Sadly, too much of the Easy Eighth Album sounds a bit hollow and empty, the sound of a band wanting to move on, but without the energy to properly capture the old glory days.

This is thrillingly visceral music that could bring Mannequin Pussy ever closer to crossover success.

This is an adrenaline rush of an album, an electric shock in a world of flabby gas. Proof, if any were needed, that it’s possible to reinvent the wheel if you’re committed enough to the spin.

It’s another intriguing step in the evolution of Everything Everything – it ultimately doesn’t matter whether you buy into the overarching concept of the record when the songs are as good as they are on Mountainhead.

The more that you listen to this album, the more affecting it becomes.

On this one, they’ve become a great band. It’s harder to take them seriously here, but perhaps that’s something they’ve never wanted. They’re more than content with being the class clowns, and we’re more than happy to have them.

The main problem with Gallagher-Squire is that it all sounds a bit lazy and predictable. You get the impression that they know this too.

Most importantly, Sadier succeeds in her aim, offering a genuine musical antidote to the cultural scars and traumas we carry from recent years.

There is no radical change from their first four albums, but anyone familiar with MGMT knows that means plenty of musical exploration, a refreshing flick of the fingers up to the norm. There are many lyrical gems, too, VanWyngarden and Goldwasser maintaining their happy knack of writing songs that connect, songs that their listeners will want to hear on repeat.

As a soundtrack to watching those flames flicker, it doesn’t come much better than The Past Is Still Alive.

It’s more conceptually consistent, more musically accomplished, more of pretty much everything that she’s ever done before – and what she was already doing was verging on masterly. Filthy Underneath is already a contender for Album of the Year, and it will take something truly exceptional to beat it.

Maya Shenfeld’s towering achievement is to craft a highly effective polemical record with no words, the music saying all that needs to be said: throw in imaginative sound design and a deft approach to pacing and the result is an out-and-out triumph.

By the time we reach the end, Doyle has nailed his musical remedy for the pace and relentless demand on the senses this digital life can make. Ironically he does so with a pleasing amount of analogue input, the music spring-like in the upward looking way it saunters down the street.

We find Omni changing the formula only slightly and having incredible success with it. Highly recommended. Underrate them at your peril.

The Mess We Seem To Make is a remarkably confident, assured debut album – every inch of care and time that’s been lavished on it has obviously been well spent. Crawlers sound very much like a band on the cusp of some very big things.

Blu Wave sounds absolutely steeped in sadness – it’s full of pedal steel guitar, luscious string arrangements and Lyttle’s fragile vocals. It is, in a word, beautiful.

Tangk is sadly, and far too often, a rather boring album by a band who can and should be doing much better.

It would have been very easy, at such a young age, to restrict himself to a particular sound, but What Happened To The Beach? demonstrates an impressive range that bodes well for his long-term success.

What Now is sometimes not an easy listen, but it’s certainly a thrilling and restless journey. Looking at how Howard has evolved from her early days with Alabama Shakes, a more appropriate title for this collection could have been What Next – as whatever does come next is likely to be intriguing.

Each and every song here would sound completely at home as closing credits music for any number of fantastic horror movies. Not necessarily because of the finality of the songs, but rather because they conjure an unnameable, hideous feeling that is generally only experienced after witnessing something terrifying.

The only issue is that, over the course of a 45 minute album, Masics’ style can drag a bit. When his songs lose Barlow’s influence, they can tend to lose a bit of energy, and as What Do We Do Now reaches its conclusion, you may be a bit weary of mid-paced plodders like Old Friends and Hangin’ Out. They’re not bad songs as such, there’s just not too much to distinguish them as more than filler.

It’s a pleasing finish to a rather uneven collection. People often say that the first episode of a sit-com is disappointing, and you should skip to the second, which is exactly the approach we propose for this album.

Widescreen ambitions should never be criticised, and as Prelude To Ecstasy ends with Mirror, a Cheryl Cole torch song with Nick Cave intensity and Bond-theme bombast, you have to conclude that this album is big, and it is clever.

There may be no real surprises on People Who Aren’t There Anymore, but that hardly matters. They may no longer possess the surprise factor that delighted David Letterman so much, but Future Islands remain as affecting and impassioned as ever.

Overall Dark Rainbow is a significant improvement on their last album, but doesn’t quite hit the heights they’ve previously shown themselves to be capable of.

It may only be eight tracks long, but each song contains so much invention and ideas that repeated listens bring their own rewards. As the seemingly interminable wait for a new Radiohead album goes on, The Smile are making music that, at times, is equally extraordinary.

Scott hasn’t quite broken out of cult stardom like Mitski has, but there’s no reason to think What An Enormous Room couldn’t be the album that introduces her to a whole new audience.

He is now firmly established as one of the UK’s finest songwriters, making an album that should be treasured through the dark winter months. Sadness Sets Me Free offers hope and light for what’s ahead, in spite of the political slurry we find ourselves wading through.