Grapefruit is both excruciating and luxurious in its patchiness.

There's a point during Transuranic Heavy Elements where the bludgeoning beats pause and something (Guitars? You? The earth?) begins to howl, and you think: This is probably not for everyone.

Barbara... is less massive comeback than slight return.

Girl at the End of the World is, on one level, more of the same: bulging arrangements; hefty half-hooks; Tim Booth's screwy commentary connecting somewhere to the left of immediately comprehensible. But it's also intelligent, accomplished and likeable.

More Rain finds Ward playing genre bingo with generally enjoyable results, including a tasteful homage to T. Rex and a well-handled country number about his Christian faith.

More often than not, United Crushers settles into a groove and gets comfy.

Dry and lacklustre instrumentation does nothing to compensate for an unshakable one-dimensionality.

Never alarming, never challenging but always effortlessly attuned to the dusty hum of who they are, Nada Surf are a faded favourite t-shirt; an overnight stay in your childhood bed; a comforting glimpse at your past that throbs with nostalgia while burning brightly with the knowledge of how much you've changed and how far you've come.

The presence of Jeremy Gara on drums peppers the record with a likeable melodrama that’ll seem familiar to fans of Funeral or Neon Bible, although this particular record requires much closer listening to fully appreciate its charms.

Hiperasia might be a less accessible album, but it’s Díaz-Reixa at his most experimental and inventive.

An album with a few moments of sweetness, but which ultimately feels like a pleasant collection of background music.

The Life Of Pablo is bursting at the seams with ideas and talking points, from his mental health and destructive ego to the very fact that this album defines how useless the format is. As with every one of his records, you feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg.

All three are considerable technicians and practice refreshing restraint; both in their playing (intricate but not showy) and their sound (sharp and dry, with few effects). The result, however, can feel like a bit of an academic exercise at times – music to be admired rather than really inhabited.

This lo-fi, devil-may-care air translates well to record, with A Season in Hull capturing and accentuating the band’s characteristic camaraderie and casual, Jonathan Richman-esque charm.... Admittedly, the stripped-down setup has drawbacks too, leaving the material with nowhere to hide and exposing an uncharacteristic patchiness.

The sugared melodies of Bitter Pill also go down smoothly, as does the lucently beautiful Intrusive Thoughts, and though a distracting feeling of déjà vu eventually takes root, the well-pruned runtime helps keep Flowers more or less in full bloom.

There’s still too much filler here to warrant an unqualified thumbs up.

Thought Rock Fish Scale arrives wholesome and homely rather than exciting or challenging, as if missing the lights of the big city.

Perhaps it isn't quite a fully realised picture, but Life of Pause still paints a very pretty sonic landscape.

It’s an album of shattered dreams and primary colours--“Where’s your sense of humour?” decries Blunderland--and more than once it isn’t obvious if the band are laughing with us or (in the nicest possible way) at us.

Over 14 tracks, repetitive funk riffs and chatty, conversationalist lyrics start to wear a little thin, and a lack of diversity makes for such comfortable listening that you risk all-too-comfortably tuning out.

Repeat visits are sure to unearth more of the band’s thought process, but there's a lingering sense that less could've been so much more.

Songs in the Key of Animals begins sounding like the Bojack Horseman concept album nobody asked for.

Williams’ songwriting approach, while accomplished and still urgent, occasionally loses some of its ferocity and connection to the theme by playing to his game a bit too much; relying on that trademark electro-rock production instead of mutating contemporary trap and noise feels like a slight misstep.

Lead track The Love Within opens the record and remains a bizarre mess; Kele Okereke's distinct vocal parting for a mostly one-note synth line that causes a genuine flinch. All is perhaps not lost: Fortress is a somewhat pretty, minimal electro ballad while Different Drugs speaks for the entire record; flirting with a series of ideas before simply fading out of sight and mind. We expected so much more.

Overt beats don’t appear until the sixth stanza, bass conspicuous by its absence pretty much throughout, yet whilst the themes can occasionally run away with themselves through lack of definite direction or concrete dénouement, 3.5 Degrees remains an accomplished debut.

Apart from a few tonal blips (Taken By The Tide may well be a smuggled-in Band of Horses track, and 1985’s piano ballad proves an idling mid-point), Curve... is a remarkably slick experience.

At times this feels like a celebration of what can be achieved with three chords and an earnest tale, intelligently told.