As the music fades in and out on the eight-minute closing title track, one can only imagine that boat in the water, the burning hot summer sun melting you down, and those slow but powerful waves washing you away. This is what it feels like to listen to Cass McCombs, especially nowadays.

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.

Smother may lack the proper drive of Two Dancers, but it succeeds in whittling down what has become Wild Beasts' motif.

While Artist Proof never quite lives up to the expectations of being a masterpiece, it is a great example of how the country rock genre developed in tandem with the folk scene.

He may do all of this DIY, but it comes across with more heart than a lot of the tourists of the scene, and it shows in his powerful lyrics just how far he’s come in this world.

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.

With this album, Curry wants to let the world know who he is and what he stands for, and the music is all the better for it.

This album is not served to us on a platter as a radio-ready hit record, and it is not made ‘for us’, but it gives us something better — the feeling of being a part of this music and not a mere recipient.

With Skinty Fia, Fontaines, D.C. continue to position themselves as one of the more emotionally broad-banded and nuanced acts to emerge from the latest post-punk wave. Soundscapes are evocatively sculpted and frequently galvanic, melodies and lyrics consistently enrolling.

While nearly everything else is still top tier pop music, but the Englishwoman leaves herself some room to grow. For now, Devotion is one the year's most promising debuts.

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.

Though his shouty, communal sound now operates as a fever dream reminder of days when sweaty bodies toppled on one another without the worry of infectious disease, his topical dissection of society on the mend has never felt more thrilling than it is now.

It’s rare to find a lyricist so honest and a vocalist so earnest, and when put into song it seems to Houck as if every word is vital and cathartic and necessary.

While New Long Leg basked in a chic trendiness, Stumpwork more soberly conjures the spectrum of 21st century life: our endless search for identity, our egoic highs and crashes, the ineluctable tedium.

Like all the best songwriters, Tomberlin doesn’t act like she has the answers to the big questions, but knows that simply by being inquisitive she will eventually figure out her own truths, and she’s passing that wisdom along with this record.

At its most transfixing, Recordings From the Åland Islands sounds like music that might naturally arise from the landscape itself. Tranquil, bleary, and languid; ambient and gorgeous, but full of detail that makes the experience feel personal to Chiu and Honer.

Old Ideas is not the man's latter-day masterpiece but its title is as bluntly honest as any you'll see this year, in more ways than one.

Topical Dancer is a record for literally anyone. It’s a tool as much as it is an escape hatch. Play this album for your grandparents, your parents, your children, your children’s children, and children yet to be born. For it’s a spiritual palette cleanser as much as it is a physical one.

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.

Glitch Princess is consistently inventive, disturbing, and timely.

Possibly the most intelligent album about love this decade, Water Made Us gently and disarmingly humanizes Woods while maintaining a me-positive stance.

Like its predecessor, Romantic Piano is soft and cosy, a small and dreamy soundworld to escape into for half an hour.

Home Video is undeniably a Lucy Dacus album; one that’s a reflection of not only the rise of her star but of the ever-growing liberation that comes with emotional vulnerability.

Fossora is an incredible and vulnerable project that refuses any easy categorisation. Björk’s dives into sonic obfuscation have never once eclipsed her refusal to be anything except open-hearted and honest. Her power is in how she allows herself to feel and let these emotions guide her artistic expression.

The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers is June’s strongest whole document so far; it has such a crystalline, atmospheric take on her favored genres that it seems to exist both within and without the confines of those styles. Her singular, moving, astral take on songwriting appears fully formed with this album, and it’s as exciting as anything to see a promising artist truly deliver.

Multitudes is a lovely listen from front to back, and her most sonically and thematically consistent album ever. However, it may be a little too deceptively simple for its own good. The fact that so many of the treasures of this record come in the smaller details and choices is fine, but it does mean the album takes more time to sink in as a result.

Yo La Tengo feel more alive on This Stupid World than they have in years – which isn’t to say that their more recent efforts were lacking in any way. The songs here just crackle and spark with an innate energy and unpredictability not heard since 2006’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

Where Music Has the Right seemed grounded in the real world (albeit a twisted recollection of such) and Geogaddi straddled the line between Star Wars and The Sandlot, Tomorrow’s Harvest finds the duo launching their sound into Lovecraftian orbit. And it sounds terrific.