Most of the time it’s the perfect balance of tragedy and beauty and the artistry that’s gone into the lyrics mark Charles Baby as an intricate and genuine wordsmith.

It’s refreshing to hear a band that commits to its influences but twists them into something vibrating with life.

The best way to describe Cold Spring… is that it sounds like a slow motion dream about a great party that you’re happy to indulge in, despite knowing none of it is real and that you’ll have to wake up eventually.

Great North does not reinvent the genre, but it’s a brilliant Australian record and for fans of TWDY or modern instrumental/post-rock in general it’s utterly essential.

The entire album is brilliantly put together and not once does it feel contrived.

What we have here is engaging, but the cultural cringe is never far away. You’re good enough, P-Money. You just have to believe in yourself.

Wolf’s success is that Tyler wants to be taken seriously, it’s just a matter of neutralizing the reactionaries first with absurdity.

Overall, this album is striking; however, it’s not stunning. And while the band have clearly made an effort to amble down new paths, they continue to do so through the soul and sound of one man.

After listening through it in full and getting a few great moments, the only thing that seems to be missing is the ‘Mr Nice Guy’ of rap smoothly spitting over the NCIS LA theme song.

Bon Jovi aren’t getting worse, but they don’t appear to be getting any better. Stick to their greatest hits and leave it at that.

Bon Jovi’s 12th studio album is comforting and familiar, just like curling up on the couch with a good book.

Classixx will blow plenty of glitter on dancefloors with these club tunes.

The tunes lack the versatility of her earlier releases, giving the album a ‘this song sounds kinda like the last one’ feel.

There’s hardly a dud track to be found here in a neat little package that gets better with each listen.

Light Up Gold is a fine introduction to a bunch of intelligent dudes living it large and dissecting the ensuing carnage for our listening pleasure, a classic win-win.

It’s no doubt a highlight record for the year thus far and will see the band go onto greater things.

This is a record of often intricate interlaced layers. Sometimes you can see where they overlap, but often it’s just a liquid whole – listen as Brother Moon Sister Sun just ebbs away.

Though the set does run out of steam a little in its second half, possibly off the back of his constant changing of focus, tracks like Human Mic and It Only Gets Better remind us why we fell in love with Kweli in the first place.

It hits hard and grabs on tight from the very beginning and only loosens its grip long enough here and there to make the next squeeze that much more intense.

When given the musical quality of Give Up, Gibbard, Tamborello and Lewis have their priorities right.

Give Up defined a period so powerfully that the original album will forever transcend the songs that comprise it, and Gibbard and Tamborello were wise not to try and better it.