Aerial East is a talented songwriter with a signature voice, and Try Harder certainly includes its stellar moments. However, the project as a whole would have benefited from more melodic, tonal, and atmospheric variation, issues which could in part have been addressed via a greater use of recording options and a more hands-on production approach.

It’s when Claud pushes past these stylistic tropes that their potential shines.

Like a bottle of aforementioned white wine, it needs to develop within the container of people’s memory before it can fully blossom into the role of moody summer album that it aspires to be. The nuances are definitely already there.

Songs seems to be the culmination of what The Telescopes have strived for over the last decade, and is an album that’s more truly shoegaze than the genre has seen in years.

TYRON is a move away from the raw production style, too, as the beats and other instrumentals here are much more refined and polished. Lyrically, he turns away from the harsh political themes and statements of his debut to topics of much more personal significance to Ty, while not forgetting the part of him that is ‘the contemporary rapper’. Even with this more personal approach, slowthai truly embodies the idea that punk is not dead.

The first half of SHYGA! contains most of the sharper hits, while the guitars on the second half are allowed to roam looser and longer.

The band put themselves on display nonetheless, incoherency and imperfection be damned. Uppers provides thrills aplenty from a band making their mark during strange times as our new normal sets in, intent on seizing their second chance.

It’s an evocative thrill ride and a captivating rumination on mortality that also asks questions of life afterwards. It isn’t an easy listen but it’ll soon become something you’re drawn towards time and time again.

Instrumentally, Ignorance transcends the traditional folk that The Weather Station tirelessly perfected over the previous four albums. With an ever-expanding palette of sonics at her disposal, Lindeman weaves these tales of turmoil and regret through the usage of everything possible – horns, strings, several subtle non-acoustic guitars, and most prominently the piano. To reach the levels of awareness she sought required another level of sound, and it crackles throughout Ignorance.

Yellow River Blue is a truly intoxicating experience, akin to a spellbinding late night story told by a stranger. As outsiders, we may not have the context, but we know more than enough to realize we’re witnessing something intimate and special. This is easy listening fit for deep reflection.

A record that far surpasses the necessity of any and all comparisons. With their highly-anticipated record, this ballistic band birthed from the Brixton Windmill have constructed their own world, where self-abnegation abounds and anxiety festers, yet experimental ingenuity shines a light through all its darkness.

The irony of Collapsed in Sunbeams is that Parks’ greatest strength also gives the album its most noticeable weaknesses. We are mainly here for her connecting songwriting, which means that the production – by Gianluca Buccellati – is restrained to allow her direct words to flow at their own behest.

Allen’s songwriting is the sole thing that needs to be focused on; the impressiveness comes from the variety of sounds and the subtle details. It would be truly surprising if someone were able to use this as background music.

While these influences [Nick Drake and Ella Fitzgerald] are certainly present, A Common Turn is undeniably and entirely Savage’s own; these are her trials and confessions, and it’s a stroke of great bravery and generosity for her to have released them in this enrapturing manner.

Gas Lit is an important record from an important band. It doesn’t attempt to make things palatable for you, and nor should it. The record is a provocation to a difficult conversation, one that in all honesty shouldn’t really still have to take place in 2021.

For all its horror trappings and flat-out aggression (the album-closing title track even ends with one last fakeout jump-scare blast to the face), We Are Always Alone is a deeply emotional record. It is catharsis writ large; a writhing, wailing, violent resistance against the injustice of a cruel world full of self-serving people.

Sound Ancestors is a realisation of what the Madlib and Hebden are capable of in tandem. It’s bold, different, and takes the genre of instrumental hip hop to the next level.

While Vertigo Days boasts a heap of guest musicians, none ever outshine The Notwist, something that can often happen on guest-heavy albums. Instead, this cast of characters from around the world does wonders for their sound and makes for an intriguing and rewarding listen every time.

It possesses an innate ability to provide complex tapestries of sound and universal narratives of despair and triumph – though it is possible for audiences to get lost in the world they’ve captured without paying attention to the lyrics and still feel something ache within their chest.

