Sure that sounds slightly pompous, but while we’re here, in the now, why not reach outwards as far as we can – to each other? When ‘Post Teen Drama’ brings Rip It Off to a soaring, tremulous finish maybe, just for a millisecond, you’ll be convinced that indie-rock can save lives.
An eleven-track album shouldn't feel overly long, especially when the average song length is around the three-and-a-half minute mark. Yet this does, and as it stands Box Of Secrets is merely a good record when it could have been a great one.
Fleet Foxes doesn’t leave the stereo. Three, four, five times through – these songs resonate over and over until they stick for good. A sign of a great record: words fail but a feeling remains.
Youth Novels is a twinkle-toed debut that dares to suggest what others can only make tediously plain, and leaves us in the rarely-enjoyed position of actually wanting more.
Vampire Weekend take their Ivy League education, their New Jersey upbringing, and turn it outward – arms open, hurling themselves across the freshly cut college grass, shirts creasing under the afternoon sun.
The Hawk Is Howling may not induce the apprehensive anxiety of Happy Songs For Happy People or even match the apocalyptic ambience of Rock Action, but when taken in isolation, even outside of the Mogwai name, it holds its own as Mogwai's first solely instrumental album.
There are times on Let the Blind…, when the music around Cox veers subtly in the right direction, where you can hear the grub’s surprise as he wakes up with Great Admiral wings, ugly white noise turning psychedelic.
Limbo, Panto is shocking, funny, and above all irrevocable. Expect this lot to be around for the long haul.
Oracular Spectacular is a fine record. A blissful blend of gurgling psychedelia, proggy synth and acid-fried ‘70s west coast hippiness, it’s as playful, uplifting and involving a record as you’d hope to hear this early into the year. What it doesn’t do though, is assure you that this is an essential album that demands long-term replays and loving care.
Whether Dear Science stands the test of time like classic records must is impossible to predict right now, but, at this moment in time, it's sounding like one of the albums of the year, and its makers' latest, greatest masterpiece.
The Stand Ins is assured, ambitious and occasionally transcendent in its appeal – a worthy expansion of its forerunner and standalone joy in itself.
Nine Inch Nails are a long-established niche band and, maybe, with the albeit cheesy Pendulum riding high in the charts, Trent has spotted the chance to acquaint new fans of electronic rock with one of the pioneers of the genre.
Tunes-wise there’s some strength in depth here but it’s telling that, in spite of the lip service being paid to various left-of-centre influences, Santogold feels a strangely conservative listen.
There really isn’t anything wrong with this album. It’s just the most amazing sugar rush you’re going to have this year, and is what, at this point in time, sounds strongly like the best debut album by a British indie band since Tigermilk.
Some people are going to think this is a masterpiece, the equal of Hissing Fauna. Others will call it a self indulgent mess that pushes indie-rock somewhere it really wasn't meant to go. Personally, I think both those sound about right.
Glass’s voice, too, is the same that’s been luring lusty seamen onto the rocks for millennia, but the way it and the drums are textured – so that the machines they’re passed through sound like they’re melting away – brings Crystal Castles to the outer edges of greatness.
The achievement of The Seldom Seen Kid is that Elbow manage to be both incredibly consistent and perpetually improving.
Gang Gang Dance ... have found their voice in a world of retro revivalists and fly-by-night trendhoppers. It's whatever they want it to be, and it's awesome.
Although comprising only nine songs spread over less than forty minutes, For Emma, Forever Ago is one of the most captivating collections these ears have heard for some time.
It's a record that certainly stands up to comparison with their previous outings - sometimes bettering them - and, if you've been seduced by their charms in the past, be prepared to fall in lust all over again.
Assured, short and ultimately sweet, Friendly Fires is a glib reminder that you don’t need an M6 underpass, New York penthouse or guestlist to have an all night disco party, and remind us there’s no shame in getting your groove on.
Both ancient and futuristic, a mildewed signal from a more advanced culture that failed to survive the ice age, Third doesn’t make you pay attention to its desolate contours, but rather stare out of the window, creeping panic causing your mind to dart in a million dark directions at once.
Where the split-personality of Cryptograms hinted as much, a cohesive effort on Microcastle delivers the goods in its entirety.
Predictably there’s a slide towards more abstracted material toward the latter half, and parts of Saturdays=Youth are all hairspray and no body, but the whole thing sweeps along with such an irrepressible mix of youthful invincibility and flouncing fatalism it sucks the wind right out of your cheeks before you’ve had chance to huff.