Sir is as extroverted as Spooner’s recent experiences, but some occasional, additional restraint may have added extra punch to its more introverted moments.

It’s a testament to Loma’s abilities as sonic world-builders that a number of tracks sound less like traditional songs than they do field recordings from shadowy, secluded habitats somewhere far from civilisation.

Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life is the sound of a band maturing and evolving, having come a long way from their first meeting in Liverpool. Now that they're 15 years and four albums in they know what works, and still have an ear for a catchy melody.

This is a record packed to the brim with guest vocalists and layers of instrumentation, all sitting on top of rock-solid yet unpredictable grooves.

JT’s smug family life is the single thread uniting this 16-track jumble of songs that swing between batshit and bland, and romance comes in two forms: soppy odes, or sloppy humblebrags about shagging.

Damned Devotion is not an album you can play once and get a grip on. She remains sultry, she remains a late night proposition; this is music geared for the come down, but for all that there is reinvigoration here.

DZ Deathrays are pretty consistent in that way. Yes, there are fun moments to their latest record, and there certainly are songs you can imagine sounding great while crammed in a small, sweaty basement nightclub, but beyond that, there isn't really a lot else to this, especially, when as mentioned, there's a whole slew of acts like this already.

Always Ascending thrives when the band indulge their sense of fun--it's not the best work Franz Ferdinand have ever produced, but it's proof that they should embrace their intelligence and their quirks more and not try to be a standard indie band. They’re too good for that.

Messes is the kind of album you feel rather than interpret, where what’s being said is less important than how it’s delivered. And when it comes to vocals, Chura’s delivery is certainly distinctive.

Quit the Curse is a mature, confident debut.

Between Two Shores is another Glen Hansard album filled with good songs, gorgeous music and gregarious singing. Is that enough? You decide.

There is little to separate the tracks from each other, resulting in a batch of unmemorable songs. Lionheart promised much, but fails to capture the imagination in the way McEntire’s previous work has.

Album opener Angel Fire make it tempting to categorise Vessel of Love as an uplifting summer album. Yet Cook’s lyrics contain a haunting melancholia, touching on love and survival to create a bittersweet effect. There's a hidden depth to her breezy pop that will stay with listeners for days.

Snares seems like a long EP--one that ends before it really gets going.

Marble Skies finds difficulty in consolidating each defining element into a smooth blend, leading to a record that’s bookended by heart-stopping tracks with a frustratingly stodgy middle passage.

While his words do occasionally come to the fore, such as on the emotional Wren, the questions Shields raises surrounding religion and ceremony, the elemental and the domestic, can feel secondary to the atmosphere. Passover captures the spectre of death, but its existential meditations can be obscured.

TMBG’s 20th album, I LIke Fun, doesn’t mess with the template too much. If you come to this record knowing only the TMBG song used as the soundtrack to Malcolm in the Middle, you’ll get a hearty helping of everything there is to like--and, yes dislike.

It’s uneven, certainly, but worth panning for the gold.

Their problem is there are other bands doing this kind of thing better (Black Angels, we’re looking at you).

Badu collects good work, but the second half of the collection trails off; the whole doesn’t stand up to sustained listening without herbal aids (which, to her credit, Badu recommends).

The true standout of the EP is Fickle Season. ... The other three tracks are inoffensive but somewhat forgettable

While Reflection of Youth doesn’t always capture the more brutal side of growing up sonically, Bruland does give off the sense that she’s come out of the other side, older and wiser.

Morrissey can alienate fans with outlandish outbursts or with decidedly average new music, but both at the same time is surely too much for even the most forgiving fan.

While an intriguing return to Dwyer's roots and to Dawson's charming voice, Memory of a Cut Off Head is a typically strange experience from OCS and one which might not translate to newer fans of the band looking for their trademark psyche-punk sound.

The constant changes in tone that come with such disparate collaborators mean that the album never settles into a comfortable groove the way 5:55 or IRM did.

The beats are the only thing going anywhere on Stranger, while the vocals seem as drunk and rambling as ever, devoid of memorable similes or even coherent subject matter.

While it may be far slimmer than Ratchet musically, Revelations fills that gap with earnest, heartfelt emotion.

ASIWYFA haven’t reinvented the wheel with this album, but it’s a worthy addition to an increasingly accomplished body of work.