Unpredictable it is not, but taken as a study of sound and mood, it’s kind of perfect.

It’s anything but disappointing.

TYLA is an excellently made debut album. With its brief 38 minutes, the album presents Tyla as versatile yet having a recognizable style, as suitable for both R&B and amapiano, and as soft and powerful. The end product is a solid record with no real skips whose main aftertaste is that of the potential in display.

With Phasor, Lange navigates an important rite of passage, testifying to life’s glories and anticlimaxes. He’s become an unflinching realist without sacrificing his curiosity, his capacity for wonder.

Surviving as they have, Hiatus Kaiyote sound livelier than before. Every inch of Mood Valiant drips with love and togetherness for the band, with no single contributor stealing the show for very long.

In Standard Definition is possibly going to be far too weird an album for some, but those that are curious about what d’Ecco has to offer should definitely go on this zany musical experience.

Post-punk bands tend to veer dark and brooding, but Dehd avoid that here, putting all of their energy into sunny anthems filled with dizzying coos, lighthearted hooks and charming rhythms. It all helps them bounce across the record and into our hearts for good.

This is the return that so many of us have been waiting for, and his ability to come through on nearly all levels establishes Bolted as one of the very best albums of this year, electronic or otherwise.

At times, Malone’s “magic eye” seems elusive. Other times, it comes gloriously into focus, shimmering like an elegant mirage.

Excavation is vivid and physical, each moment meticulously and purposefully crafted.

While her method of intermingling a vibrant array of synthesized sounds remains from previous records, there is more musical complexity, which yields a pure joyousness that comes bouncing out. She has energised her productions with greater depth, more interplay across the stereo field.

Thundercat has a giant heart, and It Is What It Is is the best display of his enormous empathy yet, even if it does have a few unnecessary goofs along the way.

If there’s anything Mr. West finds completely alien to his person, it’s restraint, and Yeezus is the perfect, chaotic, and ultimately uncompromising dive into this world.

What’s Your Pleasure? is Ware’s welcome return to her roots. At her best, she executes the album’s electrifying, lavish take on dance-pop better than many of her modern peers, but she isn’t able to maintain uniform excellence across all 12 tracks. Still, Ware displays her affection for disco, funk, and dance music with the utmost reverence.

Prelude To Ecstasy, for all intents and purposes, is a really enjoyable pop record, but they are not burning down the mansion with this collection of songs anytime soon.

On MCII, it’s a dual-edged sword that he brandishes skillfully into a scintillating sophomore record, one stacked with some of the year’s best pop-rock tunes.

Equal parts sumptuous and subdued, it’s an album that flows seamlessly and possesses an elegant poise at its very essence.

Across the eight tracks of the album, she shifts between intimate personal reflections and extensive ambient meditations with the elegance of tides swelling and settling.

All the arrangements feel organic and overflow from track to track. Rossen’s crafted a purposeful exploitation of his emotions as always, but this time it’s fully under his control.

Its fragmented nature is tied to its accessibility; each track stands alone on its own merits, albeit at the expense of the record as a whole. The more oblique lyricism allows for the possibility of wider interpretations here, where previously they have felt out of reach.

This is a delicately sincere and softly stark album, and arguably Fretwell’s best. It’s certainly his most intimate, but after all that time away, he’s no doubt figured out exactly how he wanted to say what he wants to.

Like anyone daring to take a glimpse into the future, Hutchings is met with confusion, astonishment and alienation. Fortunately, he assimilates the tools, knowledge and creative bandwidth to acutely document them, and more importantly, navigate them in a useful, inherently joyous way.

Limbs is an arresting portrait of that mental state, one which is equal parts hopeful and harrowing. While each element has been particularly, even painfully, placed to present a certain image and mindset, there’s plenty of space left on the canvas to project one’s own thoughts and feelings, which is exactly the kind of engagement that an artist like Forsyth hopes to garner.

It’s music to laugh about our former selves at, just as much as it’s perfect to get drunk and eat ice cream to – and in that, it could define a whole new generation. But for now, it will totally define this summer.

Low prove once again they are the sweet antithesis of that: a band who have had decades to hone their work within their own slow and deliberate pace and environment, making their most vital, forward-thinking music at an age where it can be utmost nurtured.

Where Wiki’s last album Oofie jumped around in styles with different beatmakers, Half God feels like one complete vision. With the marriage of a producer on a hot streak and a rapper who sounds revitalized, it’s a welcome addition to both artists’ catalogs.

Vince Staples is certainly not an easy album to tap into, nor a particularly fun one, but for those interested in a piece of art in which the barrier between the creator and onlooker is veritably nonexistent, to the point of shared claustrophobia, look no further. ... Staples’ scars have never been more visible: he’s practically put them on display for the world at large. If that’s not bravery, I don’t know what is.

For as many as will be impressed by it, there will be plenty for whom it’s just a headache. If you’re willing to stick with it though, you’ll be rewarded with many sonic gems – and some thought-provoking ideas thematically.