There is nothing out and out original on Viscerals, and in many ways that is the appeal. If you like down tuned sludge/doom then you’ll find plenty here to get your teeth into.

Heaven To A Tortured Mind is the kind of album that challenges listeners sonically and lyrically, and makes absolutely no bones about it. It’s full of forward-thinking musical combinations, but in its themes it’s even more progressive.

Reflective by nature, it might not have been her expected next step, but is nonetheless a beautifully delicate album that benefits from repeated close listening.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

This is a record that begs patience and understanding of its listener, but for those that put in the time required, it offers the most bountiful emotional rewards of Nandi Rose’s career yet. This is an album for being lost, as well as healing. Much like its title, it is what you need it to be.

We can chalk these relatively minor missteps up to inexperience or over-excitement at finally releasing an album, and when you consider the heights that Sorry reach at points on 925 then it’s entirely forgivable. Overall, it would be hard to call 925 anything other than a great success, and one that should see Sorry’s star rise even higher – that’s if the public can get on board with their slightly unhinged view of things.

This is a life-affirming album which is not held back by the restrictions of linguistics and the limitations that words bring, and it may be just what you need to lift you out of yourself in these troubled times.

It’s a profoundly empathetic collection of songs that offers both gentle reminders and harsh overtures as to the effort it takes to sustain healthy mental and physical spaces in your life. Woods has given us unparalleled access to see how she responds to the things that have kept her up at night and to those things which evoke happiness in her world.

With true, human conflict between happiness and sadness on full display, Man Alive! is unequivocally King Krule’s, or better yet, Archy Marshall’s most sobering work yet.

Unfortunately, after years of anticipation, the reveal is an overtly tedious shell of everything Parker has ever charmed into existence. In fact, tedious may be an understatement.

A work of tightly-focused determination.

Be Up a Hello can be a lot to take in at times, a rambunctious and restless effort from a man comfortable in his ability to make the dancefloor obsolete. But there’s more here than simply speed and density – there are strange currents working their way through the songs, hints are something deeper and more relatable than its superficial excess might suggest.

These six instrumentals are pleasant if not pretty in the usual way an Andrew Bird instrumental track might be.

Hardcourage is an exceedingly worthwhile release from a producer that’s constantly pushing himself toward new things.

It’s one of the young year’s best all-out rock records, the kind of fantastic full-length that some kid in a garage will one day look back to themselves, maybe when plugging that guitar in for the first time.

The End of Silence is a serious statement that can bring the harshness of war to your ears and occasionally make you rethink how casually you consume the news. It’s by no means an easy album to wander through, but I doubt it was ever Herbert’s intention to make this “easy listening” in any conventional sense of the term.

Such is Krug’s way with words: deliberately or not, he’s weaving a huge tapestry that makes the author clearer to us. Julia With Blue Jeans On is another section in it and is a damned beautiful, it not great one at that.

Here, Lopatin excels at what he’s been doing since his first release as Oneohtrix Point Never, and what first brought us to him: drawing feeling out of the digital realm, instead of just channeling it.

Scoff at them for being a bit too obvious with their name but Fuzz and Fuzz deliver the garage rock roar we’ve come to expect from Segall and Co.

Granted, as they’ve smoothed out the rough edges a bit, some of the rugged immediacy has been lost, but they’ve more than make up for it in a newfound sense of lively rhythmic interaction.

With the triumvirate of googly-eyed rhythms, sinfully catchy melodies and a breeziness that seems only fitting, they’ve served up one of the most auspicious debuts of the year.

The timbre or the texture of the sounds they make is worth noting while working through Smilewound, but hardly worth returning specifically for.

They write very strong songs, but aural satiation sinks in over Bones‘ 48 minute runtime.

Aside from a few inconsistencies, the change in sound is quite revitalizing and proves that there is more to Royal Bangs than a serious case of musical ADD.

Dream River is as evocative a record as he’s ever made and that’s saying quite a lot.

Comparing it to where they once were, somewhere middling between post-rock and meandering industrial ambient, the sound of Factory Floor is of a band that is now confident in their own original and entirely dominant sound.

The limits of Vernon’s imagination and drive have yet to be truly tested, and based on the size of the sounds that he’s summoning here, the ceiling isn’t even in his sights yet.

The experimental mindset is evident in moments of Right Thoughts, but only a select few, and like Tonight, it’s most prominent on the last few tracks.