Most of Cooler Returns is an extension of what their last album was – that’s intentional. These aren’t meant to be revelations, or even to be taken as on-point analysis of a time or place. This is music for the soul, if your soul is literally craving a beer and a nap.

In the end, there’s a pure, unadulterated joy on display here; a spiritual likeness closer to the early new wave of Killing Joke and The Cure – or aforementioned 90s alternative rock – than to the poetic nostalgia of the indie generation.

Isles is a headphones record as colourful as its artwork, and should be enjoyed to the fullest on its own terms, the work of an act in constant flux who refuse to rest on their laurels.

Palberta5000 is a fragmented noise punk rock record that hypnotized itself into believing its pop music meant to be sung to the masses, and performed with the same kind of bluster. And really, it’s hard to imagine anything more awesome than that.

Such is the elegance and detail of Knox’s songwriting and voice – not to mention the exquisite instrumentation – that one can’t help but get swept up in it and extrapolate from it. In that regard, Won’t You Take Me With You is an unmitigated triumph from an artist who continues to dazzle and enthrall with each release.

Rhye has always specialized in making the kind of dance music that operates at a cool temperature, feeling sexy and sensuous without going full dancefloor. ... Milosh does it again here, and makes room for some nice textural and instrumental details, but as Home closes with another heavenly choir piece, it accidentally suggests something about Rhye: maybe it’s time to try some new tricks.

Cheater finds Pom Poko stretching and redefining their own unique blend of mangled aesthetics and creating a ruptured post-punk-pop world that’ll leave you staggered and anxious for just one more song.

As transformation takes over and her approach to creativity changes, Magic Mirror shines boldly and brightly as the testimony of an adulthood that didn’t come at the cost of losing her spark of child-like enthusiasm. Pearl Charles has taken hold of that raw and bubbly energy, and skillfully turned it into a perfect silver sequin of her very own disco ball.

Two Saviors is quiet and understated, yet thoroughly enjoyable despite rarely moving out of second gear. It doesn’t need to.

For those who regard May Our Chambers Be Full as a contemporary gem, The Helm of Sorrow will occur as one of rock’s anticlimaxes. One shouldn’t ignore the winning elements of this release and how the contributing artists’ gifts are alternately put on center stage, but if Chambers is the benchmark for this combo, then one has to point out that what rendered it near-perfect; namely, the seamless synthesis of styles and energies, is on the whole absent here.

At best, this sophomore project suggests a band pushing itself in every direction and through every crevice of the genre to see what fits them and their messaging most effectively.

Heaux Tales is a provocative return for Sullivan that showcases her incredible knack for storytelling.

There’s enough going on across the 43-minute running time of WASTELAND that the listener shouldn’t go into it expecting to have grasped the whole thing on the first pass; perseverance is greatly rewarded. LICE’s debut album is nothing short of fascinating, and the best part is it offers little in the way of clues as to where they may be headed next.

Viagra Boys have successfully captured a side of the working class that demands empathy, and it’s their strongest statement to date.

Whole Lotta Red has a vibe the same way a TGI Fridays has an atmosphere; it just rides a wave of different shades of lifeless trap, an endless TikTok dance in purgatory. ... The problem is Whole Lotta Red hardly ever gives Carti a chance to be real. He puts on vapid personas like ‘rock star’ and ‘vampire’ like he’s at Halloween Express. Tracks are Seinfeldian in their nothingness.

Side B is not a total miss though, nor even a miss at all. Once Mathers stumbles through this opening salvo and the awkward bits of “Tone Deaf”, the album settles into a comfortable space, and even becomes enjoyable.

Even if it isn’t the notable stylistic statement that McCartney II was, it still feels poignant, and yes: surprisingly youthful.

2R0I2P0 is a fitting summative soundtrack to the end of the year that defined us all. Familiar in so many ways, yet unexpected and challenging in others, it’s the sound of the light at the end of the tunnel, of the enchantment within all of the mess.

