ones.

Darlings is warm and expansive and sexy, and feels like a more intimate affair than his debut, 2007’s ‘Spirit If...’.

Kurt takes a leaf out of Courtney’s book and wears his heart on his sleeve, searching for introspection and delving into his deepest and most personal lyrics to date--about love, loss and everything in between.

The material on offer ranges from the piano balladry of ‘The Cruise Room’ to the ‘80s synth pop of ‘Best In Me’ - in other words, every flavour John Grant has to offer. And that’s an exciting prospect on paper, so it’s a shame that the record frequently suffers from songs too long by half.

The intricate layering of warped guitars and echoing vocals is all well and good for the background to summer fun, but for No Joy to be more than this More Faithful relies on these more intimate moments. Although these are sparsely scattered throughout they’re just enough to make More Faithful more than just a half-listened to soundtrack to road trips and festivals but an album with heart, confidence and intimacy.

Inji is the sound of Dust discovering his own identity. And to achieve this, he tries just about anything and everything that crosses his path.

Of course, as with any such unrelentingly blissful formula, if their sky-facing euphoria and sentimentality can’t be matched then the whole thing can be terribly nauseating.

Only the moody, foreboding ‘Over It’ hints at the pair testing their own boundaries; otherwise, this is another solid Deathrays outing.

Even though the likes of ‘Dylan And Caitlin’ (a duet with The Anchoress on Dylan Thomas and wife Caitlin Macnamara’s tempestuous marriage) or the poignant nostalgia of ‘In Eternity’--seemingly a sentimental ode to former bandmate Richey Edwards--are thematically complex, they’re coated in unabashedly big hooks. It’s a classic Manics trick and one that still works; across 12 tracks though, you do start to crave the spray-painted antagonists of old to pop up every now and then.

While hardly covering new ground or expanding their sonic palette, English Oceans is a welcome addition to the Drive-By Truckers discography as well as their best since 2008’s ’Brighter Than Creation’s Dark’.

When so much of what Juanita had written for Until the Lights Fade clearly involves a folk-rock flavour, it’s a shame it wasn’t fleshed out accordingly.

Despite their identity being so closely interwoven with synth-pop, some of the more striking tracks here see Broods moving away from the keyboard, and reverting to more traditional instrumentation.

Falling somewhere in between the sophistication of Everything Everything and the flamboyancy of Maroon Five, it isn’t until the halfway point, and ‘I Feel the Weight’ that the familiar chill of previous releases is restored.