Her classically trained sensibilities shine through on her first solo effort, which sparkles with understated beauty.

Girls Names make sadness moreish and hypnotic.

So with their fourth LP, where they burst from the tracks with peppy numbers like ‘Holy’ and Biffy-esque choruses on ‘The Woodpile’, it’s a mite disappointing.

It’s a rewarding mixture of romance, wit and fantasy.

Oozing more nihilistic youthful abandonment than anyone since Black Lips, their manifesto sounds pretty appealing from here.

At times it can be a bit round-the-campfire twee, but when they’re doing something as cut-yourself-sharp as ‘Wall Paper’, it’s easy to forgive Concrete Knives for the odd moment of artistic bluntness.

Dutch Uncles’ third album is easily the Manchester band’s most accomplished effort to date.

As with Real Estate, producer Kevin McMachon has coaxed the wispy dreaminess of an excellent debut into a progressive, immersive successor.

[The album] is a natural progression from the first, as the band’s distinctively jangly, incessantly upbeat guitars are remodelled in increasingly eccentric ways.

Philippakis’s words are open and raw. As for their sound, it’s as vital and as fresh as ever.

Too often inaudible, the band’s uncathartic noise can still test patience as well as nerves.

Far-out, fascinating, fantastic--just plain F-ing good.

There's absolutely no attempt to innovate, but it's not a huge problem when the tunes are as sweetly and simply put together as this. [Jan 2013, p.62]

All designs are firmly fixed on a glorious technicolour gem, but it's fair to say results are mixed.

Over far too quickly, it's another near flawless record from the Manchester trio.

The band's fifth full-length is a sluggish drone of guitars so muddy they sound like they were recorded in a bog married to pseudo-spiritual waffling from singer Dave Heumann.

O'Brien's voice is beautiful and his songwriting often adventurous, but there are times when the aim isn't as true as it could be.

An album of chilly, detached beauty.

The studio remains the band's fourth member and their wind-tunnel intensity is a constant. The compositions are more focused this time round, however, while quiet-loud dynamic shifts are more arresting.

It's really bloody good.

That Christopher Owens' songs are so simultaneously vivid, immersive and indulgent is one thing, that he has crafted the character to execute them so expertly is quite another.

If a sense of staleness had begun to creep in round 2009's 'Popular Songs', Fade pretty much puts them back on track.

This sinister, skittering collection (recorded before the sad passing of singer Trish Keenan in 2011) is the perfect compliment to Peter Strickland's marvellous film.

A quantum leap it ain't--and Glass could do with putting her fangs back in--but (III) has just enough up its sleeve to keep Crystal Castles on track.

Nocturne still treads the same paths, but it finds Tatum taking far bigger, more confident, strides.

Whilst Hegarty's extended speech in 'Future Feminism' fails to grasp wholly, (but will probably fill a void in your pseudo-intellectual appetite), the collection as a whole is an impressively captivating soundscape.

No new tricks, but there's life in these old dogs yet.

A spectacular, modern take on a classic, timeworn formula.