Although this may not be what all Sigur Rós fans were hoping for, standing on its own, Odin’s Raven Magic is a gorgeous, moving piece of neoclassical musicianship, performance, and composition.

Not everything on evermore truly works or lands satisfyingly, but it’s all part of a creative process that is producing some of her best and most surprising work to date. And considering portions of the world are still dealing with lockdown and are isolating ahead of returning home for Christmas, it still certainly feels like the best “worst time” to be making music like this.

It’s an electronic album from DJs who love to sample the music that inspires them, and in the past they’ve successfully done, furnishing us with some of the most golden-crisped memories. With some trimming, We Will Always Love You might have been a victory lap, but instead it feels like The Avalanches would have been better off taking another decade to fine-tune it.

Origin of the Alimonies is an astonishing piece of work that leaves the listener breathless and euphoric. It is haunting, stunning in its ambition and scope, and a rapturous piece of art. It is beautiful, brutal and bruising. It is challenging, pretentious and uncompromisingly complex. It’s ace.

This is a generous, compulsively enjoyable statement, unburdened of commercial pressure in a way that’s all too rare in this numbers game.

The first half of the album is a mixed-bag. ... After “Toni”, we enter the final five-track stretch of the album, and this is where the truly special stuff lies. Put simply, this is the most beautiful music 2 Chainz has made in his career.

A big collection of tracks that is sure to please some undemanding fans, but just misses the mark as a great release.

Regardless of the energy used in the moment, Lindstrøm and Thomas create music that feels at home in many environments. This is particularly relevant as 2020 nears its end. Listeners can make of III what they will, whether that be slowly dancing along in their rooms, or laying back and taking the music in, waiting for the world to start up again.

The songwriting here is just not very good. And even when the referential tracks are fairly decent, they only would have been minor entries of their era. Shades of Madonna and Avril can’t disguise that there’s no distinguished personality here.

Brun has such control of her craft, and that is made brightly plain across these two albums [After The Great Storm & How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow]. Which one you prefer will likely depend on which genre or style you have deeper inclination for, but taken together, they’re both excellent representations of an artist honing her tested and true style while also venturing out into new waters, easily proving just how capable she is along the way.

Brun has such control of her craft, and that is made brightly plain across these two albums [After The Great Storm & How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow]. Which one you prefer will likely depend on which genre or style you have deeper inclination for, but taken together, they’re both excellent representations of an artist honing her tested and true style while also venturing out into new waters, easily proving just how capable she is along the way.

The electronic approach doesn’t work for every song, and a little more humanity and ambience would have been charming, but the appeal of the whole grows as nuances reveal themselves with repeated listens.

Translate is a wonderful album from a special artist. Evocative, cinematic and visceral, the body of work is testament to the evolution of Luke Abbott and his desire to challenge himself with each new release.

It isn’t as impactful as Isolation, but there are plenty of moments on this record where Kali shows great potential that she may yet make that truly fantastic Spanglish R&B album.

By the end, you’ll hopefully find that skins n slime is a perfect title for a record this overwhelmingly layered and engrossing.

The production on Good News is hardly subtle, and few of these beats would stand out on their own, but they’re effective at supporting her flows and keeping the energy going.

Their order within the EP works together to create a new mood, and the listener easily comprehends why Copycat Killer is worth attention after having experienced Punisher. These new versions are not worlds apart from the originals, but the value is in the very small things such as subtle melody changes and different track ordering – working beautifully with Moose’s orchestral talents.

PLUS is a more flagrantly weird collection of odds and ends, but perhaps a better microcosm of the flagrantly weird band that is Autechre.

Though it may be a bit brief or spare for some, Roxanne’s hand on her sound is tighter than ever. While it’s on, Because of a Flower gives us a glimpse into a very specific world of sound — aquatic, earthen, and airborne, all at once — and it is a treat to get lost in.

What works for Lambchop in the case of TRIP is the level of consistency in their sound that they were able to achieve through years of playing music together. However, it does not exactly bring the album together, because the tracks are thematically very different, and the band’s decision to apply the same approach to them contributes to the plainness of TRIP.

