Stephen Rubbathan gives his verdict on the new album from Wolf Alice.

Another slice of dreamy guitar rock from Danish trio Mew.

An album exploring unimaginable grief – A Crow Looked At Me – Mount Eerie

Another wonderful album of sincere, big hearted guitar pop from Welsh ensemble Los Campesinos!

One of the best Irish albums of the last decade: ‘The Tilt of the Earth’ by Barry McCormack.

Definitely a band to watch for 2017: Keith McGouran reviews Dublin outfit Galants eponymous debut EP.

Destined to be remembered as his masterpiece – The Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave.

Heart-warming stuff from one of the best bands of the nineties, Teenage Fanclub.

Angel Olsen follows up her acclaimed 2nd album ‘Burn Your Fire For No Witness’ with another stunning record.

Brooklyn Dreampop outfit DIIV return with a sprawling, enthralling follow up.

If you are going to call your debut album Masterpiece, it better be good. Big Thief deliver.

One of the best albums of 2016: M Craft – ‘Blood Moon’

Another bewitching effort from Boston born singer songwriter Marissa Nadler.

The long awaited follow up to one of the best albums of 2013 ‘Nepenthe’ from the brilliant Julianna Barwick.

It won’t appeal to all tastes, but Canadian composer Tim Hecker’s ‘Love Streams’ is a strangely beautiful listen.

Prolific Scottish Post Rock innovators Mogwai release their third soundtrack album.

Recorded before the tragic death of founder member Benjamin Curtis, SVIIB is a fitting footnote to the School of Seven Bells story.

Mairéad McGuinness reviews the debut album from new Matador Records signing HAELOS,

A stunning third solo effort from former Delgados singer/songwriter Emma Pollock.

Fans of Max Richter, Nils Frahm and other luminaries of the ambient classical genre will find much to admire in this debut album by Drombeg (aka Thom Brookes)

It’s rare that we review albums so long after their release date, but No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal by the Apartments is a rare and recent find. Once again, Pat Barrett of the Hedge School introduced me to this and it is his words that eloquently describe this album’s impact.

A worth successor to their stellar debut album – Daughter deliver with Not to Disappear.

A creative tour de force – Blackstar adds significant weight to the outstanding legacy of David Bowie.

Anthony Kelly dips into a little Skibbereen soul with the new Brian Deady album.

Like music from another time: Swedish singer-songwriter Anna von Hausswolff sweeps us away to a darkly seductive fantasy realm on her third album The Miraculous. It’s an incredibly striking brew of Goth, Prog-Rock, Folk and Doom Metal, with Von Hausswolff’s lithe and dexterous vocals commanding our attention at the centre of it all. Von Hasswolff would have slotted very comfortably onto the 4AD roster during the record labels most fruitful period during the eighties – there are strong echoes of Dead Can Dance and the Cocteau Twins (to a lesser extent) on this album. A dominant feature of the overall sound on the Miraculous is the use of the Acusticum Pipe Organ, one of the largest instruments of its kind housing an impressive 9,000 pipes. This, along with Von Hausswolff’s operatic vocals, lends the album much of its Gothic ambience, the dark heart beating at its very core. Opening with the nine minutes of ‘Discovery’, the record quickly hits its stride – Hausswolff lets her imagination run wild with ambitious arrangements that fuse and splice so many different genres. Nowhere is this more evident than on ‘Come Wander With Me/Deliverance’ another track that spares nothing in laying bare her vision – the sparse, ethereal intro slowly dissolving into feedback and chaos and a bludgeoning two note riff. It’s Von Hausswolff’s fearlessness and lack of restraint in terms of the arrangements that is both the albums weakness and strength – there are times when the whole thing sounds like it might collapse under its own semi-pompous weight. But the words and music are delivered with absolute conviction – there is no hint of irony or humour, even when it is at it’s most shrieking and dramatic. It would be no surprise to see ‘Evocation’ feature in the best tracks of 2015...