The music and the narrative are excellently executed by four top-rate professionals who’ve got your respect (and attention) by earning it.

This is an occasionally beautiful, often strange album that deserves a wider audience than Christinzio’s previous releases.

Fatima’s Hand is another evolution for McPhee’s singular playing style, and a characteristically immersive, absorbing experience.

This is a quietly powerful, and intensely beautiful, record whose contemplations will bed themselves in your mind and hopefully move you towards caring about the issues raised as deeply as she clearly does.

Transforming states and changing perspectives are once again the order of the day. Modern Kosmology marks another triumphant evolution.

On second LP, Résistance, Songhoy Blues feel not only like the ultimate festival draw but also the party band par excellence.

Musically, Tundra’s invention is everywhere. Paint Can employs ultra high-speed chord changes and sudden tempo lurches, Golden Doldrum is an inside-out and back to front bit of burbling robot pop, and recent single Alarms is O Superman turned banger, with rhythms crossing rhythms.

On paper the sound palette on Scramblers is bracingly limited, drum machines pushed to their limits and bare-bones accompaniment, and in the hands of a lesser producer the record could well become irritating and tedious. But the sound design, sparse and abrasive though it is, is playful enough to keep energy and verve pulsating through the album’s brief run-time.

Welcome To Hard Times is his most magnificent album yet.

Quirky, idiosyncratic and unafraid to go against the grain, The Magic Gang have forged their own merry path to find success. Wide-eyed, ebullient and self assured, Death Of The Party is a welcome late summer ray of light.

It’s a bold, contemporary sounding record that is also aware of its broader lineage, something encapsulated by opening track Stranger Than Fiction.

At times Fleuves De l’Âme feels like the audio equivalent of unearthing a sunken chest of treasure and feeling the glow on your face of the iridescent colours that project from the precious stones inside. It’s also a reminder of music’s ability to transcend cultural boundaries and open up new worlds and Hedfi deserves credit for providing these positive experiences.

In short, it’s another set of beautifully crafted sound portraits, rich in detail, in which to both decompress and luxuriate.

For some the relentless artificiality of this album will make it hard going, and is likely that Walt Disco will make better records, but as a debut this is assured, individual, and liable to incite a thousand arguments about teenage clothing choices. Like all the best pop music.

There will be parts of this album’s roots that those outside Mali can never fully comprehend, but regardless of your entry level, you’ll be certain that those roots are still strong and bearing exquisite fruit.

Alpha Zulu is certainly a top-tier Phoenix record, bringing back that effortless French cool in a way that only they can.

Narratively cohesive and relatable, it is in celebration of where he comes from that ultimately makes Last Man Dancing the essential, repeatable work that it is.

Although Yawning Abyss is a tad more conventional than Mr Dynamite, it’d be fair to assume Creep Show will remain an acquired taste for some. But for those who have no qualms about stepping into their sometimes oppressive, sometimes sleazy-sounding world, you may not want to step back.

Even the less successful tracks have something interesting about them, and they never flatten the feel-good mode of the album. It’s been a while in coming, but Bunny could be a case of third time lucky for Willie J Healey.

The overall take out from I DES however is of an artist continuing to play to his strengths, delivering another slowburning set of songs full of delicate beauty and affecting warmth.

Mostly, Love In Constant Spectacles is one of Weaver’s most successful albums – it may not have the instant ‘wow factor’ of The Silver Globe or the nods to the dancefloor that her last album Flock had, but these are some beautifully intricate, thoughtful songs that deserve all of your attention.

As the subtle, off-tonic final note puts to bed the album closer The Empty Nest, and with every aspect of the record exceeding expectations, Two Dancers makes a strong case to be named album of the year.

That an album that sounds this vibrant and thrilling came out of such dark circumstance is a testament to the songwriting skills of Showalter. Pain never sounded so good.

Harsh electronic soundscapes are matched with more ambient pieces, and Anamesis Part 1 is a much gentler proposition creating the illusion of calming wind chimes, with Part 2 adding pastoral flourishes. Whereas Annotation pairs club beats with gentle electronic inflections, and Kundalini recalls the thrilling experimentalism of her last record in its use of exotic sounds.

There is enough control behind all the madness to ensure that the result remains just the right side of uncompromising.

Senjutsu is Iron Maiden’s strongest offering in some time, looking forward whilst occasionally peering back over its shoulder. In tone it’s the band’s darkest album, but the sheer coherence and confidence of the playing, writing and production makes it feel filled with light and positivity. There’s conflict all over the album, but this is the sound of a band firing on all cylinders.

The message of the record is as faultless and as invigorating as the field recordings of raindrops and tributaries that gush over it. Ana Roxanne won’t be hampered by other people’s definition of her; her musical genius will encapsulate multiplicities and blossom of its own accord.

The Tipping Point manages to straddle the band’s past (the very early days aside) and stride on into present times, and that in itself should be enough to please more than one generation of Tears For Fears fans.