Throughout Fly Siifu’s, the duo offer nothing more than a chill rap record, which has highs and lows. It’s a fine record to put on in the background, but a slog to try to focus on, as so much of it blends together with hardly anything to standout in the end.

Three Mile Ditch is living proof that lightning does indeed strike the same place twice — and sometimes with a vengeance. Rumours of their death have been highly exaggerated, as The Wytches have never felt so alive.

Self Worth may not be the most well-rounded punk album of 2020, but it still manages to be hyper-focused in sound, expression, and energy.

Much like DeJ, this is an album that occupies its own space, music to get lost in your head to. It may rarely run and may struggle to fully break through for that very reason, but it does more than enough at its own, proud, steady pace.

Taylor takes that responsibility as a solo artist and runs with it, throwing everything and anything into the mix; there are the standard sounds you’d expect from him, but there’s also country, blues-based hard rock, punk and some rap-rock thrown in for good measure. And therein lies the issue with CMFT: rather than those disparate influences somehow mixing to become a whole, they’re left to stand on their own. The more you listen to CMFT, the more it comes across as ‘Corey Taylor does (insert genre here)’ rather than something cohesive.

Repeated listens, indeed, prove it to be a perfectly serviceable, enjoyable offering. But there’s always that nagging feeling, once the DJ has packed up the gear and the dancefloor empties, that there could have been something more.

There may only be 26 minutes of material in Book of Curses, but the amount of unsettling ideas and reflections of modern disenfranchisement are more than enough for it to leave its impact.

Extinction Level Event 2 is just too ambitious for its own good. Yet, for all the lazy sequels and cash-ins in a genre rife with them, it’s hard to fault Busta Rhymes for striving a bit too hard to go that extra mile.

Sour Cherry Bell is an album that has these clear influences, yet morphs itself into aural palettes that transcend such comparisons. A rich body of work, the lush layers of sound presented make for a rewarding experience again and again.

Nothing on Sleepless Night necessarily surprises, but nothing disappoints either. For a band with 15 studio albums (and counting), we unsurprisingly don’t discover anything new about them here, but this isn’t the point. We’re just glad to be in their company once again; this, one feels, will never change.

It’s the document of two beloved alt-metal worlds colliding to head-shuddering effect; a record of skull crushing intensity in places, with merciless riffs conjured up from the deepest abyss, which are counterpoised with quiet, ethereal dark-folk introspection – a mix that shouldn’t really work but absolutely does.

It has everything one could want from a shoegaze album in 2020, without sounding like their last album that much.

Grande’s immaculate outer shell both physically and artistically reframes her personal struggles through artifice, communicating relatability to her audience. Yet the lack of grit, grunge or goo keeps Positions distant from the listener, sitting far away, somewhere in the dark.

The album still comprises some truly enchanting touches that could only have come from him, and often they appear when working around a vocalist. These pop turns envision a world where radio hits have a bit more depth and experimentation, and if Lopatin’s output can continue to minutely steer mainstream music that way, then so much the better.

This EP is a fine stopgap between Morbid Stuff and their next full-length; nothing more, nothing less. The mixture of self-deprecation and unceasing anxiety remains. This Place Sucks Ass: it’s actually the whole world that sucks ass right now, and PUP know it.

Philadelphia brings grace and elegance to an era removed from spiritual insight. In that, it is deeply philosophical and absolutely necessary.

For 11 songs and 39 minutes, Tweedy creates a landscape of autumnal beauty and warm layers of guitars, which oscillate between experimental, almost distorted ambience and clear, saccharine folk melodies. There’s a few straight country tracks here, but for the most part, it’s minimalist genre-revisionism.

What we’re given is 10 songs in just under 34 minutes, one of Veirs’ most efficient and direct albums.

Letter To You may well Springsteen’s best work since 87’s Tunnel of Love. There are dips in quality in places on the record, but there is a general tone of a satisfied human who got out of the rundown places he always sang about to that bright future that was always over the horizon.

