Girls in Peacetime… is lovingly crafted, laced with embellishment and detail, and it’s full of unexpected twists
Foals' latest cleaves closely to the melodic narrative arc set by 2013’s pivotal Holy Fire, but sets itself subtly apart with its insidious, atmospheric chill.
Exhilarating, hypnotic and sometimes even danceable, there’s no shaking this record off once it takes root.
New Bermuda emotionally overloads the listener like a mixed-state manic episode; it's a darker autobiographical account than its predecessor, but equally gorgeous sonically.
Loose and taut in equal measure, Sun Coming Down roars and whispers but never does it hit too hard.
If 2013's R Plus Seven was a landscape of delicate synthwork and angelic choral sounds glossing over a murky atmosphere, then Garden of Delete flips the script in this seemingly aggressive record; muscular in tone, schizophrenic in delivery, all the while possessing a maniacal grin on its face.
As befitting a music obsessed neuroscience graduate, the sounds here are as eclectic as much as they are cerebral, with Kenny Wheeler, Toru Takemitsu and Moreton Subotnick all cited as influences.
Fears Trending's genesis might have been as an assortment of odd scraps, but as any foodie will tell you, sometimes the leftovers can be tastier than the main meal itself.
Birchard is a long-established talent behind the decks, but Lantern – a defiantly slick sophomore LP – proves that being in high demand has in no way diluted his craft.
This third outing takes off with Let It Happen, a fanfare of driving drums and kaleidoscopic synths that is reassuringly Tame Impala of old, but as it gains altitude Currents soars to a new level of sophistication.
Ones and Sixes weaves together the strongest elements of their 22-year career – from slowcore sparseness to wiry post-punk to glorious sadrock – and while the results feel as mournfully doom-laden as ever, they still tingle the spine like no-one else.
This dense lyricism is keenly matched with rich, luxuriant instrumentation and Divers perhaps reaches a zenith in Newsom’s arrangement skills.
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is slim but huge, and tests the GYBE aesthetic with courageous enterprise.
Strung out amidst languid peels of brass, graceful 70’s-style piano, and Condon’s silky, lost and found tenor, the beauty is soft, and fragile, but also fleet of foot, and highly engaging with it.
Maybe that tension’s the whole conceptual point, but it's not unreasonable to want a little more from Key Markets.
Viet Cong is a solid, admirable distillation of early 90s US indie that dares to throw in some rewarding ideas of its own, proving that "retro" need not always be a cuss word.
Faded Frontier in contrast is a slow release and a desire for solitude.
Dre often feels everywhere and nowhere throughout Compton, managing to at once deploy and transcend the genre conventions he helped invent.
It takes considerable talent to pull off sincere, confessional songwriting as favorably as Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield.
Every click and stomp has hip-shaking purpose. Bells, whistles, brass, choral backing vocals – Born Under Saturn’s got it all, and knows how to work it.
That this familiar template still manages to sound so completely compelling is testament to both the malleable nature of his craft and the skill with which it's delivered.
Young Fathers' White Men Are Black Men Too is a gargantuan, fearless record. It’s a celebration, a rebuttal, a call to action; a dance party that won’t for a single minute let you rest.
It's her frequent attempts to empathise with these opposing views – doing so with a stunning vocal performance dilating from breathy spoken word to sky-gazing operatics – that makes for an incredibly arresting commentary on the state of the West.
Uninhibited, focused and majestically crafted, she’s simply never sounded more vital.
Lyrically it's uncompromising, dark and surprisingly direct – mentions of blood, death and ghosts are plastered all over its 11 tracks – but there's a real beauty to Carrie & Lowell that shines through the darkness.
In an era of cheap-shot reformations, Sleater-Kinney pull the plug on the past and flick the switch on the future.