Let us hope this isn't a flash-in-the-pan success and that subsequent releases are just as good.

By the time Once Twice Melody reaches its closing moments, it sounds like the band are taking a well-earned victory lap in a career full of wins.

Del Rey’s longest album to date by some distance – and not without the occasionally questionable choice. But the best moments, which abound, solidify Del Rey as one of the all-time greats.

Beyoncé has given us her most excessive body of work to date. It is unfocused, it swerves and changes directions, yet delivers quality in so many different ways no part of it can be called inessential. While one could choose a cynical route and think their way into not appreciating the full product, the truth is history will be kind to Cowboy Carter as yet another classic album from Queen Bey.

These twelve tracks are full, they're self-aware, they're straight up funny, and it's these traits that immediately separate Father John Misty's folk-rock from what Fleet Foxes do.

Cut the World is compelling enough to change the way we appreciate the world and its sad beauty. There's simply nothing that sounds quite like this.

The Italian duo have put together a timeless and beautiful dance record that slides easily to the top of 2012′s best.

Ultimately, it might not be a more serious album than anything previous, but Shangri-La captures the spirit of uncertainty and restlessness that 21st century modernity has created.

On Ultimate Success Today, Protomartyr have made essential jams for a genre that’s been passed around dozens of times over. It’s nice to know that, five albums deep, the band haven’t lost any ferocity, and that they continue to be a mouthpiece for so many feelings we all share.

Whether her words come from personal experience or not, Yanya’s able to swell with empathy in ways few current songwriters can convey. It’s audible how she places herself within the circumstances of a song, maybe to feel herself, but in doing so she connects with her audience on a different level.

Where there was honesty in the lyricism of "Losing My Edge" in 2002, there is now sonic honesty in the vivacious rock and roll that is the London Sessions.

Hard to categorise, and impossible to assess immediately, like all of Slowdive, everything is alive will ever blossom with time.

With His Happiness Shall Come First Even Though We Are Suffering, Mutinta completes her heroic triptych. Processing her own fury and the fury stashed in the world’s memory. ... Leaving us stunned, devastated, ecstatic.

Hannah is a culmination of everything Read has done up to this point and she delivers bittersweet missives through tender songwriting and a deft application of her strengths as a musician.

If you give the album the chance it deserves you will be rewarded by one of the strongest LPs you are likely to hear this year.

On Life On Earth, marginalized voices are amplified and given credence. Segarra is the kind of potent lyricist who can flesh out characters and scenes with just one or two lines, paint entire panoramic worlds within the succinct space of a song.

In its many guises, Classic Objects is that light, a profound statement from an artist bound by no traditions, and it is offered freely to those searching for all the questions they’ve yet to ask.

Absolutely perfect, sun-soaked pop.

The sensory overload she tends to serve up will continue to confound many – even if this is her most accessible and celebratory record to date. Needless to say, her presentation of what she describes as “gender euphoria,” provides the perfect blueprint to a more healthy, embracing, and confident exploration of the concept and conversation of gender and identity in popular music.

New Moon has extended the the group’s realization of their own freedom.

The band’s shape-shifting compositions create a forward momentum well suited to a journey through different levels of Hell on Earth.

With a little help from an impressive array of collaborators and producers that include heavyweights like Pharrell Williams, El Guincho and Frank Dukes, Rosalía takes clear and complete control of her voice by getting her ideas across without being too caught up in them.

They’ve delivered a certain-to-be-beloved debut – one that separates itself from its peers.

God Don’t Make Mistakes is a complete body of work, Conway’s best to date, and one of the best rap albums to come out in 2022.

At every turn acts of rebellion is deceptive. She preaches simplicity, reveling in the individual power within all of us, but the music layered and complex, full of bubbling and whirring elements behind every danceable beat.

Dedication is not an easily accessible album, but I cannot think of any other experimental album that is. These types of albums become increasingly rewarding with every listen, and this is one that should be heard.

Despite the incredible detail built into the songs on All The Time, the productions still feel spacious and lightweight – a futuristic version of the pop-R&B hybrid we already know. This allows the tracks to be engrossing in their layering, but still leave plenty of space for Lanza’s lyrical expression to come through clearly. And it’s shocking how deeply personal and painful a lot of it is for Lanza.

A tangled and glorious mess of aggressive glitches and clipped synths and stuttering beats and hints, shadows, and fragments of tunefulness.