Where There Existed an Addiction to Blood seemed to take the listener down a spiral of harsh violence and vaguely interconnected moments of supernatural terror, Visions of Bodies Being Burned just feels lost.

This resilience against the facts of life wavers from song to song, giving us a divine spectrum of her fragile existence at the time of their creation. ... It’s in the final three tracks of songs where the membrane between songwriter and broken-hearted woman is at its thinnest, where Lenker renders her deep, soulful ache in the most poignant of ways.

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.

By accepting the chaotic elements coexisting alongside our stark self-made structures – be it tangible, psychological or virtual – Karma & Desire might be the most honest form of pop music one can make at this moment.

It’s a busy record for sure, but it makes for an exhilarating listen front to back. At less than 40 minutes, it’s also one of the most compact rap albums of the year, running more like a singer-songwriter level of conciseness and less of an over-zealous rapper.

Taken all together, Fake It Flowers is a resoundingly confident and addictive debut from someone who sounds like she’s ready to take on the world.

Sundowner bears some resemblance to Morby’s 2016 release Singing Saw. That album excelled in creating a wild and compelling atmosphere because its songs — with their choral support, varied instrumentation, and grittier production — rose to the occasion. On Sundowner, Morby’s storytelling isn’t just the album’s centerpiece – it’s an overcompensation.

While some may miss the utter, blistering, angular noise-scapes of past Autechre albums, be assured that this album is no less Autechre. Despite being, arguably, their most accessible album in over a decade, we are still left with a set of 10 tracks that are just as unpredictable and labyrinthine as ever, and a duo who is trying to work in a slightly different avenue.

Nobody Lives Here Anymore is a respectable and melodious work of sincere and warm country-pop.

Anime, Trauma and Divorce is a self-help rap record that manages to be heart-breaking and humorous at the same time, and never takes its audience for granted, which is a rare find in any medium.

Though lacking in musical revelations, there are more than a few moments on the album that highlight her sharp instincts as a songwriter. There is a catharsis to Someone New that’s palpable, and if Deland harnesses that going forward, things can only get brighter from here.

SAULT force us to focus our attention instead on the music itself and the messages that come with it. More than writing simple protest songs, they are creating what is arguably some of the most life-affirming and confrontational music released in recent years – and all of it comes at a much-needed time.

It’s tempting as ever with Berninger’s work to let it do its slow burn thing, and while repeated listens are far from unrewarding or unpleasant, the depth doesn’t feel quite as vast as what we have come to expect. Still, there’s no doubting that Berninger fans new and old will welcome the album and embrace it too.

The lyrics, though straightforward at times, come from a place of genuineness and vulnerability.

There’s no point on Atlas Vending that feels wasted, no meandering or time-sucks; it’s just pure adrenaline rock expertly produced and delivered piping hot.

A bracingly personal listen, As Long As You Are is as impactful as the follow-up to Singles should have been; it’s the sound of a band taking control.

In the end, you get 44 minutes of solid beats and bars and a handful of songs to put on your best-of playlists for Savage and/or Metro. That’s not the worst thing, but on Savage Mode II it feels like there’s both too much and not enough going on at once.

While it isn’t horribly different from previous solo record Hundreds of Days, it does feel, overall, like her grasp on her tools is firmer, and her ideas feel a bit more refined and distilled here, like she’s reached a purer version of her vision.

Lament is not the harsh noise monster that might be expected from this team up. In fact, it’s turned out to be the band’s most accessible album yet.

The album is an alluring, heady mix of skewed folktronica, avant garde noise and opulent orchestral tones which combine to cement Eartheater’s place in every discerning music fan’s end of year lists.

Despite the varying shifts of the album, nothing feels bloated or outstays its welcome and that in itself is quite an achievement on a record like this. Direct when it needs to be, ethereal and gorgeously distant at other times, May You Be Held is not for the casual listener seeking instant gratification.

It’s both grand introduction and complacent victory lap; both urgent and laid back, all at once, constantly.